## 1. Life and works


### 1.1 Life



Mulla Sadra was the sole child born into a courtly family in Shiraz,
southern Iran, in around 979 AH/1571-72. A bright young man, his
interest in intellectual pursuits was indulged by his father, and he
moved first to Qazvin in 1000 AH/1591 and then to Isfahan in 1006
AH/1597, successive capitals of the Safavid empire, to pursue his
study of philosophy, theology, the prophetic tradition, and
Qur'anic hermeneutics and exegesis. His teachers were the two
pre-eminent scholars of his age, Mir Muhammad Baqir Damad Astarabadi,
the grandson of the powerful jurist and statesman 'Ali Karaki,
and Shaykh Baha' al-Din 'Amili known as Shaykh
Baha'i (d. 1030 AH/1620-21), who was the leading jurist in
Isfahan during the reign of Shah Abbas I. With the former, he studied
philosophy and theology, in particular the Peripatetic works of
Avicenna (d. 428 AH/1037) and his student Bahmanyar (d. 458 AH/1066),
the pseudo-Aristotelian *Plotiniana Arabica* (in particular the
so-called *Theology of Aristotle*), and the Illuminationist
works of Suhrawardi (d. 586 AH/1191). With Shaykh Baha'i, as was
the case with a number of other students, he studied the scriptural
sciences of Qur'anic exegesis and the traditions of the
Shi'i Imams. Contrary to what Corbin and others have claimed
(Corbin 1971: 58; Nasr 1977: 32), there seems to be no evidence that
he studied with another intriguing scholar from Astarabad and
associate of Mir Damad, Mir Findiriski (d. 1050 AH/1640-41), an
itinerant scholar who spent much time studying Indian philosophies and
religions. Certainly the story recorded by some of the later
biographical dictionaries that claims that Mulla Sadra was advised by
Mir Findiriski to study with Mir Damad is apocryphal. We do not have a
formal license (*ijaza*) from his teachers that has survived,
which could attest to his study with them and to the content of the
curriculum; certainly, we know that both Mir Damad and Shaikh
Baha'i granted a number of these licenses and attestations of
study to their students as compiled by Majlisi II (Mulla Muhammad
Baqir Majlisi, known as 'Allama-yi Majlisi, 1036-1110
AH/1627-99) in *Bihar al-anwar* [*Seas of
Lights*]. However, we have one very valuable source that records
the intimate relationship of his study and even spiritual discipleship
in a literary-poetic collection of the early 17th century from Qazvin
known as the Jung-i Qazvin. This codex (which is in the National
Library in Tehran) includes autograph notes of Mir Damad, Shaikh
Baha'i, and Mulla Sadra. Among these notes are short ijaza-like
statements for Mulla Sadra. Shaikh Baha'i quoted some narrations
of the Imams and wrote that he did so at the bequest of his
"illustrious and most excellent, intelligent and witty and pure
son Sadra" (Khaminihi 2000: 59). Similarly, in a note Mir Damad
referred to Sadra as his spiritual son (Khaminihi 2000: 56). The dual
influence of his teachers can be gauged in his early notes that reveal
an interest in Sufism, especially Sufi poetry and the law. These notes
were probably written in Shiraz in 1016 AH/1607-8. However,
interest in Sufism does not necessarily entail affiliation to a Sufi
order, a practice which, in any case, was highly controversial in this
period: the claim of the 19th-century Ni'mat-Allahi Sufi
Ma'sum-'Ali-Shah that Mulla Sadra was a Nurbakhshi Sufi
cannot be substantiated.



Completing his training and possibly prompted by the death of his
father in 1010 AH/1601-2, he returned to Shiraz to work and
teach; but, failing to find an adequate patron and facing the
opposition and criticism of a city that had forgotten the value of the
study of philosophy, he retreated to Kahak, a small village outside
the holy city of Qom, to meditate upon his inquiries and initiate the
composition of his main works, especially his philosophical and
theological summa, *al-Hikma al-muta'aliya fi-l-asfar
al-'aqliyya al-arba'a* (Transcendent wisdom of the
four journeys of the intellect), popularly known as *al-Asfar
al-arba'a* (The Four Journeys). His retreat
(*khalvat*) lasted probably five years. He then began an
itinerant life, teaching and writing in Qom, visiting and
corresponding with Mir Damad in Isfahan until the latter's death
in 1040 AH/1631, and spending time at his family estates in Shiraz.
Manuscript evidence attests to his itinerant life until 1040
AH/1630-1. His relationship with Mir Damad was particularly
important: he began espousing his teacher's ideas until he
changed his views later in life, but Mir Damad remained his spiritual
master. His devotion was expressed in the letters that they exchanged.
In a letter dated 1018 AH/1609-10 from Shiraz, Mulla Sadra
described Mir Damad as "the apportioner of grace to the hearts
of the wise, the eleventh intellect, he who masters the theory and
practice of the sciences, the lord (*sayyid*) of philosophers
and the master of the jurists, the most noble of scholars, the
civiliser of Islam" (Khamenehi 2000: 109). In another letter
dated 1037 AH/1627-8 probably from Qom, he complained of their
separation and expressed concern for the health of Mir Damad
describing him as "our master and lord (*sayyid*), may
God preserve his shadow over his separated disciples by preserving his
noble existence and his honour and the light of the illumination of
his light that enlightens the hearts of spiritual wayfarers"
(Khaminihi 2000: 113).



He trained a number of significant philosophers in the period in Qom,
the most important of whom were Muhsin Fayz-i Kashani (d. 1090
AH/1680-1), who studied with him between 1030 AH/1620-1
and 1038 AH/1628-9, as attested in Fayz's autobiographical
treatise *Sharh-i Sadr*, and 'Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji (known
as Fayyaz-i Lahiji, d. 1072 AH/1661-2), both of whom became his
sons-in-law. Other students included the philosophers Husayn
Tunikabuni (d. 1105 AH/1693-4) and Muhammad Riza Aqajani (d.
1071 AH/1660-1). After his retreat to Qom, Mulla Sadra probably
married in Shiraz. One modern source suggests that his wife was the
daughter of Mirza Zia al-Din Muhammad Razi, which would mean that his
wife and the mother of Fayz were sisters, suggesting a relationship
that predates the teacher and student one. As an affluent man, Mulla
Sadra had five children who survived and a large household, including
retainers and students. His first-born Umm Kulsum was born in 1019
AH/1610-1 and later married his student Fayyaz-i Lahiji in Qom.
Another daughter Zubayda was born in 1024 AH/1615 in Qom and later
married Fayz-i Kashani. His third daughter Ma'suma was born in
Qom in 1033 AH/1623-4 and later married another student, Qutb
al-Din Muhammad Nayrizi, about whom nothing is recorded. Mulla Sadra
also had three sons who became scholars in their own right: Ibrahim,
who was born in Qom in 1021 AH/1612-3, became a prominent
theologian at court, and died in Isfahan in 1071 AH/1660-1:
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, who was born in Kashan in 1031 AH/1621-2 and
died in Shiraz in 1074 AH/1664; and his youngest son Muhammad Riza,
who was probably born in Qom but about whom we do not have any
biographical information.



In 1040 AH/1630-1, Mulla Sadra moved permanently to his hometown
at the request of (possibly his former student) Imamquli Khan (d. 1042
AH/1633), the extremely powerful governor-general
(*beglerbegi*) of Sadra's home province Fars and son of
the celebrated Georgian military commander Allahvirdi Khan. The
Madrasa-yi Khan seminary, founded by Imamquli's father and
completed in 1024 AH/1615, had been established with an express
purpose of teaching philosophy and science. Mulla Sadra was the clear
choice for teaching there, and it is possible that he had begun his
association from the inception of the institution. He completed his
major work, the *Four Journeys* (*al-Asfar
al-arba'a*) in Shiraz in 1038 AH/1628 and in the same year
the English traveller Sir Thomas Herbert described the Madrasa:
"and [indeed] Shyraz has a colledge wherein is read Philosophy,
Astrology, Physick, Chemistry and the Mathematicks; so as 'tis
the more famoused through Persia" (Herbert, *Some Years
Travel*, London, 1634, p. 129). This late period of his life was
productive, and he was much respected as a teacher in his hometown.
After an illustrious and prolific career, he died in Basra on his way
to his seventh pilgrimage to Mecca. The traditional date given for his
death is 1050 AH/1640-1. However, there is no clear evidence in
support of this date. His grandson Muhammad 'Alam al-Huda, the
son of Fayz-i Kashani, reported that his grandfather died in Basra in
1045 AH/1635-6 and was buried in Najaf in the precinct of the
shrine of the first Shi'i Imam 'Ali b. Abi Talib
(Khaminihi 2000: 414). This is attested in two paratexts of his works,
and seems to be corroborated by the fact that the date of completion
for his last works, including those left incomplete, is 1044
AH/1635.


### 1.2 Works



Mulla Sadra wrote over forty-five works. His magnum opus, *al-Hikma
al-muta'aliya fi-l-asfar al-'aqliyya al-arba'a*,
known as *al-Asfar al-arba'a* (*The Four
Journeys*), is a large compendium of philosophy and theology that,
instead of following the traditional divisions of logic, physics, and
metaphysics, maps intellectual inquiry upon a mystical metaphor of the
soul's journey in this world. Hence it is popularly known as the
*Four Journeys*. He began writing it in 1015 AH/1606 in Kahak
and completed it in Shiraz in 1038 AH/1628. The first journey from
this world to God provides the seeker with the intellectual principles
for understanding philosophy such as the basic definition of
philosophy and metaphysics, the significance of metaphysics and the
question of being for this study. In this journey, the seeker moves
away from multiplicity and phenomenal deception towards unity and an
awareness of the underlying nature of reality. The second journey in
God with God is a discourse on the nature of God, the divine
attributes and significantly including his famous proof for the
existence of God. It is the stage of the mystic's absorption in
the divine essence and his effacement of the self. The third journey
from God to this world explains the God-world relationship, nature,
time and creation and ontological categories in this world. For the
mystic, this is the return to sobriety and a realisation of the duties
of moral agency in this world. The final journey in this world with
God is a description of human psychology focusing on soteriology and
eschatology and reveals most clearly the significance of Twelver
Shi'ism to his thought. This is the final stage of the
mystic's journey, a recognition that everything as a unified
whole reflects the ontological unity of the divine and that the
realised human recognises a desire to return to the principle, the one
who is the source of being, God.



The *Four Journeys* is a major source for the history of
Islamic philosophical traditions: it reveals the strong influence of
an Avicennan structure with major contributions from the critiques of
Avicennism by Suhrawardi and the Sufi metaphysical monism of Ibn
al-'Arabi (d. 1240). But it is not just the arguments of
thinkers, well known in academic and scholarly circles, who are
considered. He also addressed the positions of some major philosophers
of Shiraz, who remain little known even to specialists studying
Islamic philosophy, such as Mir Ghiyath al-Din Mansur Dashtaki (d. 948
AH/1541) and Shams al-Din Muhammad Khafri (d. ca. 957 AH/1550).



His other works mainly deal with philosophical theology, such as
*al-Hikma al-'arshiyya* (Wisdom of the throne) and
*al-Shawahid al-rububiyya* (Divine witnesses). One work,
*al-Masha'ir* (Inspired recognitions) stands out as a
dense epitome of his doctrine of being as expressed in the first part
of the Four Journeys on the semantics of existence. As a religious
thinker, Mulla Sadra was also keen to come to terms with his
scriptural heritage, and he wrote three works on the hermeneutics of
the Qur'an as a preparation for his own incomplete mystical and
philosophical commentary on the text: *Mafatih al-ghayb* (Keys
to the unseen), *Asrar al-ayat* (Secrets of the verses/signs),
and *Mutashabihat al-Qur'an* (Allegories of the
Qur'an). As a Shi'i thinker, he also wrote an incomplete
commentary on the main doctrinal collection of tradition, *Usul
al-kafi* of Kulayni (d. 329 AH/941), as an attempt to grapple with
the question of what it means to be an intuitive philosopher in the
Shi'i tradition. He also wrote a number of other treatises on
particular issues, such as *creatio ex nihilo* (*huduth
al-'alam*), the resurrection, the nature of knowledge,
logic, and the relationship between existence and essence. But the
*Four Journeys* remains his most important work and the key to
understanding his philosophy as he repeatedly cited it in his other
works for a more extended discussion of an issue.


## 2. Philosophy


### 2.1. Defining philosophy



Common with other pre-modern traditions of philosophy, Mulla Sadra
conceives of philosophy as more than a ratiocinative inquiry. It is a
mode of being and a way of life whose goal is wisdom and the
cultivation of a holy life in which the sage strikes a resemblance to
the divine (cf. Plato's *Theaetetus*). His thought is
clearly located within a Neoplatonic paradigm of understanding
philosophy as espoused by Pierre Hadot and others. Philosophy is the
pursuit of metaphysical truths that are not merely understood and
grasped through cognition, but are lived realities, in which
philosophers, again following the Platonic tradition, are integrated
souls who combine theoretical and practical knowledge and its
implementation to effect a holistic ethics of living.



Inquiry entails a two-fold discipline of the mind through logical
training and the mental exercises of argumentation, analysis, division
and refutation, and the disciplining of the soul through spiritual
exercises that facilitate the inhering of divine qualities of
knowledge, justice and piety. In the *Four Journeys*, Mulla
Sadra provides this critical definition of philosophy that in itself
combines a characteristically Neoplatonic vision of philosophy that
reconciles Plato and Aristotle:



> 
> Know that philosophy is the perfecting of the human soul, by the
> cognition of the true natures of existents, as they truly are, through
> judgements concerning them that are ascertained through demonstrations
> (*barahin*), and not understood through conjecture, or
> adherence to prior authority, insofar as is humanly possible. Through
> philosophy, the human acquires a resemblance to the Creator and
> ascribes a rational order to the cosmos.The human emerges as a mixture
> of two: a spiritual form from the intelligible and sensible matter
> from the world of creation, and thus he possesses in his soul both
> attachment [to the body] and detachment [from it]. Wisdom is sharpened
> through the honing of two faculties relating to two practices: one
> theoretical and abstract and the other practical, attached to
> creation... The theoretical art...is the wisdom sought by the lord of
> the messengers - peace be with him - when he supplicated
> his lord saying: O My Lord, show me things as they truly are, and also
> [sought] by the intimate of God Abraham when he asked: My lord bestow
> upon me wisdom [Q. 26 v. 82]. Judgement is verifying the existence of
> things entailed by conceptions (*tasawwurat*). (Mulla Sadra
> 2001-5, I: 23)
> 



A number of elements in this definition require some commentary.


* Philosophy is a process of perfecting the soul though knowledge.
Knowledge has a transformative effect of curing an ignorant (sick)
soul/mind, a theme common in Late Antiquity.
* The goal of philosophy is explicitly metaphysical: to acquire
knowledge of things that exist and to understand their essences in
themselves, beyond any phenomenal deception. What is significant is
that Mulla Sadra proposes a thoroughly rational, or intellectual
approach to understanding reality that assumes not only that reality
is a given, existing independently of our minds, but also that human
minds are capable through self-perfection to understand reality.
* Knowledge is a process that develops through making judgements.
The term judgment is a technical concept in Islamic epistemologies to
describe the analysis of a proposition in which one ascertains whether
it holds true and whether it describes something that exists.
Judgements are therefore closely linked to the discernment of
existence.
* Knowledge develops and is corroborated through the Aristotelian
science of demonstration (*apodeixis*).
* Philosophy requires analysis and demonstration. The rehearsal of
ideas, adhering to past authority and conjecture (imperfect and
rhetorical forms of argument) do not constitute philosophical
reasoning.
* Knowledge is not an unlimited process or act of being for Mulla
Sadra but does have limits due to the human vehicle of knowing.
* The perfect philosopher, as in Plato, strikes a resemblance to the
creator/demiurge insofar as he knows the essences and forms of things
that exist extra-mentally and is capable of ascribing a rational order
to the universe and hence understands relationships of causality and
connection between existents.
* Philosophical knowledge that is sound and complete, acquired from
reflection and intellection, is identical to the metaphysical
knowledge of the prophets, especially Muhammad. In that sense
philosophy is a prophetic practice and inheritance.



In his exegetical works he also discusses the process of understanding
the scriptures in terms of self-transformation, in which the reading
of the text activates switches in the soul that facilitates its
change. He says:



> 
> Know that the human is the most noble of beings; he was at the
> beginning of his generation in the very limits of baseness and
> imperfection that arise out of the nature of the elements and
> components [that formed him] like all other species of animals, and
> his nature was in degrees of baseness in relation to other substances
> and entities, except that he had in his essence a faculty of
> progression to the very limit of perfection and progress to the lights
> of the transcendent Origin and the active Sustainer, stripped of evil
> and calamity, becoming one of the inhabitants of the world of light,
> bestowed with the bounty of the afterlife and with bliss; it does not
> behove divine providence to allow him (the human) to wallow in the
> grazing grounds of the passions like insects and worms... For it is
> known that everything has a perfection that is specific to it, for
> which it was created, and an act that completes it that is appropriate
> [to it]. The perfection of the human is through the perception of
> divine stations and partaking of divine intelligible knowledge by
> stripping away material sensible attachments and renouncing base
> worldly matters and being saved from the impulses of passion and freed
> from the bonds of carnal, concupiscent desires. All this is not made
> easy except through guidance and learning and disciplining and
> steadfastness... It is incumbent upon one who wishes to traverse the
> way of the people of reality and certainty, after purifying his soul
> from the vicious character traits, to set aside the company of the
> deniers (of God) and the astray because there is a seal set upon their
> hearts and their audition and their sight yet they do not understand,
> and also (set aside) the company of the innovators who are astray
> because when the prophets came to them with clear proofs, they
> delighted in what knowledge they possessed and they embraced them but
> mocked them [the proofs of the prophets]. May God preserve you from
> the evil of these two groups and not place you among them even for an
> instant... We seek refuge from them in God...and in the light of the
> sound natural disposition in the contented heart. (Mulla Sadra 1987,
> I: 2-3)
> 



Philosophical reasoning and the ability to rely upon one's
intellectual faculties is what privileges the human over other animals
and hence it is critical for the human to pursue the path of
philosophy to realise their humanity. In this sense we can see the
complementarity in Mulla Sadra's thought between the practice of
philosophy as an understanding and grasping of extra-mental reality
and as an exegetical practice of making sense of revelation,
predicated upon the notion that there is a homology between scripture
as a book and the cosmos as another book that ought to be read by the
seeker and whose inquiry requires a common hermeneutics for a sage to
articulate.


### 2.2. Doing philosophy



Mulla Sadra's method of philosophizing is predicated upon three
key modes of acting. First, as we discussed above philosophy is a way
of life, a lived mode of being and a process that involves spiritual
exercises. For Mulla Sadra, philosophy pursues the *summum*
*bonum* of enlightened engagement (*ma'rifa*) and
goodly action, worthy not only of the Aristotelian but also the pious
Muslim scholar. To philosophise is to cultivate piety, since the end
of philosophy is the higher pious life, a reflection of a Hermetic
ideal trope. The more truth one knows, the more pious one becomes. In
fact, the more intense one's being, the better one is and the
more felicitous. Philosophy is a religious commitment that obscures
the conceptual boundary between theory and doctrine. The very pursuit
of intellectual inquiry and discourse is itself the greatest good and
the means through which one knows how to live a good life, and enables
one to ascend to the highest heavenly host. The disciplining of the
mind cures the soul of incorrect *doxa* and the disease of
irrationality. It cures the suffering of the soul insofar as it
reduces the alienation of the soul from the truth and ultimately from
God through the journey of the intellect back to the One. The dynamic
of this journey involves the performance of spiritual exercises. Mulla
Sadra urges the reader to practise philosophy as an art and a method
of self-improvement and spiritual enlightenment (Mulla Sadra 1986:
232-3). The act of meditation is not irrational detachment but
rather the exercise of reason (Hadot 1995: 59). Asceticism is a
prerequisite for philosophy following the famous saying of first
Shi'i Imam 'Ali b. Abi Talib: 'the study of wisdom
requires spiritual exercise and forsaking the world.' In the
introduction to the *Four Journeys*, he urges self-purification
and the pursuit of perfection to obtain divine grace and knowledge.
True pedagogy allied with divine grace leads man to perfection and
self-realisation. In his commentary upon Qur'anic chapter
entitled the Event (*al-Waqi'a*), he writes,



> 
> The perfection of the human lies in the perception of universal
> realities (*al-haqa'iq al-kulliyya*) and disposition
> towards divine cognition, and transcendence above material
> *sensibilia*, and self-purification from the restraints of
> carnal and passionate appetites. This can only be acquired through
> guidance, teaching, discipline, and formation of righteous character
> (Mulla Sadra 1988, VI: 132).
> 



This is the preliminary stage through which everyone must pass, but a
philosopher, and a divine philosopher (*hakim
muta'allih*) seeking theosis, must go beyond this stage in
pursuit of the quest for reality. It is this quest that leads the
wayfarer to a higher philosophy, a *hikma muta'aliya* as
he describes it in the title of his major work.



Second, he integrates philosophical and spiritual reasoning because,
as was common among Islamic Neoplatonists and especially in the method
of Suhrawardi, he insisted that philosophy was a mode of Prophetic
knowledge inherited in an initiatic chain from Adam down through the
Biblical prophets, Greek philosophers, Indian and Babylonian sages
through to the Prophet Muhammad and then on through the Muslim
philosophers and Sufis. In his treatise on creation (*Risala fi
huduth al-'alam*), Mulla Sadra summaries this genealogy of
philosophy from Adam and the East to the Greeks:



> 
> 
> Know that philosophy first issued from Adam, the chosen one of God and
> from his progeny Seth and Hermes and from Noah because the world can
> never be free of a person who establishes knowledge of the unity of
> God and of the return [to God]. The great Hermes disseminated it
> [philosophy] in the climes and in the countries and explained it and
> gave benefit of it to the people. He is the father of philosophers and
> the most learned of the knowledgeable...
> 
> 
> 
> As for Rome and Greece, philosophy is not ancient in those places as
> their original sciences were rhetoric, epistolatory and
> poetry...until Abraham became a prophet and he taught them the
> science of divine unity. It is mentioned in history that the first to
> philosophise from among them [the Greeks] was Thales of Miletus and he
> named it philosophy. He first philosophised in Egypt and then
> proceeded to Miletus when he was an old man and disseminated his
> philosophy. After him came Anaxagoras and Anaximenes of Miletus. After
> them emerged Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato. (Mulla Sadra
> 1999a: 153-4)
> 
> 
> 



Third, in terms of method, one needs to integrate ratiocinative,
propositional knowledge and a linear mode of reasoning with more
intuitive and non-propositional modes of knowing, including in
particular what is termed 'immediate' or
'presential' knowledge. The knowledge of higher
metaphysical realities, similar to the Platonic tradition, requires
the cultivation of character and surpassing ratiocination. Just as
Porphyry and others before had delimited lists of virtues, for Mulla
Sadra, the sage possesses the qualities of generosity, good humour,
fine judgement, and a pronounced taste and experience of spiritual
disclosure (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, VI: 6). Truth must derive its
legitimacy and foundation from grace and revelation, and can never
find fertile soil merely in the rehearsal of the doctrines of previous
philosophers. Phenomenological experience is the ground for
philosophy. In the *Four Journeys*, Mulla Sadra writes:



> 
> Know that metaphysical doctrines can only be grasped by inner
> revelation (*mukashafat batiniyya*), secret contemplation
> (*mushahadat sirriyya*) and existential investigations
> (*mu'ayanat wujudiyya*) and cannot be really known
> through rehearsing discursive doctrines (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, IX:
> 146).
> 



But he is no mystical obscurantist nor does he privilege spiritual
intuition above demonstration; rather he argues for their
complementarity since 'demonstration does not conflict with
inner disclosure.' The study of texts moves the seeker to
construct a world, to make an intelligible order of the propositions
and *aporiai* that he encounters.


## 3. Metaphysics


### 3.1. Being and Existence



Mulla Sadra is often described as a metaphysical revolutionary because
of his uniquely posited doctrine of existence. The analysis of
existence commences with the ontological distinction between the
Necessary (the principle, God) and the contingent. God is pure
existence without essence, quality or property that undergoes change
or motion. The origins of this doctrine lie in Avicenna's
account of radical contingency that considers the distinction between
Necessary and contingent to be predicated upon the simplicity of
existence of the Necessary producing the complexity of the existence
and essence of the contingent, where the contingent is an existent to
whom accidents pertain bundled in what is known as their
'essence'. Contingents are conceptually dyads of existence
(the fact that they are) and essence (bundles of properties that
define what they are, Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 289-92).
Since God bestows existence upon contingents, or rather because
causally contingents derive their existence from their principle,
existence is ontologically prior to essence. Analytically, it may seem
to us that the reverse is true because our encounter with things and
events takes the phenomenal form of acquaintance with the form and
essence of that thing first. But in fact, Mulla Sadra's position
on existence is even more radical than the Aristotelian doctrine of
pros hen homonymy. Substances are not the primary sense of existence
but rather 'acts of existence' or processes. In this, and
in his doctrine of substantial motion that is discussed below, one can
see a systematic rejection of Aristotelian category theory.



Before examining the twin doctrines of the fundamental reality of
existence and its modulated but singular character at the heart of his
metaphysics, it is worth mentioning some of the preliminary positions
that he holds on the nature of existence:


* Existence is a concept that is innately and immediately grasped in the
mind; it requires neither definition (*ta'rif*) nor
description (*rasm*) of any sort (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I:
45-6). Existence is a simple concept that does not have
analytically distinct part and hence is not amenable to definition.
There was a consensus on this doctrine stemming back at least to
Avicenna as it arose out of an Aristotelian conception of essence and
the nature of definition. One defines and knows things through their
essences but existence has no essence that is singular across its
different referents and manifestations. Similarly Mulla Sadra has an
extended argument on why existence is not the ultimate genus or class
of things (within the context of Porphyry's five predicables,
Mulla Sadra 2001-5, IV: 424ff). Nor is existence a type of a
universal to which individual particulars in reality are attached
(Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 140). He refutes these positions
precisely because they were broached by thinkers prior to him who
denied any reality corresponding to the concept of existence.
* As a concept, it is a secondary intelligible. Primary intelligibles
are names that refer to essences possessing concrete referents in the
world such as 'humanity'. Secondary intelligibles,
however, are logical concepts, abstract notions, concepts based on
derivative essences, and concomitants of essences (Mulla Sadra
2001-5, I: 387). As such, being as a secondary intelligible is a
concept that is attached to an essence that exists in extra-mental
reality (cf. Fana'i Ashkivari 2008: 75). As secondary
intelligibles are higher order predicates, they are also homonymous
terms that exist in the soul. There is a critical difference between
existence as a secondary intelligible and existence as an extra-mental
reality.
* It is a term predicated homonymously (*mahmul mushtarak*) of
its referents. Many things exist that are qualitatively and
quantitatively distinct but all carry the term 'existence'
(Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 40). Of course, the real question is
whether existence is merely homonymous in the way in which
'pole' is. Existence constitutes a special case of
homonymy that he calls *tashkik*, a term already used by
Avicenna to render the *tertium quid* of the ancients. He
argues that the key properties of *tashkik* are difference
between existents 'by precedence and priority'
(*al-awlawiyya wa-l-awwaliyya*), and 'by being more prior
and more intense' (*al-aqdamiyya wa-l-ashaddiyya*) (Mulla
Sadra 2001-5, I: 42-3). This is posed directly in response
to Avicenna's denial that substances can be more intense or that
they can be distinguished by a non-accidental property that they
possess. It is, therefore, in this sense that existence is both the
source of commonality and of distinction between existing things
because unlike the Peripatetic tradition, he is insistent that
existence is the principle of individuation (*tashakhkhus*) of
a thing other than its essence.
* Existence is a real predicate for Mulla Sadra since it is a property
of an essence that is found in extra-mental reality (Mulla Sadra
2001-5, I: 47-52). It is a real (and not merely a logical
or grammatical) predicate because '*x* exists' is
true for Mulla Sadra if and only if '*x*' refers.
Similarly, if existence were not a predicate, we could not speak
meaningfully of essences that have no direct reference in reality
(Mulla Sadra 2001-5, II: 5). Existence must be a predicate, or
else when we say 'black exists', we would be saying
'black is black' which is a basic tautology. But given the
Avicennan consensus of the superadded nature of existence over essence
(*ziyadat al-wujud 'ala l-mahiyya*) and their
distinction, this is not the case. For Mulla Sadra, existential
propositions are not analytic. He argues that existence is not an
analytic part of essence. If in the proposition 'man
exists' we took 'man' and 'exists' to be
synonyms, then it would be equivalent to stating that 'man is
man', a tautology that does not benefit us. In 'man
exists', 'man' refers to a universal
'humanity'. But 'exists' does have reference
contrary to those who deny reference to existence, taking it to be a
purely mental concept. The referent in the predication of the
proposition 'Zayd exists' is the very ipseity
(*huwiyya*) of Zayd, that is his being (*wujud*).
Therefore, existence is not an empty term but has referents in
extra-mental reality, that is, it is both a concept and a reality
(*haqiqa 'ayniyya*). According to Mulla Sadra, many of
the puzzles and even mistakes in metaphysics can be avoided as long as
one keeps to the distinction between existence as a concept and as a
reality.
* Existence is pure goodness (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 395-7).
Mulla Sadra reiterates this basic Neoplatonic maxim. Existence is the
ground for all value and its absence constitutes evil. Because
existence is a primary concept without which no other concept is
meaningful, it is rationally good. This goodness stems from its
principle, God, who is pure goodness and pure existence and through
his sustaining providence wishes to spread that goodness throughout
the cosmos.



For Mulla Sadra, existence is ontologically prior, a unified reality
graded in degrees of intensity and an elusive reality that cannot be
fully grasped. Any attempt to conceptualise existence falsifies it
through reification that determines an essence grasped in the mind
(Mulla Sadra 1964: 6). A reified, fixed and immutable concept cannot
capture the nature of existence, which is dynamic and in flux.
Ultimately, essences are privative and, citing Ibn al-'Arabi,
they 'have never smelt the fragrance of being'. They are
merely posited in the mind as modes of making sense and of determining
reality as 'beings of reason'. Unpacking this metaphysical
package, one can discern three distinct doctrines of existence that
draw upon his intellectual influences, which include Avicennan
philosophy, the intuitive philosophy of the *ishraqi* school
associated with Suhrawardi, and the Sufi metaphysics of being of Ibn
al-'Arabi.



The first doctrine is the ontological primacy of existence (*asalat
al-wujud*), a doctrine that is located within the debate on the
Avicennan distinction between existence and essence in contingent
beings as seen through the prism of the Sufi metaphysics of
ontological monism (*wahdat al-wujud*). If contingents are
composites, then one element of the composition is active and
ontologically prior. Is it the case that there are essences in some of
being, such as humanity, that wait for a divine agent to actualize and
individuate them through the bestowal of existence, an essentialist
doctrine that posits a rather paradoxical existence of an essence
before it comes to exist? Or as Mulla Sadra suggests, the divine agent
produces existences in this world that take on the "garb"
of some particular essence. Existence must be ontologically prior not
only because of the absurdity of an existence before existence, but
also because God is devoid of essence, and his causal link to the
world can only be existential if one wishes to avoid the contamination
of the divine nature with essences that are composites of different
and multiple properties and features. Mulla Sadra uses this doctrine
as part of his own ontological proof for the existence of God known as
the Proof of the Veracious (*burhan al-siddiqin*). The monism
of the doctrine is expressed in the phrase *basit al-haqiqa kull
al-ashya'* ('The simple reality is all things',
a doctrine predicated on the Neoplatonic notion of the simple One):
God, the One is simple and pure Being and thus as such is the totality
of existence.


### 3.2 Monism and pluralism



The second doctrine is the modulation and gradation of existence
(*tashkik al-wujud*). The semantics of the term
'existence' and its modulated singularity commits Mulla
Sadra to a reality that is equally modulated and singular. Existence
is a singular reality, as the phenomenal experience of existence as
multiple is illusory. But multiplicity in this world still needs to be
explained. Different existents in this world are thus different,
intense degrees of a single whole. Thus there is a horizontal and a
vertical hierarchy of existence that is connected and involved in a
whole chain of existence. The particular degrees of existence are not
stable substances in the Aristotelian sense, and thus neither is
Sadrian ontology concerned with a multiplicity of substances or the
problem that would be raised by the objection: how can all things be
one substance? Gradation addresses one of the key problematics of
metaphysics that arise from Aristotelianism: "being is
predicated in many ways" (Aristotle, *Met*. 1028a10).
Being is a common term that is applied to a number of contexts and
expressions: the mental context (mental being, conceptual being), the
spoken context (being in speech), the written context (inscribed
being), and the real context (concrete, extra-mental being). In all
these contexts, being is a shared notion and reality expressed in
different ways. But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the doctrine
is the claim that, not only is being the source of commonality, the
focal meaning of the instances of being as the Aristotelian tradition
would have it, it is also the source of metaphysical variance or
distinction, because the hierarchy of being is differentiated through
degrees of intensification and debilitation of being (*ishtidad wa
tada''uf*). Thus the old metaphysical debate about the
One and the many is settled in favour of both: being or existence is
both singular and multiple. The doctrine of the gradation thus
provides an explanation for the nature of spiritual hierarchies and
the different abilities and dispositions of people but also insists
upon the ultimate singularity of human existence. Thus the ethical
implications of the doctrine are a thorough social and ontological
equality of existents (including humanity, animals, and so forth)
coupled with an intellectual and spiritual hierarchy, order, and
inequality. Mulla Sadra summaries modulation in the following
manner:



> 
> Existence is a single, simple reality having neither genus nor
> differentia, nor a definition or a demonstration or a
> *definiens*. It only admits of degrees by perfection and
> deficiency (*bi-l-kamal wa-l-naqs*)*,* by priority and
> posteriority (*al-taqaddum wa-l-ta'akhkhur*) and by
> independence and dependence (*bi-l-ghina wa-l-haja*). (Mulla
> Sadra 1964: 68-9)
> 



This leads us to the third doctrine that all individuals in existence
undergo motion and flux, namely, substantial motion (*haraka
jawhariyya*). The doctrine follows from his position on existence
and his rejection of Aristotle's category theory. It also
demonstrates how he privileges becoming over static, immutable being.
Substantial motion is not the same as substances being in motion,
which is considered obvious (Rahman 1975: 95-108; Jambet 2006:
191-223; 'Ubudiyyat 2006: 309-85). Within an
Aristotelian framework, there are two types of change: instantaneous
such as the move from potentiality to actuality, and gradual such as
the ageing process in things that undergo generation and corruption.
This raises two objections to substantial motion: first, if existents
are constantly motive, how can there be a subject that we recognise as
undergoing change? Second, substances are manifest in essences and
these cannot be identified in their species form since motion denies
the fixity of the species (and genus) boundaries that define the
essence. For Mulla Sadra, the second point is easier to treat:
essences are not fundamental to which existence is accidental so the
boundaries of what we may conceive an essence to be should not limit
existence. On the former, existence is its own subject. Drawing upon
Aristotelian hylomorphism, he argues that it is the matter of
existence that acquires forms as it constantly changes. An existing
entity is not a stable substance constant in time to which change
occurs as an accident, such as a young Zayd becoming old and greying;
rather, it is a structure of unfolding, dynamic events of existence.
The young Zayd is thus literally not the same existent as the old
Zayd, since the change in him is substantial and existential. One
implication of this doctrine is that at every instance each existent
is renewed and thus provides a solution to the old problem of time and
creation by asserting that the world is created in time, because at
each instant all existence is new in time. As such consistent with
other Safavid philosophers and in distinction from the earlier
Avicennan tradition, he upholds a philosophical account of the
theological doctrine of God's creation of the world from nothing
in time. Another implication is to consider time as a dimension of
existence, as an analytic property of substantial motion, having no
existence independently.


### 3.3 Proof for the existence of God



These doctrines establish the basic principles for Mulla Sadra's
argument for the existence of God. There are many proofs for the
existence of God because as Mulla Sadra says there are many signs that
indicate Him and facets about Him (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, VI: 15).
*Kalam* cosmological proofs began with the intuition of
phenomenal existence requiring a cause; there was a creation which
needed a cause to be. There had to be a reason why there was something
rather than nothing. Avicenna's famous proof for the Necessary
Being began with the concept of existence, proceeded with a modal
distinction between necessity and contingent, and arrived at the
exigency of a Necessary Being. Avicenna himself called his argument
the 'proof of the veracious' (*burhan al-siddiqin*)
and his commentator Tusi provided a typology of three proofs for the
existence of a Creator, which in turn are the *kalam*
cosmological argument, the proof from motion that derives from
Aristotle's *Physics*, and the Avicennan ontological
argument:



> 
> 
> The systematic theologians infer from the origination of bodies and
> properties [pertaining to them] the existence of the Creator and from
> considering the states of the creation to his attributes one after
> another.
> 
> 
> 
> The natural philosophers also infer from the existence of motion a
> Mover and from the impossibility of linking motive beings in a chain
> infinitely the existence of the First Mover who is unmoved. Then from
> that they infer the existence of the First Principle.
> 
> 
> 
> However, the metaphysicians infer from their reflection upon being
> that it is either necessary or contingent to prove the Necessary. Then
> by reflecting upon what is entailed by necessity and contingency, they
> infer his attributes and from his attributes they infer the nature of
> the emanation of his acts from him one after another.
> 
> 
> 
> The master mentioned the preponderance of this method over the others
> because it is more reliable and nobler. That is because the more
> excellent of demonstrations is one that yields certainty and it is the
> inference from the cause to the effect; however, its opposite which is
> the inference from the effect to the cause may yield certainty and
> that is if the thing sought has a cause that can only be discerned
> through it as has been explained in *apodeixis*. These two
> levels are posed in his saying -- exalted is He: 'We shall
> show them our signs in the horizons and in their souls until it is
> clear to them that He is the Truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is
> witness for everything?' [Q. 41:52] (Avicenna, *al-Isharat
> wa-l-tanbihat*, Qum, 1996, III: 66-7).
> 
> 
> 



Tusi mentions two types of argumentation that the tradition describes
as assertoric proof or *quia* (*burhan inni*) and
demonstrative proof or *propter quid* (*burhan limmi*),
the former is an inference from effect to cause and the latter is from
cause to effect. The demonstrative proof for Mulla Sadra is the one
that is 'most reliable, most illuminating and most noble'
and it involves an inference of reality by taking God, Existence, as a
witness to the totality of existence. This is what he calls the
'way of the veracious' (*sabil al-siddiqin*). What
he means by *siddiq* is not the same as Avicenna and the gap in
meaning is a good illustration of the difference in their
philosophical method. For Mulla Sadra, the *siddiq* is one who
possesses intuition and inner disclosure that is attained through
grace and spiritual exercise. In the exegesis of Q. 57:19 on the
phrase 'those who believe in God and His messengers are the
veracious ones and witness before their Lord', he argues that
the *siddiq* is characterised by witnessing the truth through
inner revelation:



> 
> What is meant by faith in God and his messengers is a perfect degree
> of knowledge that is only realised in true knowers. True, inner
> revealed faith is meant which the saints and mystics possess
> especially because they are the veracious ones and witnesses due to
> the utmost level of their attestation [of truth] acquiring through
> inner revelation (*kashf*) and due to their self-annihilation
> acquired due to their inner spiritual struggle against the carnal
> forces of their souls (Mulla Sadra 1988, VI: 229).
> 



The Avicennan argument was insufficient because it provided an
assertoric not a demonstrative proof and because it engaged with the
concept but not the concrete reality of being. The Sadrian proof of
the veracious is a natural corollary to his position on the
fundamental reality and modulation of existence; in fact the latter is
significant for its proof.



> 
> Existence is a concrete reality that is simple and unique and there is
> no distinction among its individuals essentially except by perfection
> and imperfection and intensity and debilitation (Mulla Sadra 1964:
> 69).
> 



These degrees of existence are acts of the divine essence such that
even cosmological proofs are ultimately ontological. Ontological
proofs depend on the intelligibility of the concept of being, which
must be shared between our notion of our existence and God's
existence. This is precisely the point made earlier about the
possibility of theology depending upon the concept of modulation.



Journey III of the *Four Journeys* begins with a discussion of
the ways of proving the existence of God. Having discussed previous
cosmological and ontological proofs, Mulla Sadra expresses his own
'method of the veracious' (*manhaj al-siddiqin*) in
the following manner as a 'detailed thought
experiment':



> 
> 
> The reality of existence (*haqiqat al-wujud*), by virtue of its
> being a simple thing (*amran basitan*), not possessing an
> essence or a constituent property or a means of being defined, is
> identical to the Necessary, requiring the most complete perfection
> that is infinitely intense, because every other degree [of existence],
> which is weaker in intensity is not the pure reality of existence.
> Rather, it is existence with deficiency since the deficiency of
> everything is other than that thing necessarily. The deficiency of
> existence is not existence itself but rather its privation and this
> privation is merely attached to existence concomitantly and not the
> foundation of existence, due to its actuality in a subsequent degree
> [of existence] and what comes after that. Deficiencies and privations
> comprise secondary [entities] insofar as they are secondary, but the
> First is its complete perfection, which has no definition and nothing
> may be conceived that is more perfect than it. Deficiency and
> ontological indigence issue from emanation and existentiation and are
> perfected by it [the Necessary]. The haeccity of these secondaries is
> attached to the First. So he treats their deficiencies with his
> perfection and their ontological indigence with his ontological
> richness.
> 
> 
> 
> Thus through this demonstration is the existence of the Necessary
> proven (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, VI: 17-8).
> 
> 
> 



The Sadrian argument may be summarised as follows (in effect combining
two syllogisms):


1. There is existence
2. Existence is a perfection above which no perfection may be
conceived
3. God is perfection and perfection in existence
4. Existence is a singular and simple reality; there is no
metaphysical pluralism
5. That singular reality is graded in intensity in a scale of
perfection (that is, a denial of a pure monism).
6. That scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity
and of greatest existence.
7. Hence God exists (= existence).



Thus the proof begins with the concept and reality of existence and of
God and ends with it. It displays an apparent similarity with the
argument for the existence of God by intensity or the limit case
argument found in Aquinas and discussed in Miller 1996, and even more
recently in some forms of the modal ontological argument (Nagasawa
2017, Speaks 2018).



Nevertheless, the Sadrian proof remains susceptible to the common
criticisms of ontological proofs. It actually seems to be
tautological. Because he argues that the reality of being eludes human
ability to confine it to discourse, it is not perhaps surprising that
the *manhaj al-siddiqin* is not *in strictu sensu* an
apodeictic proof. In a perceptive gloss, Tabataba'i (d. 1981),
the eminent philosopher and commentator, argues that Mulla Sadra does
not provide a demonstration but rather an assertoric argument because
in effect all proofs for the existence of God begin with his effects
and deduce his existence as the cause of those effects. This is
because existence is an *a priori* intuition that all sound
intellects possess and within that intuition, the existence of a
Necessary Being is logically necessary. Proofs for the existence of
God, therefore, are not attempts at producing demonstrations that
convince or even fulfil the scientific parameters within proof theory,
but are mere reminders to what we already know in our souls and hence
corroborate and support faith in the One. This perhaps why Mulla Sadra
never refers to his argument as a 'demonstration' but as a
way (*manhaj*) of understanding and as a thought experiment
(*tadhkira*). Thus the 'argument' may be a useful
means for the exposition of a theistic viewpoint but does not fall
into the category of persuasion.


### 3.4 The Simple existence



The argument for the existence of God is related to a key doctrine
that explains the relationship of the One and the many through the
notion of the 'simple reality'. This is central to Sadrian
philosophy, drawing upon the simplicity of the prior One in
*Enneads* V.4[7].1.5-15,



> 
> For there must be something prior to all things which is simple, and
> this must be different from all that comes after it, being by itself,
> not mixed with those that come after it; yet being able to be present
> in the others in a different way, being truly one, and not something
> else which is then one.
> 



In his Treatise on the union of the intellecting subject and object,
Mulla Sadra draws on the *Plotiniana* and states that the
Active Intellect is all things. This follows from his doctrine of the
primacy and logical priority of existence. In the *Four
Journeys*, he quotes the following text from the tenth chapter of
the *Theologia Aristotelis*, an extract that exemplifies how
the doctrine of the simple reality reconciles monism and pluralism by
advocating neither.



> 
> The Pure One is the cause of all things and not of all things. Rather
> it is the beginning of everything and not all things. All things are
> in it and not in it. All things flow from it and subsist and are
> sustained by it and return to it. So if someone says: how is it
> possible that things are from a simple one that has no duality or
> multiplicity in it in any sense? I say: because a pure simple one has
> nothing in it, but because it is a pure one, all things flow from it.
> Thus when there was no existence (*huwiyya*), being flowed from
> it (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, VII: 351).
> 



In his commentary, Mulla Sadra espouses a form of Neoplatonic
procession and doctrine of the intellect-psuche that is at odds
with most of his philosophical discourse in the *Four
Journeys*. First, he accepts the standard account of the
*Theologia*. *Nous* as the first existent flows
immediately from the One and from it, existents proceed through the
mediation of the intelligible realm. Second, the One is itself above
perfection and plenitude. The first existent and the first perfect
being is *nous*. This Neoplatonic background is significant
because it seems to cause a problem for modulation. Can this simple
reality be modulated and if that is the case does it not entail
multiplicity in the godhead? The second part of the objection is
answered in the quoted objection in the passage above. But for the
first, following *Enneads* VI.2.20 it is clear that being is a
quasi-genus in which the whole is prior to its parts but, because of
its 'potency', remains unaffected by any procession. This
refers to the One, *nous* and all beings.



The doctrine of the simple reality is difficult but central to Sadrian
philosophy. The argument presented in the *Wisdom of the
Throne* concerns the nature of God as that simple being and
illustrates His knowledge of things through it (Morris 1981:
98-99). The concept is central to resolving many theological
problems relating to the nature of God. Indeed, it is an important
ontological proof for the existence of God through an analysis of
simplicity.



> 
> Every simple reality is, by virtue of its unity, all things. It is not
> deprived of any of these things except by way of imperfections,
> privations and contingencies (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, VI: 185).
> 



God is simple being because He is described by being, and being is a
unique, simple reality. It is simplicity devoid of essence (Mulla
Sadra 2001-5, VI: 45-51). That simplicity is
uncontaminated by multiplicity, privation, imperfection or any such
negative property. God's existence is pure and unencumbered by
complexity such as an essence that might raise questions of genera,
division, composition and definition.



This is God without multiplicity, at the level of singularity that
encompasses the attributes considered intrinsically and not manifested
towards and manifesting the cosmos. The concept of a thing does not
entail or include either its privation or its imperfection as there is
'no alterity in being since alterity is privation'. Thus
the simple reality that is God does not include or entail
imperfections or privations. An objection to this could be that
negative attributes are affirmed in theology, especially in the
Shi'i tradition in which one emphasises those concepts and
properties that cannot be predicated of Him such as 'He is not a
body', nor 'confined in a space' and so on. The
answer is that since these properties are negative, privative and
imperfect, one can affirm them because 'the negation of negation
is being and the negation of imperfection is perfection in
being'.



Mulla Sadra then proceeds to an analysis of language and
signification:



> 
> Thus [taking the example] you say *C* is not *B*. In
> this context, if that with respect to which *C* is *C*
> is exactly the same as that with respect to which *C* is not
> *B*, so that *C* in itself would in its very essence be
> the referent for the negation, then [if this were so] the essence of
> *C* would be privative fact since everyone who intellects
> *C* would also intellect not *B*. But the consequent is
> invalid so the antecedent must be too. Thus it is established that
> [for every *C*] the subject of *C*-ness is a composite
> essence. Thus the mind distinguishes an existential meaning by which
> *C* is and a privative meaning by which *C* is not
> *B* or anything else negated of it.
> 



The point being made concerns the existence-essence distinction.
Everything that is not simple but complex is a composite pair of
existence and essence. But it also illustrates how the simple reality
is an existence and encompasses things *qua* their existence
and *not* their essence. Even more so, the simple existence has
nothing to be negated because simplicity cannot be analysed into parts
or components.



> 
> If anything can be negated of an existential factor, then it is not a
> simple reality. Every simple reality is all things with respect to
> their existence and completeness and not with respect to their
> privation and incompleteness.
> 



A simple reality cannot be predicated of anything since it is simple
and unconditioned. This affirms diversity-in-unity since if nothing
can be predicated of God, then it follows that the cosmos cannot be
predicated of Him. Thus, it denies existential monism.



The final part of the argument then relates this to the nature of
God's knowledge and His immediate presence to things such that
the 'claim of the unjust' that He does not know
particulars cannot arise. This is, of course, a reference to the
dispute between Avicenna and al-Ghazali on God's knowledge of
particulars.



> 
> It is established that His knowledge of all things is a simple
> knowledge and their presence in Him is a simple reality. Knowledge is
> only an expression for existence on the condition that it not be mixed
> with matter.
> 



Thus simplicity defines the nature of God's knowledge.



The doctrine of the simple reality has two further roles. First, it
provides a proof for the existence of God by perfection, as the most
intense limit case, given that simplicity is an attribute of
perfection. Second, it affirms his necessity in every sense thus
negating the famous doubt of Ibn Kammuna [d. 1284] of the
postulation of two necessary existences. Simplicity denies any
contingent facet to God, who is necessary in every sense. God is
simple existence as He is uniquely necessary in and by Himself.


## 4. Noetics -- Epistemology and Psychology



Mulla Sadra applies his metaphysics to problems in psychology and
eschatology as well. Just as the totality of existence is singular
with degrees of intensity, similarly intellect and the soul are
singular realities with grades of intensity, since there is an
intimate connection among existence, the intellect, and the soul as
the concrete, intellectual, and psychic aspects of being. This entails
a thoroughgoing pan-psychism in which for Mulla Sadra all existents
are sentient beings that aspire to be "more intense" than
they are, to a higher ontological level. Everything that exists thus
possesses consciousness. Since all levels of intellect are connected,
knowledge is an existential relationship of identity and the cognition
of certainty in which the intellecting subject becomes identified with
the intellected object (*ittihad al-'aqil
wa-l-ma'qul*). Further, he uses his doctrine of modulation
to explain physical resurrection, a theological doctrine that
traditionally could not be philosophically demonstrated. He
distinguishes two levels of resurrection that involve two
"types" of body, a purely physical one and an
"imaginal" body that is as real as the physical. The
imaginal body is at first resurrected and can be demonstrated. This is
predicated upon the existence of an ontological state of being known
as the imaginal (*mithali*) that mediates between an
intelligible world of concepts and the sensible world of things. It is
used to explain those traditions that discuss abstract concepts such
as fear and desire as having physical or corporeal features in
resurrection. Concepts from the intelligible world can mimic the
physicality of this world through the mediation of the imaginary realm
of being.


### 4.1 The Nature of the Soul



The soul is an eternal and independent immaterial substance for Mulla
Sadra. It is separate from (but attached to) the body and is the true
bearer of identity (Mulla Sadra 2004: 467). As we saw above in the
doctrine of substantial motion, the soul is on the path of perfection
towards simplicity and unity and its reversion to its origins in the
One. In itself the soul is eternal and incorruptible and does not die
with the body but reverts to its origins with the One (Mulla Sadra
2004: 515). Where does the soul come from? Given the Neoplatonic
influence on Mulla Sadra, one would expect him to insist upon the
pre-existence of the soul and various texts are adduced in favour of
such a position. However, he makes a distinction between the species
'soul' which he calls the 'Adamic soul' and
the individual human soul. The basic problem with allowing for the
pre-existence of the individual soul is that it potentially opens the
way for a belief in metempsychosis which he rejects, as we shall see.
In the *Wisdom of the Throne*, he argues for the pre-existence
of the human soul as a category:



> 
> The Adamic soul has an existence preceding the body without this
> entailing metempsychosis or necessitating the pre-eternity of the
> individual soul, which is the well-known doctrine of Plato. This mode
> of pre-existence does not require the multiplicity of individuals of a
> single species or their differentiation without reference to matter or
> any disposition towards matter. Nor does it entail the soul's
> being divided after it had been one in the manner of continuous
> essences. Nor does it suppose the soul's inactivity before being
> united with bodies (Mulla Sadra 1981, 140-1).
> 



The individual soul is the bearer of its body, its vehicle (Mulla
Sadra 2001-5, IX: 63-4). It comes into existence with the
body and still retains the sense of being the entelechy of the body
which is why the two cannot be detached (Mulla Sadra 2004: 240). Just
as existence is not an accident of essence but is the principle to
which an essence is attached, similarly the soul is not an accident of
the body (Mulla Sadra 1981: 139). He cannot admit the pre-existence of
particular human souls because that might open the way towards
metempsychosis which is a doctrine that he vehemently rejects in his
eschatology.


### 4.2 The Soul-Body relationship



The central feature of the soul-body relationship in Mulla Sadra is
expressed in the phrase that the soul is 'corporeal in its
origination and spiritual [or incorporeal] in its survival'
(*jismaniyyat al-huduth wa-ruhaniyyat al-baqa'*). In the
*Wisdom of the Throne*, he describes the birth of the soul and
its relationship to the body through its progression to the
afterlife:



> 
> The human soul has many stations and degrees from the beginning of its
> generation to the end of its goal and it has certain essential states
> and modes of existence. First, in its state of attachment to the body
> it is a corporeal substance; then it progresses gradually in intensity
> and develops through stages of its creation until it becomes
> self-subsistent and separates from this world to the next and returns
> to its Lord.
> 



It is corporeal in its origination but incorporeal in its survival.
The first thing to be generated in its state of attachment is a
corporeal faculty, then a natural form, then a sensing soul in its
levels, then the reflective and recollective, and finally the rational
soul. It acquires the practical and then the theoretical intellect to
the limit of being an actualised intellect and finally the Active
Intellect (Mulla Sadra 1981: 131-2).



The progress of the soul in this world is through the perfection of
intellect that is the life and prime faculty of the soul. Its
embodiment facilitates its acquisition of knowledge and the perfection
of its intellect but also acts as a cage of restraint. What we see in
this passage above is the progression of the soul-intellect through
the five stages of the perfection of the intellect described in
Avicenna. The soul begins as receptive potentially, then acquires the
habit of learning and intellecting until this is perfected; then it is
an acquired intellect properly trained. The next stage is the ability
of the soul to produce knowledge actively, by being an active
intellect; finally it acquires certainty through union with the Active
Intellect, a transcendent principle of perfect knowledge which we
discuss below. The distinction between the sphere of the intellect and
that of the body constitutes a type of dualism that is reflected in
Mulla Sadra's distinction between mental and extra-mental
existence. 


### 4.3 Mental Existence



For Mulla Sadra, the mind possesses an ontological realm that one
calls mental existence, a concept that is equivalent to
existence-knowledge (Rahman 1975: 215-20). He is a realist in the
sense that every thought must correspond to a real object even if it
is a Meinong object, that is, an unreal object of cognition. By
positing a realm of mental reality, he is a dualist. But the existence
of the mind and mental existence are not the same since the existence
of the mind is itself an extra-mental reality, while mental existence
is what refers to extra-mental existence. This is a subtle but
significant distinction. He clarifies this in response to an objection
that the existence of a thing cannot be analytically dissolved into
the mental and extra-mental (i.e. concrete) being of a thing.
Consequently, for Mulla Sadra, the 'hard problem' of
mind-body does not occur since the existence of the mind is
extra-mental existence. There are two primary modes of existence each
distinct and radically non-interchangeable: being *in re* and
mental existence.



> 
> The philosophers have agreed, in opposition to most of the speculative
> theologians that apart from this mode of existence, things have
> another mode of existence and manifestation that is similarly arranged
> and undergoes similar causation. [That mode] is called mental
> existence (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 313).
> 



Mental existence shares the same qualities, features and description
as extra-mental existence because it is merely another mode of
existence, a certain sense of the term. Just as extra-mental existence
is not ambiguous, neither is mental existence. It is homonymous and
modulated. Similarly mental existence is not a universal; we have seen
above the argument denying that the concept of existence is a
universal. The distinction between mental and extra-mental is rooted
in the Platonic distinction between sensible and intelligible being,
and in the Avicennan distinction between existence and essence in
contingents. It is precisely because of mental existence that humans
can conceive of entities that do not have any reference in
extra-mental reality. 


### 4.4 The Nature of Knowledge



Mulla Sadra inherited a variety of theories ranging from Platonic
recollection (*anamnesis*) and division to Peripatetic
syllogistics, definitions and axiomatic science. Broadly speaking, our
author recognises three different epistemological methods. The first
is a co-relational model of knowledge (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, III: 317).
In this model, knowledge is a relation between a subject and an object
that is devoid of cognitive content in itself and is not intrinsically
intelligible. It is a property of the knower and devoid of actual
process. Knowledge is dispositional. As such, this theory is marked by
radical internalism. This is a view associated with later mediaeval
theologians (especially Fakhr al-Din Razi) and rejected. It is
unacceptable to Mulla Sadra precisely because it is predicated upon a
denial of mental being. According to this model, knowledge is negative
insofar as it is solipsistic (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, III: 318).



The second model is the correspondence or representation theory of
knowledge by apprehension (*al-'ilm al-husuli
al-irtisami*). 'I know that *P*' means that
there is an external object *P* that corresponds to an internal
concept *P*. The mind is thus the 'mirror of
nature'. It judges a relationship between the extra-mental
object and the mental picture of it as described in
Wittgenstein's picture theory. The inadequacies of this model
are clear. It fails to account for conceivables that do not exist.
Knowledge is the correspondence between the object and the subject,
and mediated. It presupposes the existence of independent extra-mental
entities 'out there' and is strongly dualistic. The mind
abstracts the form from the matter of the thing and represents it. As
such it is a negative fact. One can only grasp the form in the mind
since the essences of things are not available to us. But Mulla Sadra
argues that the consequent is clearly false, so the antecedent is as
well (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, III: 316). They are available to us
insofar as they exist and are present to us. Knowledge is not an
abstraction. The accidental material forms of intelligibles thus
grasped are not the true objects of knowledge; those are the pure
intelligibles experienced directly (Ha'iri Yazdi 1992: 35). This
Peripatetic doctrine is rejected. It is quite wrong to assume in this
model that perception is so mediated that it requires an interface
between the mind and external objects (often called *qualia*).
This model does not actually yield the reality of the thing, though it
does seek the essence of things. Mulla Sadra quotes Avicenna (from
*al-Ta'liqat*, Avicenna 1973: 34).



> 
> The realities of things are not available to the human; we only know
> the specific attributes, the concomitant attributes and the accidents
> of things, and we do not know the differentiae that are constituents
> of everything, one of which indicates its reality. Rather, we know
> that there are things that have specific attributes and accidents
> (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 461).
> 



It remains the case that Mulla Sadra accepts a correspondence theory
of knowledge though it is not his preferred option for arriving at
indubitable knowledge.



However, these models are insufficient and do not yield certainty,
which is only available through the third model of knowledge by
presence.



> 
> Being can only be known by visionary presential knowledge
> (*al-'ilm al-huduri al-shuhudi*), and the inner-reality
> of light can only be perceived by an immediate illuminative
> correlation (*al-idafa al-ishraqiyya*) and actual presence
> (*al-hudur al-'ayni*). If something is known by formal
> knowledge, it changes the reality of it (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I:
> 489).
> 



This formulation draws heavily upon Suhrawardi's earlier
exposition of presential knowledge (e.g. Suhrawardi 1998: 79-81)
but with the distinction that Mulla Sadra explicitly refers to reality
in terms of existence whereas for Suhrawardi existence is an empty
concept. Knowledge by presence extends the identity thesis posited in
the ancient tradition to entities beyond the divine and the pure
intellects and in effect reverses the process of making sense of human
knowledge that one finds in knowledge by representation. That latter
projects this model of human knowledge onto the divine and hence
cannot fathom how God might know particulars in their particularity.
Whereas knowledge by presence extends the nature of divine knowledge
to the human and resolves the problem of God's knowledge of
particulars by insisting upon the unitive nature of that
knowledge.


### 4.5 Identity of the Intellect and what is intellected



Critical to presential knowledge is the Porphyrian doctrine of the
unity of the intellect, the intellecting subject and its intelligible
object. Pure self-knowledge for Plotinus depends on union with the
divine intellect that self-intellects. Such a noetic experience is
non-discursive.



Avicenna strongly criticises this doctrine (Avicenna 1996, III:
292-93; Avicenna 1959: 239-40). One thing cannot become
another substantially, nor can a rational soul unite with the Active
Intellect which is indivisible. The human intellect cannot be united
with *intelligibilia*. Rather one knows things by conjunction
(*ittisal*) not union (*ittihad*) with the Active
Intellect from whence one grasps the universals of things immanent in
it. The soul receives the forms from the Active intellect but remains
unchanged itself. The forms inhere in the soul-intellect through the
material intellect. Avicenna criticises Porphyry for popularising the
fallacy of union and change. But in doing so Avicenna marks a sharp
distinction between God's knowledge and human knowledge.
According to Mulla Sadra, one cannot hold such a view about
God's knowledge because it violates both His unity and the fact
of His knowledge of particulars.



Mulla Sadra's criticism of Avicenna is predicated upon two
central doctrines of his that are intimately linked to the hermeneutic
of modulation. First, the primacy (and modulation) of existence proves
this union.



> 
> Existence in everything is foundational...It is the principle of
> individuality (*mabda' al-shakhsiyya*) and the source of
> the essence of the thing. Existence can become more intense and become
> weaker, it can become more perfect and it can become imperfect, yet
> the individual remains who he is (*al-shakhs huwa huwa*). Do
> you not see that the human from his beginning as a foetus to the end
> of his being intellects and is intellected while his contexts and
> situations change yet the mode of his existence and his individuality
> remain constant (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, III: 351).
> 



Second, the doctrine of (trans-)substantial motion defends union. The
soul is in motion as 'pure act' (*fi'liyya*).
Further, union is not a substantial or even conceptual one but an
epistemic and referential union in which the components 'become
one existent insofar as a single intelligible notion refers to
it.' The ultimate nature of knowledge, like existence, does not
distinguish strictly between the divine and human. Multiplicity in the
intellect does not entail multiplicity in God because these
*intelligibilia* are correlated as 'illuminative
relations'. Being-intellecting and being-intellected are
correlatives that cannot exist independently.



The simple intellect (that is God) knows all things since all things
are present in it and it is the ultimate referent for all concepts.
This is the 'internality thesis', that all intelligibilia
are internal to intellect and the objects of sense perception are
external. Our philosopher strongly criticises Avicenna for holding the
concept of the simple intellect (which for Avicenna is simple
cognition that is non-discursive and without recourse to forms) whilst
denying the union of the intellecting subject and its object.
Furthermore, for the Peripatetic tradition, the human intellect in
this life cannot attain the level of the pure simple intellect. Mulla
Sadra refutes this:



> 
> If the simple intellect (*al-'aql al-basit*) (which he
> believes exists in the human species and in separable substances) is
> not [all] *intelligibilia*, then how can souls benefit from
> what does not occur in them? How can souls move from potentiality to
> actuality from what is not in them? (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, III:
> 405)
> 



The mode of the existence of things in this simple intellect is known
as 'the thing (or fact) itself' (*nafs al-amr*) or
the immanent object. This simple and higher intellect is not
abstracted but contains all lower and complex forms and degrees of
existence. It is in this sense that this *nous* is a
'unity-in-plurality'. It is also the Aristotelian active
intellect of *De Anima* III.5.



But how does one safeguard individuality and the ontological
distinction of man and God? The solution is through the concept of
intelligibility and forms. All *intelligibilia* and forms exist
in the simple/active intellect *in potentia*, but their
actualisations are individual existents extrinsic to the intellect.
The Active intellect is thus the referent for the predication of
*intelligibilia*. This union does not dissolve the individual
existence of intellects.



> 
> The intellect is all things intelligible. This does not mean that it
> is all those things in their extra-mental individual modes of
> existence collected together as this is impossible. Rather it means
> that all essences that exist in extra-mental reality through many
> different existences exist in the intellect through multiple
> intelligible existences in a singular intelligible existence that in
> its unity and simplicity is all those meanings (Mulla Sadra
> 2001-5, III: 365).
> 



True knowledge resides therefore in uniting with the Active Intellect.
Distinction within this realm is by modulation, by varying motion and
lights upon lights in order of nobility. In this model of knowledge,
there is pure self-reflexivity, no *doxa* about forms and no
*episteme* about *sensibilia*. It is a form of
infallibilism. One cannot mistake state *A* for state
*B* since one must first cognise state *A*. But is this
form of knowledge useful and does it communicate? Or it is merely
ineffable like so many beliefs and feelings that are important to the
way we live our lives. In the simple intellect one knows things at
once. Thus for a proposition *A*, we do not know *S*
first and then *P* but both simultaneously. But the content of
the simple intellect unlike Avicenna's account is not different
to the discursive dianoic intellect. *S* and *P* are
contents of *A* whether one knows *A* simply or
discursively. This deals with one of the famous objections to
non-propositional thought in Plotinus, that of entailing
non-complexity. What is required is an adequate metalanguage of such
experience since one can and does talk about such knowledge. One can
forge a linguistic discipline to discuss it but the presential
knowledge involved is not informational and cannot be grounds for
public knowledge but indicators for initiates. The immediacy,
infallibility and successful cognition of presential knowledge
privileges it over other epistemological models.


## 5. Eschatology



For Mulla Sadra, the eschaton is merely a new mode or renewal of
existence in a different level of manifestation and as such remains
very much within the remit of metaphysics. The very discussion of
eschatology within philosophy is significant. In the famous attack by
al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in his *Incoherence of the Philosophers*,
thinkers such as Avicenna were condemned for heresy for their failure
to demonstrate the supposed Qur'anic account of physical
resurrection and the reality of the afterlife. One of the features of
Mulla Sadra's philosophy is to extend the remit of philosophy to
cover issues on which the likes of Avicenna felt one needed to be
silent. Therefore, Mulla Sadra set himself the tasks of proving
physical resurrection, spending much time discussing what was meant by
the resurrection body (and indeed the body of the afterlife), the
refutation of metempsychosis and affirming the reality of the
afterlife. His notion of existence as a constantly dynamic process of
becoming and unfolding that remains a singular reality and process
allows him to incorporate this world of generation and corruption and
annex it to the higher plane of resurrection and finally the existence
of the afterlife.


### 5.1 The Eleven Principles



The holism of Mulla Sadra's approach may be seen in his
examination of eschatology. One of the key points of contention in
mediaeval Islamic thought concerned the possibility of metempsychosis,
an idea that had permeated through the Neo-pythagoreanising
Neoplatonism of Late Antiquity into Islam. Previous Islamic
philosophers had even demonstrated some sympathy with the idea. But
Mulla Sadra, consistent with the tradition of Avicenna, rejected the
notion as inimical to his vision of the nature of the soul, its
pre-existence, its faculties and its afterlife. Before criticising
metempsychosis, Mulla Sadra argued that a proper understanding of the
principles of his philosophical method will make clear his objection
to the idea. In a number of works, he sets out eleven principles of
his method that show the relevance of metaphysics to psychology and
eschatology. In the relevant section of the *Four Journeys*,
Mulla Sadra (2001-5, IX: 261-72) describes these eleven
principles:



First, existence is a foundational principle and essence is an
accidental property that pertains specifically to an existent.
Significantly, this also means that existence is not merely a concept
that one ascribes to a property that pertains to essences that we
analyse in extra-mental reality.



Second, and concomitantly, existence is the principle of
individuation, not essence. This amounts to saying the existence is
the prime determinant of identity and the bundled structure for
various properties that pertain to an identity over time.



Third, it is in the nature of existence that it is singular but graded
and modulated. It undergoes intensification and debilitation. The
different essences that attach to existence in the mind are
differentiated by species, genus and accident.



Fourth, and concomitantly, because existence undergoes
intensification, substances that are manifestations of existence are
constantly in flux and undergo motion.



Fifth, and related point, every composite essence is defined and
identified by its form and not by its matter, because hylomorphism
affirms that form is the active principle and matter the passive.



Sixth, following from the earlier point about identity, the identity
of every single person is defined by its existence and this applies to
heavenly bodies as well.



Seventh, the identity of the body is determined by its soul and not by
its materiality. Human identity remains constant through the
eternality of the soul from its form in the womb to childhood through
to old age and into the grave and beyond into the world of the
afterlife.



Eighth, the imaginative faculty (which in Mulla Sadra's
epistemology following Avicenna is critical for the production of new
knowledge) is an immaterial property that does not inhere in a
particular part of the brain but rather transcends the body and hence
(in Platonic terms) can unite with like immaterial intelligible in the
higher noetic world.



Ninth, imaginative forms are produced by the soul and are not merely
states in which the soul finds itself, that is, they are not passively
received.



Tenth, corporeal and other physical forms became actualised through
matter receiving dispositions and states.



Eleventh and final point, existence is graded and has three primary
planes (defined again in Platonic terms): the world of material and
sensible forms, the world of immaterial forms, and the world of
intelligible forms. Humans, for example, retain the same existence and
identity across these three planes of being hence denying the need for
metempsychosis. Metaphysics therefore determines one's view of
eschatology and the afterlife and provides the principles for
understanding one's origins, present states and the future.


### 5.2 Eschatology as Completion of Metaphysics



The future is also the culmination and the perfection of the present.
Existence is in motion towards perfection. The existence of a thing is
associated with its perfected form in the future. In this sense, the
afterlife is merely a relative concept. As we have seen, it is the
intellect and the faculty of imagination that are the distinguishing
features that constitute individual survival. Contrary to most
philosophers before him, matter is not the principle of individuation
and therefore individual identity and personhood can exist divorced
from matter, and the soul is immaterial, as are the bodies of the
afterlife (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, IX: 311).



One's existence is a process of reversion to the One, an
unfolding of becoming that progresses from our corporeal incipience
with the body through the perfection of the soul that gradually
jettisons the physical body of this world in search of the beatitude
and ecstasy of the intelligible world and of the afterlife (Mulla
Sadra 2001-5, IX: 164). The existence of the afterlife is more
subtle, more perfect and closer to the One. The pleasures and pains of
the afterlife that are scripturally discussed are primarily spiritual
and intelligible although they retain an attachment to a body, unlike
the body of this world, one which is devoid of matter (Mulla Sadra
2001-5, IX: 165-6).



Matter is inert and pure potentiality and, since the existence of the
afterlife is free from potentiality and baseness, the body of the
afterlife cannot be material. It is an image of the body that a
particular identity possessed. Mulla Sadra was keen to insist upon the
Qur'anic account of bodily resurrection but he recognised that
it was difficult to provide a philosophical account of the
resurrection of this world's physical body. Hence his solution
is to argue that humans have different bodies corresponding to
different levels of existence, in itself an application of substantial
motion. Corporeal existence is not eternal but mortal (Mulla Sadra
2001-5, IX: 167). Bodies in this world exist through sensible
forms; but the existence of the afterlife involves spiritual bodies
attached to intelligible forms (Jambet 2006: 394-6). A corollary
of his position on the survival of the soul-intellect in the afterlife
through its perfection is the recognition that some intellects that
remain potential and un-actualised have no afterlife. They are
prevented from sharing in the happiness of the afterlife because the
existence of the afterlife has no place for the absence of active
intellect and potentiality (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, IX:
183-8). The account that he gives of the afterlife for the body
is simple. The soul has creative power that stems from its direct
relationship with the creative power of God and after the death of the
body, it does not lose that power, nor does it lose its memory.
Rather, it produces a body of sorts from the memory of its prior
embodiment and its mutual growth from its corporeal inception. The key
issue was whether that body which the soul provides in the afterlife,
animated by the creative power of the divine, constitutes the bodily
resurrection of scripture.



Mulla Sadra, wishing to save the appearance of the Qur'anic
account, asserts that scripture does not define the nature of the body
that is resurrected. The body of this world has physicality,
corporeality, volume and so forth and significantly is finite. The
body of the afterlife is 'born of the (perfected) soul'
and still retains the property of being a body but unlike one with
which we are familiar (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, IX, 279-80).
The second birth of the human is this new body and soul of the
afterlife: he tries to settle his argument with a quotation from
Jesus: 'One who is not born twice will never reach the heavens
of the afterlife' (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, IX: 302).


## 6. Legacy and the school of Mulla Sadra



Mulla Sadra has become the dominant philosopher of the Islamic East
and his approach to the nature of philosophy has been exceptionally
influential. His real achievement apart from his doctrinal
propositions was to effect a culmination of a tendency within the
philosophical schools of the post-Avicennan period, namely to
synthesize and reconcile reason and intuition, faith and rational
inquiry, philosophy and mysticism within a largely late Neoplatonic
paradigm of doing philosophy. Philosophy is thus a practice and a way
of life in which reflection, reading, and learning are always
complemented by spiritual practices and exercises. One cannot become a
sage purely on the basis on one's own intellectual efforts, nor
can one truly understand the nature of reality as an illiterate
ascetic reliant solely on mystical intuition. In this way, Mulla
Sadra, in a manner representative of a number of Muslim thinkers
insistent upon the median way of their faith, represents a mean
between 'excessive' ratiocination and the unfettered
claims of pure experience made by mystics.



His influence on philosophical practice and learning is evident. His
commentary on the peripatetic work *al-Hidaya* (The Guidance)
of Athir al-Din Abhari (d. 662 AH/1264) became the cornerstone of the
rationalist curriculum of the Indian madrasa from the 18th century. In
Iran, the study of Islamic philosophy takes its cue from the study and
commentary on his major works at least from the nineteenth century.
The revival of Islamic philosophy in Isfahan ushered in by 'Ali
Nuri (d. 1251 AH/1836) and later Hadi Sabzavari (d. 1289 AH/1873),
described as the 'last great Islamic philosopher,'
established Mulla Sadra as the ultimate philosopher, whose thought and
arguments 'transcended' discursive Peripatetic philosophy
and also intuitive and allusive mystical arguments and discourse, in
favour of a higher synthesis that combined ratiocinative arguments
with mystical insight, complete syllogistic demonstrations with
narrative, allusion, and allegory. In more recent times, some of the
key thinkers involved in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, such as
Ayatollah Khomeini and Mortaza Motahhari, were profoundly influenced
by the thought of Mulla Sadra, and some have even attempted to
appropriate Mulla Sadra as the 'philosopher of the
Revolution' despite the distinct lack of an engagement with
political philosophy in his work. The contemporary generation of
seminary trained philosophers in Iran including the prayer leader of
Qum, Ayatullah 'Abdullah Javadi Amuli (who has a useful twenty
volume commentary on the *Four Journeys*), are all students of
the late 'Allama Tabataba'i (d. 1981) who wrote an
influential set of glosses on the work of Mulla Sadra. His school
dominates the Shi'i seminary in Iran.



However, there are other philosophical trends in the contemporary
period that are quite critical of Mulla Sadra's approach and
metaphysics. It took some time for Mulla Sadra to become dominant. The
Avicennan tradition remained strong throughout the Safavid period and
beyond with his own student and son-in-law 'Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji
defending Avicennan forms of essentialism, and later father and son
philosophers Husayn (d. 1098/1687) and Jamal Khwansari (d. 1125/1714)
criticising Mulla Sadra's concept of mental existence and the
modulation of being, explicitly rejecting his positions in their
commentaries on the *Cure* of Avicenna. This Avicennan critique
of Mulla Sadra remained into the 18th and 19th centuries. Mahdi Naraqi
(d. 1794) was a prolific glossator on Avicenna and critiqued the
'mysticising' approach of Mulla Sadra to metaphysics. 



Others such as Mirza Abu-l-Hasan Jilveh (d. 1896) and his students
continued to defend an ontology of substances and metaphysical
pluralism, while monists such as Muhammad Riza Qumshihi (d. 1888) were
equally dissatisfied with Mulla Sadra's attempt to reconcile
monism and pluralism. The Shaykhi school established by Shaykh Ahmad
al-Ahsa'i (d. 1826) took issue with the ontological commitments
of Mulla Sadra's semantics of being. A more recent tendency, the
so-called school of the separation of the religious and secular
sciences (*maktab-i tafkik*), accuse Mulla Sadra of conflating
the faith and the study of scripture with 'Greek science'
and of violating the literal sense of scriptural verses in pursuit of
his philosophical agenda; they argue that Mulla Sadra does not
represent an 'authentic', scripturalist philosophy.



The modern reception of Mulla Sadra is similar to other great thinkers
of the past and one can discern at least four types of scholars who
engage in his thought. First, there are the traditional Shi'i
seminarians who consider themselves to be disciples of Mulla Sadra and
hence continuing a scholastic tradition that goes back to the 17th
century. They do not engage his thought critically, nor do they take
later critiques of him seriously. We might call them the
traditionalists. Second, we find thinkers influenced by analytic
philosophy who wish to champion his thought and who attempt to
reformulate his ideas in terms that would be comprehensible to
philosophers from the Anglo-American analytic tradition. In that
sense, they treat Mulla Sadra similarly to Kant or Locke or Aristotle.
We might call them the analyticisers. Third, we have those who insist
that Mulla Sadra's true inclinations were mystical and that
instead of attempting to open a dialogue with analytic philosophy, one
might find some common ground with continental philosophers but more
fruitfully with those interested in mysticism and the occult. We might
call them the theosophers. Finally, we have scholars engaged with
Mulla Sadra in order to develop their own pride in the achievements of
their Iranian heritage and consider him to be the greatest
intellectual contribution of Iran. We might call them the nativists.
These types are not mutually exclusive. But what is clear is the many
ways in which the legacy of Mulla Sadra is contested and used in the
contemporary world. It would be a greater achievement if they took his
rejection of adhering to authority more seriously and embraced his
idea of the need to rethink and reanalyse philosophical problems
freshly for themselves. That would be a fitting legacy for Mulla Sadra
in a critical, contemporary age.