Owing to these solutions, not only did Islamic philosophy manage to survive against religious and political odds, but also Shi’i theology never lost its foothold on the intellectual ground. Like “The only way there is to know God is through what he calls the `proof of existence' (al-burhan al-wujadt), which is a direct act of intuition and which does not … Influenced by Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine of “the Perfect Human” and its incorporation into Shi’i imamate by Sayyid Haydar Amuli  (d. 1385), Mulla Sadra explains prophethood, imamate, and sainthood as related aspects of the same reality. Nevertheless, the objects of divine knowledge exist at the level of Essence in a state of existential togetherness (wujud al-jam’i) with a higher grade of being than their existence as distinct essences in the created world. Not only have different schools of theology offered divergent solutions to theological problems, but also theology has been in conflict with philosophy over several key issues. Sadradin Shirazi (1571-1640), known also as Mulla Sadra, spoke of the primacy of Being and promoted a new ontology, founding a new epistemology. Mulla Sadra studies particularly flourished after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Mulla Sadra was introduced into the West at the end of the nineteenth century by the German orientalist, Max Horten (d. 1945) with an emphasis on the mystical aspect of the philosopher’s work. Mulla Sadra’s original philosophy blended and transformed Ibn Sina’s Neoplatonic Aristotelianism, al-Suhrawardi’s Illuminative wisdom, Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Sufism, and the theology of the Ash‘arite Sunnis and Twelver Shi‘ites in an even more ambitious and resourceful way than his teachers had imagined possible. This is in agreement not only with Aristotle’s definition of happiness, but also with a Neoplatonic doctrine according to which the individual souls are only particular determinations of the universal soul that descends to the imperfect level of nature by joining the bodies. The distinction was taken for granted after Ibn Sina but turned into a controversial issue when philosophers in the Illuminationist school questioned the external reality of being over and above essence. According to Mulla Sadra, mental being is the key to the realization of all levels of knowledge including sense perception, imagination, and intellection. His major theoretical work is Mafatih al-ghayb (Keys to the Invisible). Among these, Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute, established in 1994 in Tehran, and the World Congress on Mulla Sadra in 1999 are the best examples. Relational being is a “being-in-another” in the sense of being nothing other than a relation to another being. According to Mulla Sadra, God knows the world through the knowledge of Himself and as his Essence includes all, he has knowledge of all without any limits. The second journey is from the Creator to the Creator through the Creator, and discusses essence. That is the reason why the lesser souls will be resurrected as animals while the noble ones will simply join in the life of Intellect with no bodies at all. 0 likes. The third journey is from the Creator to the created with the Creator and is about God and His Attributes, and finally the journey from the created to the created with the Creator that is focused on the destiny of the humankind. Author: Dr. Fazlur Rahman Publisher: State University of New York Press Category: Islamic Philosophy ISBN: 0-87395-300-2 and 0-87395-301-0 The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. Year: … Though starting from the Aristotelian view of the soul as the form of the body, in his psychology, Mulla Sadra departs from the former in attributing to the human soul the power of growing out of the bodily attachment. According to Mulla Sadra, every particle of nature is in constant motion along their timeline which he regards as the fourth dimension of the bodily substance. Mulla Sadra regards all beings as nothing but an existential relation to the Absolute Being. Gradation, or modulation, of being (tashkik al-wujud) is Mulla Sadra’s way to avoid this counterintuitive result and to create a system in which the monistic worldview of Sufism is reconciled with the realistic pluralism of classical philosophy and our common sense. As for Mulla Sadra’s work on the tradition (hadith), his monumental commentary on al-Usul al-kafi by Kulayni  is the most important. Mulla Sadra’s main contribution to Islamic epistemology lies in his diversion from the Aristotelian dualism of subject and object, in other words, knower and the known (̒aqil wa ma’quil). He tries to prove the reality of the Attributes in a way that would not defy the unity of God’s Essence. Mulla Sadra follows Ghazzali in holding that scepticism over bodily resurrection is not acceptable from either the religious or logical point of view (al-Mazahir al-ilahiyya 125). His teachings, however, were considered heretical by the orthodox Shīʿite theologians, who persecuted him, though his powerful family connections permitted him to continue to write. I think most Sadra scholars want to say that God Himself is dynamic in His relation to all things and that terms like the breath of the merciful are supposed to reflect this. The nature of Divine Attributes has been a subject of controversies between different theological schools. 1933) from Iran, led to a full-fledged introduction of Mulla Sadra into Western academia as part of a wider project of reviving “perennial wisdom”. Therefore, to assume another being next to God would be logically absurd. His conciliatory attitude is manifest in his writings that are replete with scriptural and theological references alongside and in harmony with the teachings of Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi, and other Muslim thinkers. © Copyright 2009 SIPRIn. Mulla Sadra has several arguments for the primacy of being and its unrivalled reality. 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