خردنامه ، شماره 1

As it is common in theology schools, students reach learning maturity in their mid twenties. Having mastered nearly all the sciences taught at Qazwin theology school,25-year- old Sadra could well tell the difference between the teachers and that can be why he did not miss the company of Mirdamad for a lifetime.

It is noteworthy to mention that in Sadra's Jong(a collection of literary and scholarly issues),there is a full page of traditions written by an unidentified author who has also added some lines in Sadra's praise. The style, however,has traditional marks of Sheikh Bahaii's writing. The date of writing,1004, coincides with Sheikh's stay in Qazwin strengthening the possibility of his being the author.

Young Sadra's company with Sheikh Bahaii and Mirdamad happened to come at an opportune time when he,because of his age and talent,most needed to be led into a new life.

Based on a long-lasting tradition, noble families would rather have there children learn lessons at home by an experienced, well-trusted teacher who in return for his job would be provided with a comfortable life.Learning how to read and write the Quran, Farsi and Arabic as well as mathematics and history was considered the first steps.Persian and Arabic literature, rhetoric and academic writing would follow;and,finally,the student would take advanced courses on logic,jurisprudence,and philosophy.

This would help,the teacher or teachers spend enough time on getting acquainted with the student's personality and his strong or weak points,and train his behavior and spirit.

A European tourist who happened to visit Isfahan and live there for some years in Mulla Sadra's time pinpoints the situation: "Books are very expensive but everyone even shopkeepers and industrialists buy them...and want to have their children study... and send them to schools when they are only kids; every district has several schools; however, respectful families act differently; parents ask teachers to train their children at home and don't allow their youths to be out of home except for hunting, shooting or outdoor games. These kids would naturally grow up wise,polite and honest and never swear for they have not mixed with villains."

Sadra was no exception,of course. Moreover,owing to his parent's piety and being their sole son, Sadra received much more attention than usual.

Perhaps it is best to liken the young Sadra as a tabula rasa that received outside impressions from the two wise gnostics.

These inheritors of anicent wisdom would select only few enthusiasts from among a crowd of top learners who then had the opportunity to get into their teacher's lives and recognize for themselves the spiritual steps taken by them; when needed, the forward-looking teachers would tell them to proceed with caution,vigilance and an open mind practically shedding light on the way ahead of them.

That is how Sadra,having learned a good deal of wisdom set out to complete his knowledge about jurisprudence,interpretation of the Quran and traditions.Being involved in the last two, did leave a most constructive impact on Sadra. To further enlighten the reader, we touch on the two siciences here. Research into the Quran is of two types:

I.It can be made to discover its linguistic resources and literary techniques or principles of recitation. All such direct and indirect researches make up what is known as the Quranic sciences which are believed to be able to open new chapters in mankind's knowledge.

But sometimes the research into the Quran is aimed at analyzing its limitless mysteries in depth to find clues as to what the goal of creation and being is. This aim,even when it adds to mankind's sciences,is not itself a science. It rather is a skill with which the researcher can reach his way towards completion.

The Quranic researches have always been either of the two mentioned above. They can either be found in books and are useful for linguistic and discourse analysis,or,from a different perspective,familiarize the learner with the core of the Quran.

Young Sadra's familiarity with the Quranic sciences,as he had learned from Sheik Bahai,helped him greatly later in his life-even prompting him towards the end of his life to embark on producing a gnostic-philosophical interpretation of the Quran, although he did not live long enough to finish it.

His vast Quranic knowledge, also enabled him to write explanatory comments on the well-known book of Usul-e-Kafi which contained traditions and sayings from Prophet Mohammad and his Household.

Tradtion,too,elevated Sadra to the stages of higher recognition. Experts know that the reliability of a tradition depends on the person who quotes the Prophet and Imams as saying it and,therefore,in order to guarantee the truthfulness of traditions and avoid misleading interpretations a number of sciences such as The science of traditions (Ilm - al - Hadith) with its two ramifications of Ilm - al - Rijal (The science dealing with the reliability of the transmittors) and Ilm - al - Dirayah (the science of the intrinsic worth of a tradition) have been developed.

In Ilm - al - Rijal ,which gives an account of traditionists from the time of the Prophet up to the time of the writers of the tradition books, traditionists are divided into four categories each of which contains the life of every single one of the traditions, carefully commenting on their credibility from historical,psychological and ideological aspects.

Faith,behavior, piety,social conduct, and even precision, memory and bias are the criteria according to which a traditionist is categorized. A group of them are considered as "thiqat", the most credible, while some others are known as"dea"f",i.e. those who lack the prime requirements of a credible traditionist and hence their traditions and quotations lose their validity even if all the transmitters before him have been credible. In fact,he acts like a worn-out, likely-to-break link in a chain which makes it entirely useless.

The science of traditions considers various types of traditions and damages which can be inflicted on them.

Sheik Bahaii' like other jurists on the one hand learned the science from veteran traditionists and on the other hand became a most reliable source himself.lt is widely believed that the Sheik acquired most of his tradition knowledge from his scholarly father Sheikh Hussein Amili in a period of 30 years.

The inheritor of these people's knowledge,whose name is best known for transcendent wisdom and philosophy,became one of the greatest traditionists acting as a most highly reliable mediator between his past and future transmitters. Likewise,he trained well-reputed scholars and traditionists such as Fayz Kashani who in turn introduced to the Muslim world Allameh Majlesi,one of the most resourceful scholars in Islam's history.

From what was said,we may judge that Sadr-al-Muteallehin had received authorization for quoting tradition from Sheik Bahaii. Such authorizations would often be mentioned implicitly or explicitly in postscripts or appendices and were considered confirmation of the attributed person's qualifications to quote traditions, thus preventing unreliable or unsuitable persons from entering this domain.

As for jurisprundence and other sciences,the word "jurisprudence" meaning literally "to understand" in Arabic, is a familiar term to the public in the sense that it is associated with the knowledge of religious rules. However,it so seems that the exact meaning of the term is known to only few people; this necessitates an explanation of this word. Two things make human-beings different from other animals: First, human behavior,unlike other animals which act by instinct,stems from his thought and will. This enables him to process both ideology i.e. religious beliefs, and behavioral principles tor communication with other humans i.e. what is referred to as "rights" today. Second, relations between animals are based on the law of nature. Hamans set up relations with each other on the basis of arbitrary laws in which the rights of the individual as well as his obligations are observed. Yet,divine laws in the framework of religion have provided humans with a set of revelatory rights ,as well.

Jurisprudence (Fiqh) is the name given to Islamic rights. These rights have roots in Quran,traditions and other reliable sources and speak of people's rights to each other as well as their social relations and their connection to God.

To sum upjurispredence makes up the lifestyle of a Muslim who believes in it whole- heartedly. A true Muslim after he acquires a logical belief in God and the universe i.e. fundamentals of religion,is required to learn his rights and duties concerning his links with God and people. This is referred to as "applications" and there are two ways to learn them: either through individual reasaning or by following the guidelines of a jurist.

Juisprudence and Islamic rights constitute one of the most sophisticated and practical human sciences that distinguish Islam from other religions and Islamic jurisprudence from the rest of legal schools on the globe and to reach the current status it has gone through numerous stages.

The Safavid era is often considered as the heyday of Islamic jurisprudence. The era witnessed a number of unrivalled jurists including Sheikh Ali Karaki known as "the Second Researcher" who was a contemporary of Shah Ismail Safavi.

Sheikh Bahai owes much of the jurisprudence he learned to his father, Sheikh Hussein Amili, himself a famous student of the senior Lebanese jurist Zayn-ul-din Amili who has been known as "The Second Martyr" after he was killed by an Ottoman Sultan.

The Second Martyr was a student of Sheikh Ali Karaki who in turn had learned jurisprudence from the First Martyr and the latter had been a firm disciple of Allame Belli, Known as the First Researcher. This group is by far the most prominent chain of jurists in Islamic history.

Being the student of Sheikh Bahai,Sadra was also connected to these jurists. Evidence tells us that had it not been for his love of studying wisdom and Hikmah -Philosophy he could have been the foremost jurist of his time without having to live the risky life of a philosopher.

By: Ahad F.Gharamaleki

A paradox in its original Greek means a statement which goes beyond the accepted opinion; a logical paradox is a statement which involves its contradictory, i.e. if asserted as true, must necessarily be false and vice versa. A classical example of such paradoxes is the Eulibides Paradox, Known as the Liar's Paradox. Eulibides, a Cretan, says that "All Cretans are liars". Is his statement true? If true, it must necessarily be false and if false, it must necessarily be true.

The Liar's Paradox was Known as the Riddle of the Incommensurable Root (mu'amma ye djadr-i-assamm) among Muslim logicians and over a hundred treatises were written to solve the logical contradiction involved in the riddle, of which several are extant.

Abhari considers the fallacy in the riddle the result of the coincidence of two contradictories. One can assume a person who has said a false statement as saying that "every statement of mine is false". His statement can be either false or true. If true, then every single one of his statements including this very statement must necessarily be false. But if not, the contrary of his statement must be true.

We can sum up Abhari's solution to the riddle as follows: one cannot assume that if a statement such as the above statement is false, it logically follows that some of the individuals of that statement are necessarily true. What is certain is the falsehood of this and his other statements. Falsehood can be realized in a statement only when the truth of the statement ensues its falsehood.

Khwajeh Nasiruddin Tusi, another famous philosopher-logician of Islam, first quotes and then analyzes the paradox. His solution rests on the distinction between a statement (khabar) and what is stated (al-mukhbar-u-anh). Analyzing the logical structure of the Liar's Paradox, Tusi says it is in the very structure of a logical statement to be a logical statement, to state something about anything. A statement, moreover, can be a statement about another statement so the second statement can be considered in two different aspects. In one respect it is a statement and in another, it is the thing stated and one should not logically confuse these two logical aspects. If the first statement, P, states that a second statement, Q, is false then the truth of P and the falsehood of Q are concomitant.

The riddle has drawn the attention of many other logicians including Katebi Qazwini, Allameh Helli and Samarghandi each of whom has looked at it from a special angle.