Mulla Sadra’s Life, works, and Philosophy

Prof. S. M. Khamenei

 The reason for his not being appointed the Friday prayer leader might have been the presence of some scholars and competitors, such as Muhaqqiq Khashani, who were of the same level and position as him at his time. It was also assumed that if Faydh, who was well-reputed for his knowledge of jurisprudence and hadith, as well as for his sincerity and purity of the inward and lived away from the battlefield of the scholars in the capital city, had been named the leader of Friday prayer, there would have been less resistance.

The other point is that in spite of the close friendship between Faydh and Muhaqqiq (Mulla Muhammed Baqir) Sabziwari and their common jurisprudential, gnostic and philosophical ideas (for example, both believed in the necessity of the Friday prayer), there is no name of him in Faydh’s works.

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A more thorough and profound study of the life of this prominent scholar and teacher of ethics requires more time and space; thus we will have to ignore the other details of his life and limit ourselves to what finally happened. The destiny of this man of God and model of jurisprudents and heirs of Imamat (leadership) was what he had always prayed for before the Almighty. Finally, the divine favor fell upon him, and Faydh returned to Kashan to the corner of his beloved village and got involved in teaching, prayer and writing books. In this way, he spent the last part of his life in spiritual retreat with his Companion of solitude more than ever before and left the malodorous carcass and worldly wealth to vultures and hyenas.

Faydh spent the last years of his blissful life with some of his children and a few of the scholarly elite, until in 1991 A.H., at the age of 84 or 87, the sun of his life passed beyond the walls and fortifications of Kashan and set, and his soul flew towards his Beloved. 

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Faydh is one of the brightest stars of the sky of knowledge and science and one of the most prominent Islamic scholars. Some have compared him to Abu Hamid Gazzali and equated him with this scholar. They have even nicknamed him as the Shi’ite Gazzali. However, we believe that such a praise and admiration is so little for him, for Faydh was always superior to Gazzali in fields in which both competed with each other. He was Gazzali’s master in hadith, interpretation, philosophy and gnosis, and Gazzali could never bear comparison with him in such areas. Faydh was an equal to Gazzali in ethics and, like his master, Mulla Sadra, admired him in this field; nevertheless, he did not heartily agree with Gazzali in other areas. One of the reasons for Faydh’s attention to Gazzali was modifying and restructuring his famous book Ihya al-ulum. He corrected and summarized this book under the title of Muhajjat al-baydha and removed its defects and problems.

Faydh’s major superiority over Gazzali is his independent and self-sufficient spirit, which is the greatest of all human gifts. As we mentioned previously, he kept away from kings (who even pretended to being his disciple) and evil instinct of ambitiousness; he counted leadership and status for nothing, much less to seize the everyday meager material opportunities and, like Gazzali, spend most of his life according to the wishes of the government and mammonists, such as Nizam al-Mulk Tusi, the minister of Saljuk Malik Shah, and get involved in idle talk.

From his early youth, Gazzali was at the service of Nizam al-Mulk and his anti Shi’ite Batinis (esoterics) policy. He also supported this minister’s harsh opposition to Isma’ili people and, consciously or unconsciously and aimlessly, wrote in favor of the corrupt caliph in Baqdad and the Iranian Saljuk ruler. He boasted of his mastership in Nizamiyyah schools (schools founded by Nizam al-Mulk founded at that time) in Nishabur and Baqdad and was so satisfied with being fed by Shah’s supreme minister and caliph’s apple of eyes. That is why after the minister’s death and the instability shaking the foundations of Saljuk dynasty, he started wandering aimlessly in search of a lost thing which could be called mysticism and Sufism – and, in fact, that lost thing was he, himself - ; wherever he went, in spite of a life which he spent in dogmatism, pretension and absurd prejudice, he talked of gnosis and intellectual intuition.

His defending the oppressors of the time and his ill-speaking of Shi’ites and calling them rascals gave rise to terrible bloodsheds; the honor of a great number of Muslims was trampled for centuries and horrible seditions and calamities were excited. The resulting catastrophes were so deep and immense that even tons of books written on ethics could not compensate for the miseries they brought about. God will not easily forgive those scholars who trade science and piety, bring distress to Muslims’ souls and disrupt the unity of believers.

Gazzali’s opposition to philosophy and rationalism, which led to Muslims’ (non-Shi’ites) lagging behind advancements in philosophy and wisdom, was due to his greed for status, power, authority and wealth, which were granted to him by Nizam al-Mulk, Saljuk rulers and the Abbasi caliph, rather than due to an inner motif. However, Faydh never wrote a word unless to praise his God and never said a word unless to obtain the Truth’s satisfaction. In fact, each page of his books weighed together with the worship of all pious people of his time in terms of value.

Nowadays, in order to know about Faydh’s sublime character and conduct, one can only refer to his books, works and poems. There is an honest and frank face hidden beyond these works; a face that reveals Faydh’s bravery, self-confidence, faithful soul and piety, and tells us about his heart, which overflows with dutifulness and love of God’s people.

In spite of his religious emotions and love of faithfulness and piety, Faydh was also a gnostic and frenzy poet; however, we dare say that his overflowing spiritual intuition dominated his poetic taste. Although he was a tavern-haunter, unlike his long-standing companion, Muhaqqiq Lahiji, he was a dervish rather than a rake.

Despite his quick temper, which he had inherited from his master, Mulla Sadra, he also employed prudence, compromised when necessary, and dropped his shield before fools and those who traded religion for worldly wealth and left the battlefield. He loved people and enjoyed serving them, and a lot of his Persian books which are written in a simple language reveal his diligence in providing service and guidance to laymen and spreading his ideas among them. Moreover, unlike some others, he did not remain in seclusion and refused to stay away from people, neither did he consider writing in Arabic an honor or sign of supremacy and writing in Persian a mark of low status.

Faydh was a prolific writer and believed that written works are everlasting, while all other things have a transient life. This point has also been emphasized in some of his poems.

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 Abstracts 

 Mulla Sadra and Theoretical Politics

Reza Davari Ardakani

 Mulla Sadra is under Farabi’s influence concerning the principles of his political philosophy and theoretical politics, and, of course, Farabi, himself, is influenced by the ideas of Greek philosophers, particularly Plato. In fact, Mulla Sadra agrees with the very scheme presented by Plato; a scheme which details the governorship of philosophers. In other words, during the early years of the history of Islamic philosophy, Farabi spoke of certain issues which have come to their full bloom and perfection in Mulla Sadra’s works; that is, he, too, has paid attention not only to utopian politics but also to true politics and management of everyday affairs. In fact, through distinguishing the two types of politics from each other, Mulla Sadra takes both the politics risen from human pragmatic intellect and the politics originated from the active intellect into consideration.

Key Terms

political philosophy                                     theoretical politics

practical wisdom                                         Utopia

prophethood                                               guardianship (wilayah)

philosophers’ governorship                         Farabi

Plato Mulla Sadra

Motion in Mulla Sadra and Bergson

 Ali Shirvani

A study of Mulla Sadra and Bergson’s views concerning motion and an analysis of the similarities between their ideas reveal that, in spite of the differences among their interpretations of the issue, their language and their cultural outlooks, unlike Plato and his followers, who believed that the reality hidden behind the world of appearances is timeless and unchanging, both Mulla Sadra and Bergson believed that the ultimate metaphysical reality can only be found in what is permanently in motion. In Mulla Sadra’s view, the reality hidden behind all appearances and phenomena of the world of matter is a fluid existence that is always moving between the present and the future: an existence which is always in motion and renewal. Another conclusion of the above studies is that, unlike the common tradition in philosophy that sees the intellect and intellection as the keys to attaining the ultimate reality hidden behind sense perception, according to Mulla Sadra and Bergson, the key to reaching this reality is intuition. Meanwhile, both of them believe that the realities of time and motion have an unbreakable unity with each other; they are, in fact, one thing from which two concepts are abstracted in the process of mental analysis.

Key Terms

motion                                                        reality

intuition                                                       time

Mulla Sadra      Bergson

Faculties of the Soul in Gnosis

 Mokhtar Tabaah Izadi

 Like philosophers, gnostics, too, conceive of the immaterial soul as possessing a number of faculties by which it performs its acts. Considering the significance of perception, the most important of all faculties discussed in gnosis are perceptual faculties. Although in gnosis, unlike that in philosophy, the issues related to the soul, its faculties and the nature of perception have not been systematically compiled and discussed, there are certain statements in the related books indicating the union of the knower and the known. From among perceptual faculties, imagination and estimation are of particular importance in gnosis, since they are the origins the soul’s intuitions and creativities. Like philosophers, gnostics, too, believe, that the rational faculty distinguishes man from other animals; however, the major issues in this regard for gnostics are inspiration, unveiling and intuition, which are obtained through something other than the intellect and intellection.

Key Terms

gnosis                                                         soul

sense                                                          imagination

estimation                                                   heart

intuition

 Soul’s Perception of Sensible

Particulars and Catharsis of Perception

Monireh Palangi

 This paper contains a relatively short account of Mulla Sadra’s ideas concerning the soul’s perception of sensible objects on the basis of the principle of ‘the truth, in its simplicity, contains all things’, an evaluation of the relation between the soul and its faculties, and a concise comparison of Ibn-Sina’s ideas with those of Mulla Sadra in this regard. In spite of the fundamental differences among the philosophical theories of these two prominent scholars, through an analysis of Mulla Sadra’s ideas, the writer has tried to locate the similarities between their  views and conclusions. As Mulla Sadra says, the soul is in union with its faculties through multiplicity in unity and unity in multiplicity; he interprets this unity as identity. Accordingly, the soul becomes the same as the sense at the level of the sense and, as a result, becomes corporeal. At this very level, the agent of perception is the sense, itself. On the other hand, the soul’s perception of sensible particulars at the level of the catharsis of the soul is also acceptable to both philosophers. In this way, the soul is the perceiver of sensible objects at two levels. In Mulla Sadra’s view, this conclusion is the product of the graded unity of the soul, while Ibn-Sina sees it as the product of the faculties’ being a tool for the soul. The questions which might arise here include the following:

1.      Could we infer ‘identity’ from ‘unity in multiplicity’?

2.      Is the embodiment of the soul the product of this union, identity or the catharsis of faculties?

3.      Is the idea of identity consistent with the pure catharsis of perception?

 Key Terms

soul                                                            perceptual faculties

sense perception                                         simple truth

multiplicity in unity                                       unity in multiplicity

identity                                                       union

catharsis of perception

Mulla Sadra and his Gnostic Toughts

Jalil Mesgarnejad

Mulla Sadra owes a great debt to gnostics and sufis in developing his gnostic thoughts, as well as his other thoughts. Interestingly enough, he has not paid equal attention to all gnostic and sufis sects; rather, he has followed a specific method to select some of their ideas. This method is, of course, in line with his own philosophy and can be clearly traced in his books and treatises. In fact, his major aim is to disentangle the complexities of gnostic thought in his own time.

Key Terms

pleasure and pain                                        gnosis

ethics                                                          spiritual guide

subject and object        vision

 Positive and Negative Effects of Sadrian Philosophy on his Perception of Qur’anic Verses

 Ali Arshad Riahi

This article presents an analysis and critique of some of the inferences Mulla Sadra has expounded under the influence of his philosophical ideas. To accomplish this task, it has been tried to compare Mulla Sadra’s inferences with the surface meaning of the related verses, as well as with those of other verses and hadiths. In this comparison all the verbal and rational indications in the verses and their related contexts have been taken into consideration.

Key Terms

world of the intellects                                  union of the intellect and intelligible

Idea                                                           soul of heavens

universal soul                                              the trans-substantial motion

levels of divine knowledge

 

 Guardianship (wilayah) in Mulla Sadra

Faizah Taleqhani

Guardianship or wilayah is one of the issues discussed in all branches of Islamic sciences. Jurisprudents, commentators, theologians and gnostics have, each, talked about guardianship and its related issues in a way. Although they have viewed this topic from different standpoints, there are some commonalities among their ideas. The gnostic approach has a profound view of this issue, and a major part of books written on theoretical gnosis are devoted to clarifying it. In this paper, it has been tried to explore Mulla Sadra’s view of guardianship, which is mainly of a gnostic nature.

Key Terms

wali (guardian)                                           general guardianship

particular guardianship                                lover

beloved                                                      Be stationed!

perfect servitude                                         miracle

grace

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Austria’s Cardinal Konig Passed away 

  Cardinal Franz Konig was born on August 3, 1905, in Lower, Austria. He took minor seminary studies with the Benedictines in Melk and matriculated at the Gregorian in Rome for his major seminary degrees in philosophy and theology. At the same time, he specialized in Iranian religions at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He was considered a prominent expert in Zoroastrianism.

At the end of World War II, after years of being involved in educational activities, extensive research studies and pastoral work, he was appointed the professor of religious studies at Kerms on the Danube. In 1948, he started teaching philosophy and theology at Salzburg University as a member of Theological Faculty. On July 3, 1952, he was ordained Bishop by Pope Pius XII. Four years later, on May 10, 1956, Pius XII promoted him to Archbishop of Vienna. And, eventually, on December 21, 1958, he was named to receive the red-hat in Consistory of Pope John XXIII.

Cardinal Konig was deeply interested in Iran and always maintained his connection and correspondence with Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute. He passed away in Vienna at the age of 98 after a period of illness. His death is admittedly a great loss for the world of knowledge.

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