Mulla Sadra

Mulla Sadra
Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, more commonly known as Mullā Ṣadrā (c. 1571/2 – c. 1635/40 CE / 980 – 1050 AH), was a Persian Twelver Shi'i Islamic mystic, philosopher, theologian, and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century. According to Oliver Leaman, Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years.
Though not its founder, he is considered the master of the Illuminationist (or, Ishraghi or Ishraqi) school of Philosophy, a seminal figure who synthesized the many tracts of the Islamic Golden Age philosophies into what he called the Transcendent Theosophy or al-hikmah al-muta’āliyah.
Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism. His was a question of existentialist cosmology as it pertained to God, and thus differs considerably from the individual, moral, and/or social, questions at the heart of Russian, French, German, or American Existentialism.
Mulla Sadra's philosophy ambitiously synthesized Avicennism, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi's Illuminationist philosophy, Ibn Arabi's Sufi metaphysics, and the theology of the Sunni Ash'ari school of Kalam into the framework of Twelver Shi'ism.
His main work is The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect, or simply Four Journeys, In which he attempted to reach Sufism and prove the idea of Unity of Existence by offering a new intake and perspective on Peripatetic philosophy that was offered by Alpharabius and Avicenna in the Islamic world.
Biography
Early life
Mulla Sadra was born in Shiraz, Iran, to a notable family of court officials in 1571 or 1572,
In Mulla Sadra's time, the Safavid dynasty governed over Iran. Safavid kings granted independence to Fars Province, which was ruled by the king's brother, Mulla Sadra's father, Khwajah Ibrahim Qavami, who was a knowledgeable and extremely faithful politician. As the ruler of the vast region of Fars Province, Khwajah was rich and held a high position. He had no children, but after much prayer and supplication, God gave him a son, whom the family named Muhammad but called Sadra. Years later, Sadra was nicknamed "Mulla", that is, "great scientist". Sadra was Khwajah's only child. In that time it was customary that the children of aristocrats were educated by private teachers in their own palace. Sadra was a very intelligent, strict, energetic, studious, and curious boy and mastered all the lessons related to Persian and Arabic literature, as well as the art of calligraphy, during a very short time. Following old traditions of his time, and before the age of puberty, he also learned horse riding, hunting and fighting techniques, mathematics, astronomy, some medicine, jurisprudence, and Islamic law. However, he was mainly attracted to philosophy and particularly to mystical philosophy and gnosis.
In 1591, Mulla Sadra moved to Qazvin and then, in 1597, to Isfahan to pursue a traditional and institutional education in philosophy, theology, Hadith, and hermeneutics. At that time, each city was a successive capital of the Safavid dynasty and the center of Twelver Shi'ite seminaries. Sadra's teachers included Mir Damad and Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili.
Teachers
Mulla Sadra became a master of the science of his time. In his own view, the most important of these was philosophy. In Qazvin, Sadra acquired most of his scholarly knowledge from two prominent teachers, namely Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili and Mir Damad, whom he accompanied when the Safavid capital was transferred from Qazvin to Isfahan in 1596 CE / 1006 AH. Shaykh Baha was an expert in Islamic sciences but also a master of astronomy, theoretical mathematics, engineering, architecture, medicine, and some fields of secret knowledge. Mir Damad also knew the science of his time but limited his domain to jurisprudence, hadith. and mainly philosophy. Mir Damad was a master of both the Peripatetic (Aristotelian) and Illuminationist schools of Islamic philosophy. Mulla Sadra obtained most of his knowledge of philosophy and gnosis from Damad and always introduced Damad as his true teacher and spiritual guide.
After he had finished his studies, Sadra began to explore unorthodox doctrines and as a result was both condemned and excommunicated by some Shi'i ʿulamāʾ. He then retired for a lengthy period of time to a village named Kahak, near Qom, where he engaged in contemplative exercises. While in Kahak, he wrote a number of minor works, including the Risāla fi 'l-ḥashr and the Risāla fī ḥudūth al-ʿālam .
Return to Shiraz
In 1612, Ali Quli Khan, son of Allāhwirdī Ḵhān and the powerful governor of Fārs, asked Mulla Sadra to abandon his exile and to come back to Shiraz to teach and run a newly bulit madrasa (Khan School, Persian: مدرسه خان). Mulla Sadra devoted his rest of life to teach the intellectual sciences, particularly his own teachings Transcendent Theosophy.
During his time in Shīrāz, Ṣadrā began writing treatises that synthesized wide-ranging strands of existing Islamic systems of thought at Khan School. The ideas of his school, which may be seen as a continuation of the School of Iṣfahān of Mīr Dāmād and Shaykh Bahāʾī, were promulgated after Sadrā's death by his pupils, several of whom would become sought-after thinkers in their own right, such as, Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī (Mulla Sadra's son-in-law), and ʿAbd Razzāḳ Lāhidjī.
Although Ṣadrā's influence remained limited in the generations after his death, it increased markedly during the 19th century, when his ideas helped inspire a renewed Akhbārī tendency within Twelver Shīʿism. In recent times, his works have been studied in Iran, Europe, and America.He died in Basra after the Hajj and was buried in the present-day city of Najaf, Iraq.
Philosophical ideas
Existentialism
Although Existentialism as defined nowadays is not identical to Mulla Sadra's definition, he was the first to introduce the concept. According to Mulla Sadra, "existence precedes the essence and is thus principal since something has to exist first and then have an essence." It is notable that for Mulla Sadra this was an issue that applied specifically to God and God's position in the universe, especially in the context of reconciling God's position in the Qur'an with the Greek-influenced cosmological philosophies of Islam's Golden Era.
Mulla Sadra's metaphysics gives priority to existence over essence (i.e., quiddity). That is to say, essences are variable and are determined according to existential "intensity" (to use Henry Corbin's definition). Thus, essences are not immutable. The advantage to this schema is that it is acceptable to the fundamental statements of the Qur'an, even as it does not necessarily undermine any previous Islamic philosopher's Aristotelian or Platonic foundations.
Indeed, Mulla Sadra provides immutability only to God, while intrinsically linking essence and existence to each other, and to God's power over existence. In so doing, he provided for God's authority over all things while also solving the problem of God's knowledge of particulars, including those that are evil, without being inherently responsible for them — even as God's authority over the existence of things that provide the framework for evil to exist. This clever solution provides for freedom of will, God's supremacy, the infiniteness of God's knowledge, the existence of evil, and definitions of existence and essence that leave the two inextricably linked insofar as humans are concerned, but fundamentally separate insofar as God is concerned.
Perhaps most importantly, the primacy of existence provides the capacity for God's judgement without God being directly, or indirectly, affected by the evil being judged. God does not need to possess sin to know sin: God is able to judge the intensity of sin as God perceives existence.
One result of Sadra's existentialism is "The unity of the intellect and the intelligible" (Arabic: Ittihad al-Aaqil wa l-Maqul. As Henry Corbin describes:
Substantial motion
Another central concept of Mulla Sadra's philosophy is the theory of "substantial motion" (Arabic:al-harakat al-jawhariyyah), which is "based on the premise that everything in the order of nature, including celestial spheres, undergoes substantial change and transformation as a result of the self-flow (sarayan al-wujud) and penetration of being (fayd) which gives every concrete individual entity its share of being. In contrast to Aristotle and Avicenna who had accepted change only in four categories, i.e., quantity (kamm), quality (kayf), position (wad’) and place (‘ayn), Sadra defines change as an all-pervasive reality running through the entire cosmos including the category of substance (jawhar)."
Existence as reality
Mulla Sadra held the view that Reality is Existence. He believed that an essence was by itself a general notion, and therefore and does not, in reality, exist.
To paraphrase Fazlur Rahman on Mulla Sadra's Existential Cosmology: Existence is the one and only reality. Existence and reality are therefore identical. Existence is the all-comprehensive reality and there is nothing outside of it. Essences which are negative require some sort of reality and therefore exist. Existence therefore cannot be denied. Therefore, existence cannot be negated. As Existence cannot be negated, it is self-evident that it Existence is God. God should not be searched for in the realm of existence but is the basis of all existence. Reality in Arabic is "Al-Haq", and is stated in the Qur'an as one of the Names of God.
To paraphrase Mulla Sadra's Logical Proof for God:
There is a being
This being is a perfection beyond all perfection
God is Perfect and Perfection in existence
Existence is a singular and simple reality
That singular reality is graded in intensity in a scale of perfection
That scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and of greatest existence
Therefore, God exists
Causation
Sadra argued that all contingent beings require a cause which puts their balance between existence and non-existence in favor of the former; nothing can come into existence without a cause. Since the world is therefore contingent upon this First Act, not only must God exist, but God must also be responsible for this First Act of creation.
Sadra also believed that a causal regress was impossible because the causal chain could work only in the matter that had a beginning, middle, and end:
a pure cause at the beginning
a pure effect at the end
a nexus of cause and effect
The Causal Nexus of Mulla Sadra was a form of Existential Ontology within a Cosmological Framework that Islam supported. For Mulla Sadra the Causal "End" is as pure as its corresponding "Beginning", which instructively places God at both the beginning and the end of the creative act. God's capacity to measure the intensity of Existential Reality by measuring Causal Dynamics' and their Relationship to their Origin, as opposed to knowing their effects, provided the Islamically-acceptable framework for God's Judgement of Reality without being tainted by its Particulars. This was an ingenious solution to a question that had haunted Islamic philosophy for almost one thousand years: How is God able to judge sin without knowing sin?
Truth
For Mulla Sadra a true statement is a statement that is true to the concrete facts in existence. He held a metaphysical and not a formal idea of truth, claiming that the world consists of mind-independent objects that are always true and truth is not what is rationally acceptable within a certain theory of description. In Mulla Sadra's view one cannot have access to the reality of being: only linguistic analysis is available. This theory of Truth has two levels: the claim that a proposition is true if it corresponds to things in reality; and that a proposition can be true if it conforms with the actual thing itself.
Methodology
Janan Izadi believes that Hikmat Muta’aliyah is of a metalanguage according to Mehdi Haeri Yazdi. That approach could evaluate the power of epistemology in Mulla Sadra's philosophical views. However, there are, primarily, two groups on Mulla Sadra's methodology. One group basically disagreed with any kind of systematizing of knowledge and methodological approach in Hekmat Muta’aliyyah. The other group believe in being structured of Mulla Sadra's view. They maintain that there is a consistency and methodological approach for Mulla Sadra. In fact, the metalanguage approach could be considered in latter not the former.
List of known works
Sharh Usool Al-Kafi شرح اصول الکافي Exegesis of one of the most Important Hadith collection in Shi'a school of thought, Al-Kafi contains Narrations from Twelve Divinely appointed Imams from Household of Prophet Muhammad
Hikmat Al Muta'alyahfi-l-asfar al-‘aqliyya al-arba‘a [The Transcendent theosophy in the Four Journeys of the Intellect], a philosophical encyclopedia and a collection of important issues discussed in Islamic philosophy, enriched by the ideas of preceding philosophers, from Pythagoras to those living at the same time with Mulla Sadra, and containing the related responses on the basis of new and strong arguments. In four large volumes; also published several times in nine smaller volumes. He composed this book gradually, starting in about 1015 A.H. (1605 A.D.); its completion took almost 25 years, until some years after 1040 A.H. (1630 A.D.). Book is also translated in Urdu by Indian scholar Abul Ala Maududi by the name of Asfar e Arba.
al-Tafsir (A commentary upon the Qur'an)
Diwan Shi’r (Collection of Poems), a number of scholarly and mystic poems in Persian.
Si Asl, Mulla Sadra's only extant book of philosophy in Persian. Here, by resorting to the main three moral principles, he has dealt with moral and educative subjects related to scientists, and advised his contemporary philosophers.
Sharh al-hidayah, a commentary on a book called Hidayah, which had been written on the basis of Peripatetic philosophy.
‘Arshiyyah, also called al-Hikmat al-‘arshiyyah, a referential book about Mulla Sadra's philosophy. As in al-Mazahir, he has tried to demonstrate the Beginning and the End concisely but precisely. This book has been translated by Professor James Winston Morris into English with an informative introduction.
al-Mabda‘ wa’l-ma‘ad, also called al-Hikmat al-muta‘aliyyah, considered to be a summary of the second half of Asfar. He called this book the Beginning and the End, since he believed at heart that philosophy means the knowledge of the Origin and the Return.
al-Mazahir This book is similar to al-Mabda‘ wa’l-ma‘ad, but is shorter than it. It is, in fact, a handbook for familiarizing readers with Mulla Sadra's philosophy.
Huduth al-‘alam, on the issue of the origination of the world, which is a complicated and disputable problem for many philosophers. He proved his solid theory through the theory of the trans-substantial motion.
Iksir al-‘arifin, a gnostic and educative book.
al-Hashr, a theory of the resurrection of animals and objects in the Hereafter.
al-Masha‘ir, on existence and its related subjects. Professor Henry Corbin has translated it into French and written an introduction to it. This book has recently been translated into English, too.
al-waridat al-qalbiyyah, a brief account of important philosophical problems, it seems to be an inventory of the Divine inspirations and illuminations he had received all through his life.
Iqad al-na‘imin, on theoretical and actual gnosis, and on the science of monotheism. It presents some guidelines and instructional points to wake up the sleeping.
al-Masa‘il al-qudsiyyah, a booklet deals mainly with issues such as existence in mind and epistemology. Here, Mulla Sadra has combined epistemology and ontology.
al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah, a philosophical book, written in the Illuminationist style, and represents Mulla Sadra's ideas during the early periods of his philosophical thoughts.
al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah, a treatise not related to Mulla Sadra's book of the same name (see above). It is an inventory of his particular theories and opinions which he had been able to express in philosophical terms.
Sharh-i Shafa, a commentary upon some of the issues discussed in the part on theology (Ilahiyyat) in Ibn-Sina's al-Shifa.
Sharh-i Hikmat al-ishraq, a useful and profound commentary or collection of glosses on Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-ishraq and Qutb al-Din Shirazi's commentary upon it.
Ittihad al-‘aquil wa’l-ma’qul, a monographic treatise on the demonstration of a complicated philosophical theory, the Union of the Intellect and the Intelligible, which no one could prove and rationalize prior to Mulla Sadra.
Ajwibah al-masa’il, consisting of at least three treatises in which Mulla Sadra responds to the philosophical questions posed by his contemporary philosophers.
Ittisaf al-mahiyyah bi’l wujud, a monographic treatise dealing with the problem of existence and its relation to quiddities.
al-Tashakhkhus, explaining the problem of individuation and clarified its relation to existence and its principality, which is one of the most fundamental principles he has propounded.
Sarayan nur wujud, a treatise dealing with the quality of the descent or diffusion of existence from the True Source to existents (quiddities).
Limmi’yya ikhtisas al-mintaqah, A treatise on logic, this work focuses on the cause of the specific form of the sphere.
Khalq al-a’mal, a treatise on man's determinism and free will.
al-Qada’ wa’l-qadar, on the problem of Divine Decree and Destiny.
Zad al-Musafir, demonstrating resurrection and the Hereafter following a philosophical approach.
al-Mizaj, a treatise on the reality of man's temperament and its relation to the body and soul.
Mutashabihat al-Qur'an, a treatise consists of Mulla Sadra's interpretations of those Qura’nic verses which have secret and complicated meanings. It is considered as one of the chapters in [Mafatih al-ghayb].
Isalat-i Ja’l-i wujud, on existence and its principality as opposed to quiddities.
al-Hashriyyah, a treatise on resurrection and people's presence in the Hereafter, it deals with man's being rewarded in paradise and punished in hell.
al-alfazh al-mufradah, an abridged dictionary for interpreting words in the Qur'an.
Radd-i shubahat-i iblis, explaining Satan's seven paradoxes and providing the related answers.
Kasr al-asnam al-jahiliyyah (Demolishing the idols of the periods of barbarism and man's ignorance). His intention here is to condemn and disgrace impious sophists.
al-Tanqih, dealing with formal logic.
al-Tasawwur wa’l-tasdiq, a treatise dealing with issues of the philosophy of logic and inquiries into concept and judgment.
Diwan Shi’r (Collection of Poems), a number of scholarly and mystic poems in Persian.
A Collection of Scientific-Literary Notes, some short notes of his own poetry, the statements of philosophers and gnostics, and scientific issues have been left from his youth, which comprise a precious collection. This book can familiarize the readers with subtleties of Mulla Sadra's nature. These notes were compiled in two different collections, and it is likely that the smaller collection was compiled on one of his journeys.
Letters: except for a few letters exchanged between Mulla Sadra and his master, Mir Damad, none of his letters has survived. These letters have been presented at the beginning of the 3-volume
Commemoration
Mulla Sadra's Commemoration Day (Persian: روز بزرگداشت) is annually held in Iran at the first of Khordad (the third month of the Solar Hijri calendar); on the other hand, this day (1st-Khordad) has been registered among the occasions of Iranian calendars.
See also
List of Iranian scientists
Iranian philosophy
List of Shi'a Muslims
Al Akbariyya (Sufi school)
Hossein Nasr
Kalam
Islamic philosophy
Irfan
Notes
References
Further reading
Works by Mulla Sadra
The Wisdom of the Throne, James Morris (trans.), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981.
The Elixir of the Gnostics, Willaim Chittick (trans.), Provo, Brigham Young University Press, 2003.
On the Hermeneutics of the Light Verse of the Qur'an, Latimah Peerwani (trans.), Londra, ICAS, 2004.
The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations. A Parallel English-Arabic Text translated by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Provo, Brigham Young University Press, 2014.
Studies
Syed Amir Raza, Wisdom of the Unseen: An Inquiry Into the Reality of Things, Pakistan: Wasila Society, 2008
Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra, Trans. Jeff Fort, New York: Zone Books, 2006.
Ibrahim Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010
Zailan Moris, Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra: An Analysis of the Al-Hikmah Al-'arshiyyah, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sadr al-Din Shirazi and his Transcendent Theosophy: Background, Life and Works, 2nd ed., Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1997.
Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.
Sajjad Rizvi, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life, Works and Sources for Safavid Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
External links
MOLLĀṢADRĀ ŠIRĀZI an article by Sajjad H. Rizvi in Encyclopædia Iranica
Mulla-Sadra an article in Encyclopædia Britannica Online
Mulla Sadra an article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din Muhammad al-Shirazi) (1571/2-1640) an article in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(2.11 MiB) by Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai
Sadra Islamic Philosophy research Institute
16th-century Iranian philosophers
17th-century Iranian philosophers
People from Shiraz
Islamic philosophers
Akbarian Sufis
Iranian Sufis
17th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Iranian Shia scholars of Islam
1570s births
1640 deaths
Burials in Iraq
Philosophers of history
Philosophers of psychology
Metaphysicians
16th-century writers from Safavid Iran
17th-century writers from Safavid Iran
Safavid theologians
Existentialists
Religious existentialism
Iranian Shia clerics
Iranian male writers
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Ibn Arabi