INTRODUCTION
A. Mulla Sadra and the Character of His Philosophy
Factual information about the life of Mulla Sadra is extremely scarce. He was born in Shiraz to a certain Ibrahim ibn Yahya at an unnamed date, came to Isfahan at a young age, and studied with the theologian Baha' al-Din al- Àmili (d. 1031 A.H./1622 A.C.) and to an extent with the Peripatetic philosopher Mir Fendereski (d. 1050 A.H./1641 A.C.), but his principal teacher was the philosopher-theologian Muhammad known as Mir Damad (d. 1041 A.H./1631 A.C.). Mir Damad appears certainly to have been a thinker of eminence and originality, but there is no modern scholarly study of him as yet. It seems that when our philosopher (named Muhammad, titled Sadr al-Din, and generally known as Mulla Sadra or simply Sadra) appeared, philosophy, as it was generally taught, was the Peripatetic-neo-Platonic tradition of Ibn Sina and his followers. During the 6th/12th century, al-Suhrawardi had criticized some of the basic doctrines of Peripatetism and laid the foundations of the mystic Philosophy of Illumination(Hikmat al-Ishraq)
which subsequently found several followers. In the Peripatetic tradition itself, the important thirteenth century philosopher, scientist, and Shiìte theologian Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was influenced by certain views of the Illuminationist philosopher, although the exact extent and nature of this influence still needs to be closely determined. These Illuminationist injections into the Peripatetic tradition chiefly concern the Ishraqi attack on Ibn Sina's conception of God's knowledge as forms or accidents inhering in God's mind but later grew in other directions as well - the most important being the view that existence is an unreal mental concept to which nothing corresponds in external reality. Mir Damad himself, for example, held the latter doctrine. For the rest, however, there is little evidence of the existence of any important Ishraqi school of thought at the time of the appearance of Mulla Sadra. Nor is there any palpable evidence for the existence of a scholarly Staff tradition immediately before Mulla Sadra, although certain Sufi claims and clichés had become common due to the infusion of Sufi ideas into philosophy and, even more importantly, due to the permeation of Sufi terminology into poetry; the Shiì orthodoxy had shown itself to be unsympathetic to Sufism, an attitude which, by and large, has continued to modern times.
In this background grew Mulla Sadra's peculiar system of thought which he seems to have evolved as something quite distinct from the intellectual and spiritual situation of his times. His devotion to religion is partly brought out (apart from his numerous works on religion, of which we shall speak briefly below) by the fact that he is said to have died in 1050 A.H./1641 A.C. (the year of Mir Fendereski's death) at Basra, while going to the pilgrimage to Mecca or returning therefrom for the seventh time. His life-span is estimated at being seventy or seventy-one lunar years.
While little is known about his external biography, we know something more about his intellectual and spiritual life thanks, mainly, to his autobiographical note prefaced to his magnum opus, al-Asfar al-Arbaà. Sadra tells us that from the beginning of his career as a student, he was deeply interested in theosophy or philosophical theology and that he applied himself keenly to a study of the basic problems and fundamental issues in the field as expounded by the masters of the past, unlike most other students who, in order to gain vainglorious fame, devoted themselves to the hairsplitting details found in later learned books which offered little insight into real problems.
Our philosopher, having learned the wisdom of past philosophical traditions - the Peripatetic and the Illuminationist - wished to write a comprehensive work combining the wisdom of earlier masters with his own intellectual insights.
But this noble objective was thwarted by an intense opposition - indeed, persecution - by those religious men who showed the characteristic stolidity of traditionalism and unmitigated externalism in religion and who regarded any deviation from popular religious beliefs as pure heresy and dangerous innovation.
Sadra gives us no information as to what precisely the questions were on which opposition to his views centered, but the short biographical note in the new edition of al-Asfar by Muhammad Rida al-Muzaffar (dated 1387 A.H./1958 A.C.), states that Sadra had expressed himself in a treatise, Tarh al-Kaunain, in support of a pantheistic doctrine of existence(wahdat al-wujud)
which led to a severe criticism of him by the orthodox Shià 'ulama'.
Sadra himself tells us both in al-Asfar and al-Mashaìr that in his early philosophical career he had held that essence was the primary reality, while existence was a merely derivative or “mental” phenomenon - like al-Suhrawardi and his followers including Sadra's teacher Mir Damad - and that it was later on that the primacy of existence dawned upon him.
But probably there was more to this opposition than the doctrine of the unity or pantheism of existence. The fact that many orthodox still frown upon Sadra's philosophy is shown by the apology offered by the publisher of the recent edition of al-Asfar, Rida Lutfi. After stating that works like Mulla Sadra's are not free from controversy and that the efforts of all great Muslim philosophers to harmonize religion with philosophy “are mere intellectual attempts and personal views, having nothing to do with the essence of religion,”
Lutfi goes on to say that the present edition of al-Asfar is therefore being offered not “as a religious or Islamic source” but represents an effort to preserve an encyclopaediac philosophical work.
Be that as it may, Sadra says that having been left with two alternatives - either to wage an offensive or to retire from the scene - he, following Imam 'Ali,chose the second path
and resorted to seclusion in “a certain place in the land.”
Some say that he went to an isolated place in a mountain, possibly near Qum, where he is said to have stayed for as long as fifteen years.
Our philosopher began his seclusion with an acute sense of disillusionment with the world, its wayward behavior, and particularly with the extrinsic motivations of worldly glory and power common to scholars; and an awareness that he himself had gravely erred in having practically followed the same path and having relied on his own intellectual powers rather than submitting himself humbly to God's will and power with a sincere and pure heart.
His new posture was, therefore, one of prayer and utter resignation to God, with all his being.
Rather than operate by the superficialities and artfulness of logical reasoning, he contemplated deeply and sincerely the fundamental problems of God, being, and the universe and “gave himself up” to an intuitive invasion “from without.”
This intense contemplation was accompanied by strenuous religious exercises.
As a result, his mind was indeed flooded with insights: not only did he rediscover what he had previously learned through rational proofs in a new, direct, intuitive way, but many fresh truths dawned upon him, which he had not even dreamed of before.
This experience infused an altogether new life into him. If he had gone into retirement totally disillusioned and broken-hearted, he now obtained renewed courage and vigor which drove him out of that seclusion and compelled him to write the work, al-Asfar al-Arbaà.
This account, given by Sadra himself, requires interpretative elucidation of the exact nature of what transpired in his seclusion and the transformation he experienced. As we have seen, the training of Sadra had been that of a philosopher (this does not deny that he had also learnt orthodox disciplines like Hadith, Tafsir, and Kalam) before he went into seclusion, partly because of persecution but largely because he was unsure of the philosophical truths whose purely rational method he regarded as superficial and extrinsic. He was, therefore, in search of a method that would give him certainty and would transform merely rational propositions into experienced truths. In his “confession” stated above, he makes precisely this point. This situation closely parallels that of al-Ghazali, except that in al-Ghazali's case, what was primarily to be transformed into living truth was orthodox Sunni Kalampropositions, whereas for our philosopher it was the rational philosophic propositions that needed to be so transformed and ''lived through.” Neither in the first case nor in the latter is Sufism a source of a new genre of knowledge, but an experience or intuitive certainty: the cognitive content of this philosophy and this Sufism is identical, but the quality is different. This difference in quality is not a small matter, since, as Sadra repeatedly tells us, the nature of existence and its uniqueness, for example, can be only experienced; the moment you conceptualize it, it ceases to be existence and becomes an essence. Yet, Sadra has employed numerous and extensive rational arguments to prove this. Tills shows that for him, mystic truth is essentially intellectual truth and mystic experience is a cognitive experience, but this intellectual truth and this cognitive content have to be “lived through” to be fully realized; if they are only intellectually entertained as rational propositions, they lose their essential character - not as cognitions but as verities. There is an obvious and close analogy between this position and that of Plotinus, whose pseudo- Theologia Aristotelis is regarded by Sadra as the highest expression of gnostic or spiritual philosophy. But whereas Plotinus makes specific claims to visions of the Intelligible Realm “lifted out of my body,” Sadra makes these claims only in general terms. Again, Plotinus also provided extensive philosophic proofs for the existence of the Intelligible Realm, like Sadra. In more recent times,
Bergson told us that “pure duration” is an experience and may not be merely rationally understood; yet Bergsou provided extensive intellectual proofs for this, which constitutes his philosophy.
The point we wish to make here is that Sadra is a philosopher of the genre, say, of Bergson, since the content of his experience as well as of his thought is the same and is cognitive in character. Experience or intuition is needed not to produce new thought-content but to bestow on this thought-content a quality of personal experience. This is very different from those Sufis who deny intellectual content to their experience, which they declare to be ineffable. These Sufis, rather than dealing with philosophic or intellectual propositions, devote themselves to a purely experiential spiritual itinerary, divided into a hierarchical chart of “stations”(maqamat)
and their concomitant spiritual “states(ahwal)
,” ending up in an ethico-ecstatic ideal. There is no trace of this in Sadra's thought and there he differs fundamentally from al-Ghazali. Hence his model becomes - presumably since his experieuces in his seclusion – Ibn 'Arabi who. although he often uses Sufi terminology, is a theosoph with a cognitive content through and through.
Under the root of this over-arching model which has profoundly influenced Sadra's ontology, psychology, and eschatology, all the thought currents of Islam are brought anti synthesized - Kalam, philosophy, Illuminationism.
We have somewhat dilated upon this point because several contemporary scholars of Sadra seem to insist that, according to Sadra or even for understanding his thoughts, Sufism is needed besides philosophy, as though Sufism was an independent cognitive avenue to truth, indeed, over and above philosophy. This is simply not true. What Sadra claims to have performed and he also strongly advocates is sincerity of purpose(khulus)
, single-minded devotion(tawajjuh gharizi)
and light of faith(nur al-iman)
in philosophic activity, which alone will result in intuitive certainty and direct appropriation of objective philosophic truth. This is what is meant by wisdom(hikma)
.
Extrinsically motivated thought will be sterile philosophy, since extrinsic considerations - of gaining worldly power and fame - will detract from true philosophic pursuit. He denounces Ibn Sina for pursuing medicine and a professional career while God had given him the capacity for the highest art - philosophy: the result was a truncated philosophy full of doubts and uncertainties.
But this is true of every pursuit: if a scientist spends time in horse-racing and other hobbies at the expense of his work, his scientific work will be truncated. For Sadra, this is most true of philosophy, the crown of all knowledge, since it is knowledge of God and man's destiny. This, however, is a far cry from saying that one should be a Sufi in order to be a philosopher and Sadra gives no hint anywhere of his Sufism, except in the sense of theosophy, which he calls màrifa or 'irfan - after Ibn 'Arabi's model. But whereas Ibn 'Arabi's method of writing is not philosophical - he works by analogies and images rather than rational proofs, Sadra's method is out-and-out rational and philosophical. Indeed, just as Sadra condemns philosophy without intuitive experience, so he denounces pure Sufism without philosophic training and pursuit.
When Sadra talks about experience, he is not talking about what is generally called Sufi or mystic experience at all, but about an intuitive apprehension of truth or rational experience(marsad 'aqli or musbahada 'aqliya)
. This he opuses to pure ratiocination, and particularly to superficial logical reasoning and rational disputation(bahth nazari or jadal 'ilmi')
. He insists that when something has been known repeatedly by direct perception or intuitive experience, it cannot be disputed by purely logical reasoning and such superficial disputationism is, for him, no more than verbal quibbles and noise. Particularly on two issues are such statements made by Sadra. The first is the question of the reality of Platonic Forms which, we are told, have been proved by repeated experiences of different men. There may be differences of opinion and interpretation about the nature of these Forms but there can be no doubt about their existence.
The second important occasion on which he explicitly states this principle is when he seeks to bring the Muslim Peripatetic doctrine of transcendental Intelligences under the impact of Ibn 'Arabi's ontology, transforms them into positive Attributes of God (which Muslim Peripatetics deny) and declares their content to be the Platonic Forms (see below Part I, Chapter Iv). In effecting this radical change in the Peripatetic tradition, Sadra says: Beware of imagining by your perverted intelligence that the objectives of these great gnostics (i.e., like Ibn 'Arabi) - are devoid of demonstrative force and are mere conjectural frivolities and poetic images. Far it be from this: The (apparent) non-conformity of their statements with correct demonstrative proofs and principles... is due to the shortsightedness of the philosophers who study them and their lack of proper awareness and comprehension of those demonstrative principles; otherwise the status of their experience is far greater than that of formal proofs in yielding certainty. Demonstration, indeed, is the way of direct access and perception in those things which have a cause, since... on the principles of these very philosophers things which have causes can be known with certainty only through their causes. This being the case, how can demonstration and direct perception contradict each other? Those Sufis who have uttered (in the defence of experiences of men like Ibn 'Arabi) words like 'If you disprove them by arguments, they have disproved you by their experience' are actually saying, 'if you disprove them by your so-called arguments...' Otherwise, correct rational proofs cannot contradict intuitive experience.
This forceful statement is most explicit that the intuitive experience Sadra. has in mind, far from denying reason, is a higher form of reason, a more positive and constructive form, than formal reasoning. But Sadra also fully confesses that even experiential or intuitive truth cannot claim to be “The Truth.” All experiences of reality are partial and even though they are characterized by certainty, the search for truth is endless since reality is endless: “For Truth cannot be confined to any single (man's) intelligence and cannot be measured by any single mind.”
Again, “Nor do I, indeed, claim that I have said the final word in what I have said - not at all! This is because the ways of understanding are not restricted to what I have understood... for truth is far too great for any single mind to comprehend.”
It is in tiffs connection that Sadra avers that in the Asfar he has not been content to give his own philosophic views, but has stated in detail the views of earlier philosophers, has analyzed and criticized them and then reached his own conclusions. Indeed, what makes Asfar so highly interesting for a student is this procedure followed by Sadra which has bestowed upon this work a richness rarely matched by any other work except the Shifa' of Ibn Sina. Now, Sadra tells us that he has followed this procedure to “whet the appetite and sharpen the mind” of the student.
This in itself is proof enough that, by the same token, Mulla Sadra could not have regarded his views, however original, to be the final and absolute truth. What his philosophic genius fundamentally sought was both truth and originality and this is what makes him a genuine philosopher.
B. Sadra's Sources and His Originality
1. General
This brings us to the question of the source of Mulla Sadra's doctrines and the assessment of his originality which, in various contexts, he proclaims loudly and unreservedly. He does it particularly and recurrently when he expounds his doctrine of the sole reality of existence (as opposed to essences), of motion-in-substance, and of the identity of the subject and object of knowledge on the basis of his doctrine of existence. Mulla Sadra had his critics in his own time, but later he was charged by some critics with having “stolen” the views of others and given them out in his own name. Particularly since Mirza Abu'l-Hasan Jilwa (d. 1312 A.H./1894 A.C.), a series of “Sadra debunkers” have tried to prove that all of Sadra's ideas were either borrowed or stolen. It appears that this trend parallels the opposite and stronger trend - since 'Ali Nuri (d. 1246 A.H./1831 A.C.) - of an ever increasing number of his students, commentators, and admirers. Some of these latter also hold extreme views, and think that Sadra represents the “truest'' of all philosophy and the apogee of all Islamic philosophic thought.
Indeed, lately Sadra has come to occupy a focal point of interest for many intellectuals in Persia, for some of whom our philosopher has become the greatest symbol of Persian intellectual nationalism.
That this spirit is diametrically opposed to Sadra's own teaching is manifest enough, but it is basically a kind of symptomatic protest at the relative neglect, on the part of modern Western scholarship, of post-al-Ghazali Islamic philosophy in the East, which - whether Sunni or Shi'i - occurred mainly in Iran.
While - partisan controversialism apart - the question of Sadra's originality can only be fully settled after a comprehensive history of post-al-Ghazali Islamic philosophy is written, the claims that Sadra took over earlier doctrines whose sources he did not disclose must be summarily dismissed. This is because in the pages of his vast work, the Asfar, he has named the sources from whom he has quoted and either rejected or supported them. It is unthinkable that he should have had access to sources whom he considered important and yet chose not to reveal them.
This attitude also goes against the very grain of stern demands for sincerity, discounting of worldly importance, and fame, etc. that he makes on all would-be genuine students of philosophy. More important is the following consideration. Although Sadra, claims absolute originality in some of his fundamental doctrines, as indicated here, he is at times acutely aware that these doctrines will be branded as “novel” and rejected by the followers of traditional philosophy. He, therefore, makes strenuous and, indeed, often fruitless efforts - as we have pointed out in the body of the book on the discussions of existence and substantive movement - to draw support from the authorities of Ibn Sina or the pseudo-Theologia Aristotelis or the “Pahlavi Sages” to justify his stance. In doing so, Sadra is in line with those ancient and medieval writers who attributed their opinions to earlier and more accepted authorities. These two positions, claims to originality on the one baud (although he usually claims originality only within Islamic times) and attribution of his ideas to earlier authorities, are apparently contradictory. What is true - and also what probably Sadra wants to say - is that the inspiration for his doctrines on which he claims originality came from certain passages in these earlier writers, which he alone has been able to see in this new light.
Anybody who peruses the Afsar is struck by the hypercritical spirit displayed therein. Not infrequently does Sadra reject all tile alternative solutions to a problem given by earlier thinkers and finally give his own solution which is identically, or almost, the same as one of those alternatives. This is the case, for example, when he rejects, in the discussion of eschatology, the solutions of al-Ghazali ; and yet his own solution is hardly distinguishable from the one offered by al-Ghazali on physical resurrection being of the order of an image-body. Al-Ghazali, indeed, is the first Muslim thinker, so far as I know, who pioneered this line of thought on bodily resurrection - influenced undoubtedly by certain remarks of Ibn Sina - out of which grew the idea of a World of Images('Alam al-Mithal)
propounded by al-Suhrawardi. Although Sadra has criticized pretty well all of his Muslim predecessors, he reserves unqualified praise for the author of the pseudo- Theologia Aristotelis (i.e., Plotinus) and the “Pahlavi Sages” about whose identities, however, we are given no clue. Among Muslim thinkers, Ibn 'Arabi is criticized only rarely (for example, Safar, IV, Part 2 pp. 253 ff.), while Sadra's most persistent targets are Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Jalal al-Din al-Dawwani, about whom he sometimes uses unusually harsh language. Both of these men wielded great influence on the subsequent philosophical tradition in Islam and both were Sunnis. (Al-Dawwani has been more iecently claimed by some to be a Shiì, but apparently without requisite evidence.) Yet it would be wrong to conclude that their Sunnism was a motivating factor in Sadra's criticism, since on occasion he supports al-Razi (and al-Ghazali) against al-Tusi and his own teacher Mir Damad (for example, Asfar, III, Part I, pp. 380-82). Al-Razi, although an extremely learned man in philosophy, is basically an Ash'arite theologian, while al-Dawwani is a rationalist philosopher in the Peripatetic line; neither's attitude is in harmony with Sadra's gnostic orientation.
Sadra's critical spirit stops only at texts which tradition regards as sacred: the Qur'an, the Prophetic Hadith, and the dicta Shiì tradition has attributed to the infallible Imams. Here faith must guide and inspire reason even if this leads to an interpretation which apparently the words of a text do not bear. A striking illustration of this is aflorded by Sadra's quotation of an allegedkhutba
(sermon) of the Imam 'Ali during the discussion of God's Attributes (Asfar, III, Part 1, p. 135 ff.). Sadra inveighs against those who deny God's Attributes and affirm a pure Divine Existence, as well as against those who affirm God's Attributes as being additional to His Being; and he wants to prove the identity of Existence and Attributes in God on the basis of his dot trine of the primordiality of existence. The relevant words of this quote are: “The perfection of sincerity for God is to deny attributes of Him, since every attribute is evidence of its otherness from its subject and every subject is evidence of its being other than its attribute. Thus a person who assigns an attribute to God, is guilty of pairing Him and anyone who pairs Him, duplicates Him....” (p.135, line 10- p.136, line 2). Now, these words absolutely and uncompromisingly deny attributes of God - quite in Muslim Mùtazilite rationalist spirit, and to think the opposite would render all language meaningless; yet Sadra gives us an extensive commentary on this text where the words “deny attributes of Him” are simply restated as “deny additional attributes of Him.”
2. Sadra's Predecessors
Sadra studied the entire philosophical, religious, and spiritual heritage of Islam, the apparent notable exceptions being the Spanish philosophers Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufail, and Ibn Rushd - from Spain and the Islamic West; and was particularly indebted to Ibn 'Arabi, who exerted, indeed, one of the foremost influences upon him. The Peripatetic philosophical tradition emanating from Ibn Sina, the tradition of the Kalam theology, both Shiì and Sunni, the Illuminationist philosophy of al-Suhrawardi and his followers and commentators and, finally, the Sufi tradition culminating in the theosophy of Ibn 'Arabi and his disciples and commentators - all these went into the intellectual makeup of our philosopher. Both Sunni and Shiì Kalam had become thoroughly penetrated by the rationalist philosophical ideas and themes, the former at the hands of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi in the twelfth century, the latter in the work of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in the thirteenth. The more mystical ideas of Ibn Sina's philosophy, which had already found a home in the esoteric writings of al-Ghazali, also gradually fructified in Sufi circles until they were finally incorporated in a developed form in Ibn 'Arabi's system and the writings of his followers. The three main strands of thought, therefore, which were - although there had already been a good deal of interpenetration among them - consciously combined by Sadra to yield a “grand synthesis” are: (1) the Peripatetic tradition of Ibn Sina, (2) the Illuminationist tradition of al-Suhrawardi, and (3) Ibn 'Arabi's theosophy.
Of these three masters, Ibn Sina is, in a sense, the most important. This is because Ibn Sina's doctrines constitute the “floor” or the “fundament” upon which all discussion takes place. This is so not only with Sadra but equally with al-Suhrawardi, as, indeed, it has been the case also with al-Ghazali. Ibn Sina was the philosopher who had constructed a full-fledged philosophical system - on an Aristotelian-neo-Platonic basis - with an inner cohesion, that sought to satisfy both the philosophic and religious demands. In all fields - metaphysics, theory of knowledge, and theology - discussion must start with what al-Shaikh al-Ra'is said. Sadra criticizes him, modifies him, supports him against later criticism by al-Suhrawardi, al-Tusi and others, and even seeks support from some of his statements for his own peculiar doctrines, like the reality of existence and inanity of essences. He blames al-Tusi for having departed from his master's view of Divine knowledge, even though he had promised in the earlier part of his commentary on the natural and metaphysical parts of Ibn Sina's al-Isharat that he would not contradict the latter.
Sadra's most persistent criticism of Ibn Sina is on the question of the latter's denial of the absolute identity of subject and object in knowledge. As has been said earlier, Sadra attributes the philosophic failures of Ibn Sina to the fact that the latter wasted valuable time in pursuit of worldly concerns and particularly in the art of medicine, even though God had given him ample gifts for the highest art - philosophy.
The greatest immediate formative influence on Sadra's unique doctrines, however, is that of al-Suhrawardi, the founder of the Illuminationist school of thought on whose Hikmat al-Ishraq Sadra wrote a commentary. This influence, which we have briefly outlined elsewhere,
takes concrete form partly by criticizing and rejecting al-Suhrawardi and partly by accepting him. The view of al-Suhrawardi positively accepted by Sadra is that logical essences are unreal, that logical definitions do not create sharp distinctions in reality and that Reality is, therefore, one single continuum of light punctuated only by distinctions of “more and less” or “more perfect and less perfect.”
Darkness being purely negative, what is real is the “grades” of light arranged hierarchically from the Absolute Light (God) downward to what he calls “accidental lights.” This notion of a continuum of reality was taken over by Sadra.
But al-Suhrawardi had, at the same time, declared existence to be a mere logical notion to which nothing corresponds in reality. The only reality is the Light with its various “grades” without differences in “essence” but only in terms of “more or less intense.” Sadra centrally attacked the view that existence is a mere “notion” or a “secondary intelligible'' and declared, on the contrary, that existence is the only reality and only existence is capable of “more and less” or “stronger and weaker” and that essences are unreal, arising “only in the mind.” If existence is unreal, what is there left except essences? he asks, and essences are not capable of “more and less” since every essence is “closed,” static and fixed. Further, by substituting existence for al-Suhrawardi's light, Sadra takes the whole range of being in his purview: whereas al-Suhrawardi has left bodies and their accidents out of his concept of light, Sadra even includes Primary Matter in his notion of existence, since Prime Matter at least has the potentiality of existence.
More important: Sadra puts the entire field of existence into perpetual motion by saying that movement does not occur only in the qualities of things but in their very substance. This doctrine of “substantive motion(haraka jauhariya)
” - which is Sadra's original contribution to Islamic philosophy - transforms the fixed “grades” of al-Suhrawardi into a systematically ambiguous(tashkik)
idea of existence. The result is that (1) “grades” of being are no longer fixed and static but ceaselessly move and achieve higher forms of existence in time; (2) “existence” is applicable to all evolutionary stages bìl-tashkik, i.e., with systematic ambiguity, and no other concept has this character: only existence is that principle which “by virtue of being simple and unitary(basit)
creates differences”; (3) this movement of the universe (which is irreversible and unidirectional) ends in the “Perfect Man” who becomes a member of the Divine Realm and becomes unified with the Attributes of God; (4) each higher stage of existence includes all the lower ones and transcends them; this is expressed by the formula, “a simple reality is everything,” i.e., the higher a reality is, the simpler and more inclusive it is; (5) the more something has or achieves of existence, the less it has of essence, since, while existence is real, concrete, determinate, individual, and luminous, essences are exactly the opposite and arise only in the mind by the impact of reality upon it. Hence, God being pure existence, has no essence at all. Essences are the bearers of contingency and also infect existence at the lower levels of being which, therefore, are not absolute existence like God but are only “modes of existence(anha' al-wujud)
.” We have, indeed, travelled far from Ibn Sina and al-Suhrawardi.
The third very profound influence on Sadra's thought is Ibn 'Arabi, whom he quotes in various contexts. But Ibn 'Arabi's influence is particularly visible on three important issues: the non-existence of essence, the reality of Divine Attributes, and the psychological-eschatological role of the “Realm of Images.” On the first, Ibn 'Arabi's famous dietum “Essences do not smack of existence” is quoted by Sadra several times in support of his doctrine that existence is the sole reality and not essences, and it is quite possible that the Spanish mystic had a role in inspiring Sadra's doctrine itself. On the second issue, which is perhaps the most interesting in terms of historical influence, Sadra, under the impact of Ibn 'Arabi's teaching, drastically modified the Peripatetic-neo-Platonic view of the Intelligences, made them part of the Godhead, and identified them with Divine Attributes and their intellective content with the Platonic Realm of Ideas. He then couches the entire Muslim Peripatetic-neo-Platonic account of emanation in the language of Ibn 'Arabi and his disciples, specifically in terms of the propulsion of the “Self-Unfolding Existence” or “the Breath of the Merciful” which, as a kind of “Intelligible Matter” spreads over everything - is eternal with the eternal, temporal with the temporal, necessary with the necessary, and contingent with the contingent, etc.
Indeed, in Sadra's thought these two ideas, the unreality of essences and the unitary principle of the “Self-Unfolding Existence” became much more closely allied than in Ibn 'Arabi's system, where essences still keep a good deal of reality, and Sadra criticizes Ibn 'Arabi on this score. Sadra's master stroke lies in combining these two ideas closely by perceiving their fuller implications for each other and making them yield his unique doctrine of the motion-in-substance: existence moves continuously and successively through higher and higher forms or evolutionary “modes” of being, culminating in the Perfect Man. These considerations make it undeniable, I think, that al-Suhrawardi, in Sadra's mind, had to pass through the channel of Ibn 'Arabi before the novel doctrine of the tashkik of existence could be evolved. In sum, it is this dot trine of tashkik, according to which existence continuously evolves, which constitutes the very pivot of Sadra's philosophy, a pivot around which all problems revolve and are solved.
Of great importance also is Ibn 'Arabi's impact on Sadra's doctrine of the “Realm of Images,” which, as we have said, was originally inspired by al-Ghazali and later formally announced by al-Suhrawardi. But it was Ibn 'Arabi who not only elaborated on the “Realm of Images” but assigned to the human soul itself, particularly in the hereafter, a central role of erecting, at will, image-perceptibles, i.e., images which are as real as perceptibles. This doctrine is used by Sadra as well as by Ibn 'Arabi to prove a “physical” resurrection: although what we imagine in this world is weaker than perception - since we are engrossed in the material world - what the soul will imagine in the hereafter will be so strong and real that it will literally take the place of material bodies and events. This doctrine is traceable ultimately from Porphyry
but was developed and used by al-Ghazali and later Islamic thinkers, particularly lira 'Arabi to prove the possibility of physical resurrection and physical pleasures anti pains experienced by the saved and the damned respectively in the hereafter. It is not without significance that the colossal Asfar finds its very end with a quotation from Ibn 'Arabi to the same effect.
3. Evaluation
The significance of Sadra does not lie just in the tact that he studied the entire heritage of Islamic thought and brought together all its significant thought-currents; it lies in the fact that he produced a veritable synthesis of all these currents. This synthesis is not brought about by mere “reconciliation” and superficial “compromise,” but on the basis of a philosophical principle Which he both propounded and expounded for the first time in Islamic history. An unfailing hallmark of a great and original thinker is that he discovers a master-idea, a grand principle under which the entire range of reality falls, and he interprets it to make sense, a new sense, and a significant one. It changes our very perspective of looking at ieality and offers a novel solution to the age-old problems that have vexed human minds. If we are right in laying down this criterion - as Sadra himself also does - then Mulla Sadra must be accepted as a great and original thinker. He discovered the principle of the primordiality (sole reality) of existence and its infinite systematic ambiguity - despite it or, rather, as Sadra insists, because of it. He expounded it and applied it to the entire range of the problems of Islamic philosophy - the nature of God, the nature of the World, and the nature and destiny of man, as the following pages of the present book show. Max Horten rightly observed (despite the numerous and important failings of his work), “Auf diese Weise gewinnt Schirazi einen Standpankt, yon dem er die gesamte zu seiner Zeit geltende Philosophie umgestaltet.”
But equally interesting and important is hi s wielding of philosophy as an art: h is claim in the Introduction that the Asfar is an exquisite and clear composition is almost fully justified.
Both his power and style of analysis are engrossing; the most tedious and abstruse subjects are examined and analyzed by a razor mind with perfect clarity. (It is only occasionally that certain terms are used loosely, but there usually the context clarifies the meaning: at certain points al-Sabzawari, his great commentator, is of real help: indeed, this man has so imbibed the master's thought that, but for the language, it would be often difficult to distinguish between the two.) The presentation is, in fact, so engaging that very often it is the argumentation rather than the thesis itself, the process of philosophizing rather titan philosophy itself, that becomes the object of the reader's interest. The work is written with a lively spirit behind it.
Here again Horten's appreciation is justified: “Als Ganzes betrachtet is sein Werk eine Leistung allerersten Ranges und ein eigenartiges Kunstwerk der Begriffsbildung und Begriffsdichtung. Man wird es nicht ohne Bewunderung aus der Hand legen können.”
Nevertheless, this system has its inner weaknesses, some of which seem to be inherent in Sadra's thought, some in his formulations, and others due to his combining of so many different currents in Islamic thought, and particularly his combination of certain religious demands with philosophic requirements. Although the basic aim of the present work has been to present Sadra's doctrine systematically and positively to the modern reader, since his thought is not yet known to the modern Western world, I have not shied from pointing out its important weaknesses, in the course of my exposition. We may classify these into tensions, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Tensions may be said to characterize all thought-systems that aim to synthesize polarities and is in itself not a weakness - indeed, it is a strength, when kept under control. For example, determinism and freedom are polarities. When a system attempts to synthesize them by some more basic or transcendent principle, it may either seek to break and resolve this polarity altogether or it may simply subsume these two categories under a higher principle while they remain “real” at their own level. In the first case, there will be a synthesis, in the latter, the tension will remain. Contradiction will result where the principle of synthesis or subsumption is formulated in a manner that will not do justice to both sides but will rather accentuate one side, thus contradicting the very purpose of the synthesizing principle. This is as far as synthesizing activity is concerned. Contradiction can, of course, occur also in an ordinary way when two contradictory statements are made. Inconsistency occurs when the implications of two statements are contradictory or, even more acutely, when a principle is enunciated that is sufficient to explain a certain phenomenon but then another extrinsic principle is introduced that has the effect of nullifying the first. An inconsistency, therefore, is but a contradiction one or more steps removed.
All of these weaknesses are found to exist in Sadra's philosophy, as we have indicated below without fitting them into the categories mentioned above. Here we will illustrate by giving examples. According to Sadra, existence is at once both one and many and it is only the principle of existence which is such in objective reality. There is, therefore, a tension built into this principle because unity and diversity are polarities. This polarity is resolved for Sadra by the further principle of movement or tashkik of existence. This means that both unity and diversity are real at their respective planes. But, as we have shown by several quotations from Sadra in the last section of Chapter I of Part I, he often completely denies any reality whatever to the multiplicity of existence and simply attributes all reality to the One, God. While the principle of tashkik is a philosophic one, its denial, which attributes all reality to God, is done under the impact of the mystical impulse. This is a contradiction because it contradicts the very purpose of the principle of tashkik, viz., to synthesize the polarities. A good example of inconsistency is in Sadra's explanation of the world-process as continuous substantive movement. There is no need to ask why there is substantive movement, Sadra tells us (see Chapter V in Part I), since this is the very nature or constitution of the material world, just as it is senseless to ask why fire burns since it is the very nature of fire to burn. But then Sadra, under religious demands, brings in God to explain the world-movement and the successive forms it assumes: it is God who bestows these successive forms upon it. It is clear, I think, that this second explanation nullifies the first in terms of an immanent force. But Sadra insists that we still need God, who has created the world with this nature.
There are other problems of serious magnitude, some of which appear to arise from the tension between monism and pluralism noted above, while others are traceable to his conscious effort to combine Ibn Sina's and Ibn 'Arabi's ontologies, although difficulties arising out of the former again affect issues produced by the latter. The most serious issue arising from the first problem is the source of contingency. According to.Sadra's standard view, the source of contingency is the essences which are also the source of all evil and we are told that existence in itself is absolutely simple and good.
Contingency is of the essence of essences, although even to attribute contingency to them is to posit some sort of reality for them and he seeks to correct Ibn 'Arabi on the matter,
This would be all right if, in finite existence, contingency were said to be due solely to their essences, which Sadra normally does. But then Sadra also tells us that those existences, qua existences, also have a contingency: this is that they are nothing in themselves and are thinkable only when related to Absolute Existence. Indeed, they are not even something related to God; they are mere relations to the Absolute,
a concept which is hardly intelligible.
But this ambiguity about contingency does not stop in the realm of finite or created existence but is carried over into the Divine Realm when Sadra, under the influence of Ibn 'Arabi, interprets Ibn Sina's doctrine of Intelligences as concrete existents, lifts these from the realm of contingency, and makes them parts of the Godhead as His Attributes.
Following Ibn 'Arabi, he distinguishes two levels of the Godhead, one the level of the Absolute Existence where, although God has no explicit Names and Attributes, yet he possesses them as implicit in His existence, while the second is the level of Godhead('alam al-uluhiya)
, where Attributes appear explicitly and are identical with Intelligences. Now, Attributes at this second level are sometimes said to be still absolutely simple and necessary and Sadra strenuously deuies that they can be termed “God's essence,”
while at the same time they are recurrently characterized as contingent and as “pure notions(mafahim)
.”
They seem to be. indeed, on the border of(the Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Contingency and this obscurity seems to have become permanently settled in Sadra's system, without any visible possibility of relief.
Despite these difficulties and others of relatively minor nature, however, the overall judgment on this system must be, as we have said earlier, that it is highly fresh, original, and captivating and. of course. one of the most sophisticated and, indeed, by far the most complex in the entire history of Islamic philosophy. The mere fact that it seeks to criticize. analyze, and integrate all significant ideational currents in Islam developed from the fourth century of Islam to Sadra's own day is a truly gigantic affair in itself, let alone the fact that Sadra formulated a new master-idea trader which he carried out his synthesis and produced a new system.
C. Sadra's Works and His Influence
According to the list of Sadra's works given by the editor of al-Asfar al-Arba'a (Vol. I, Tehran, 1958), in his Introduction
to the work, Sadra wrote 32 or 33 treatises altogether, depending on whether his alleged commentary on Sura 93 of the Qur'an is found or not. The editor states that he has not been able to find any copy of the book entitled Kasr al-Asnam al-Jahiliya, written against some Sufis; but it was subsequently published, on the occasion of the celebration of the four hundredth year of Sadra's birth, in Iran in 1961 by M. T. Danish-Pazhuh. Most of Sadra's works have been published since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, some more than once, while certain smaller treatises have not yet been published. In one sense, his works may be divided into the purely philosophical and the “religious.” The latter particularly include his commentary on certain Suras and verses of the Qur'an and on the Usul al-Kufi. But these latter also represent an application of his philosophical ideas to the Scripture and other religious texts; and the editor of the Asfar rightly says that they are “an extension of his philosophy” - closely following the model of Ibn Sina. In another way, his writings can be divided into original works and commentaries on earlier philosophical writings, the most important being his commentaries on the Metaphysics of Ibn Sina's al-Shifa' and al-Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-Ishraq.
To attempt a chronology of all or even most of Sadra's works is at present an almost impossible task and probably will remain so. Broadly speaking, one can probably safely say that his “religious” works like the commentary on the Qur'an and that on the famous Usul al-Kafi (also incomplete) were written after his philosophic thought had matured and after the execution of his magnum opus, the Asfar. So far as his pure philosophic writings are concerned, al-Shawahid al-Rububiya (edited by Professor Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani together with al-Sabzari's commentary, Meshed University Press, 1967), is generally believed to be his last work, and we shall briefly discuss it below. But both this work and other treatises, with the possible exception of a treatise called Sarayan al-Wujud, are certainly based on and some almost verbally lifted from the Asfar. Indeed, these works do not contain anything which is not found in the Asfar - no matter whether the subject of a treatise is movement, the origination of the world, the relationship of essence and existence, or the life after death.
An interesting problem is set by a treatise called Tarh al-Kaunain, which Sadra himself mentions in the Asfar (I, 1, p. 47) and about which he says that he proved therein the unity of all existence, i.e., that the only real existence is God's, while all else is mere appearance. The editor of the Asfar states that this was probably the only treatise written before the Asfar and that it contained the heretical doctrine of the simple identity of all existence for which Sadra was persecuted and from which he later retracted;
he then identifies this treatise with Sarayan al-Wujud mentioned in the preceding paragraph. That Tarh al-Kaunain may have been written before the Asfar is probable since it is mentioned quite early in the latter work, but its identification with the treatise Sarayan al-Wujud cannot be accepted. For this treatise (published along with eight other treatises of the author in 1202 A.H.) contains, on closer examination, nothing of the doctrine of the Unity of Existence(Wahdat al-Wujud)
; on the contrary, the very thesis of this treatise is the reality of plural existence. What leads us to posit the composition of this work to be prior to the Asfar is the strong internal evidence. For, in this treatise, Sadra clearly states that God's causal or creative activity is related to essences (p. 135, line 12; also p. 144, line 3 ff.), while throughout the Asfar and his other works he sternly rejects this and asserts that it is only the partioular existences that are caused by God and essences cannot, in any souse, be said to be caused or created - they are mere nothing. Again, also in this treatise, while the doctrine of tile ambiguity of existence is stated, it is stated in a materially different form from the Asfar and other works. While here we are told that the notion(mafhum)
of existence is ambiguous (p. 134, line 9 ff.), in the Asfar Sadra insists that while the notion of existence is one and common(mushtarak)
, the reality of existents displays systematic ambiguity - indeed, this principle of ambiguity later comes to be formulated as “that which by virtue of being one is many.”
Again, and equally and relatedly important, while here the actual existences are called hisas, or “cases” of existence, in his later works, including the Asfar, hisas or “cases” are sharply distinguished from and opposed toafrad
(individuals) of existence with which real existence is identified. This is because “cases” are said to be identical with each other in essence (and al-Suhrawardi and others are accused of having recognized only “cases” of existence and not its unique individuals) whereas all afrad or individuals are unique. We, therefore, conclude that Sarayan al-Wujud was written in a transitional stage of Sadra's doctrine of essence and existence. Finally, if, as seems clear from Sadra's own assertion, Tarh al-Kaunain did purport to prove the Unity of Existence, Sadra, while referring to it in the Asfar, is not repudiating it but recommending it to the reader. This is what underlines what we have said towards the end of the preceding section of this Introduction and in the first Chapter of Part I of the present work, viz., that Sadra, while insisting on the doctrine of tashkik, at the same time contradicts it by his equal insistence that God is the only Reality and the only Existence, while all else is nothing. The editor of the Asfar has rightly rejected another identification of Tarh al-Kaunain, this time with the treatise On Resurrection(fi'l-Hashr)
published in the collection of Sadra's nine treatises referred to above (but reprinted twice again), on the ground that Tarh al-Kaunain's subject-matter deals with the Unity of Existence, while the treatise On Resurrection has a very different subject matter (which is, indeed, squarely based on the Asfar).
Sadra rarely gives cross-references in his works. But the few references that he gives are also of a highly dubious value for us. The reason is that while, for example, in his treatise on the temporal origination of the Material World (fi'l-Huduth
, published in the aforementioned collection of his treatises), he refers (p. 32) to the Asfar, in the Asfar itself (I, 3, P. 112, line 11), he refers to this treatise. Again, on p. 32 of the same treatise, he also refers to his book al-Shawahid al-Rububiya, which, as we indicated above, is generally held to be his last work. The evidence adduced for its being Sadra's last philosophic work is that it simply states Sadra's theses without discussing and criticizing earlier philosopher's views. This may well be correct and to this evidence may be added the fact that in this work the discussion of the Categories - substance and accidents (to which Vol. II of the Asfar is devoted), has been completely omitted. It should be noted, however, that whereas in the Asfar (Vol. IV, 2, p. 151, last line ff.; p. 207 ff.) he criticizes al-Ghazali's view of the after-life; here (p. 286), he seeks support from al-Ghazali and agrees with the latter's interpretation of physical resurrection (p. 266, lines 10-11). The reason most probably is Sadra's hypercritical attitude in the Asfar to which we have referred above. Besides this work, it is safe to assert that Sadra's al-Mabda' wa'l-Maàd (where, in the introduction a reference to the completion of the Asfar is found) - which is also the title of one of Ibn Sina's works - is later than the Asfar. These two works viz., the Shawahid and the Mabda are, indeed, in the nature of a summary of the Asfar's essential doctrines. As for the rest of the philosophical treatises, it is possible that they may have been 'wayside' compositions, probably written for the most part during the composition of the Asfar itself.
The present exposition of Sadra's philosophy is essentially based on the Asfar, the full title of which isal-Hikmat al-Mutaàliya fi'l-Asfar al-Arba'a al-Àqliya
(“The Sublime Wisdom in Four Journeys of Reason”). It was first published in 1282 A.H. in four over-size volumes comprising a total of 926 pages in small print. The most recent edition by Muhammad Rida al-Muzaffar (Tehran, 1958-) is accompanied by the expositions of al-Sabzawari and al-Tabataba'i (the most recent commentator of the text) and occasionally gives notes by some other commentators.
This edition leaves out Vol. II dealing with the Categories, and covers Vol. I in three parts, Vol. III in two parts (of which only Part I has appeared; hence we relied for the second part on the 1282 A.H. edition), and Vol. IV in two parts. The First Journey deals with the doctrine of being or ontology; the Second (which we have more or less left out in our present study, which al-Sabzawari, the greatest of the nine commentators of the work, also ignored, which is generally omitted in the present-day teaching of the work in Iran, and which does not seem to contain any important new ideas) deals with substance and accidents; the Third Journey deals with God and His Attributes; and the Fourth Journey deals with man and his destiny - the end of the entire philosophic itinerary. Our reason for basing our treatment of Mulla Sadra's philosophy on the Asfar is, first, that it gives all of the philosopher's mature ideas and gives them in the greatest detail and, secondly, that it contains Sadra's full-length arguments in criticism of earlier philosophers, i.e., it displays Sadra's mind in its entire philosophical process. Indeed, as we remarked earlier on in this Introduction, sometimes the method and process of argumentation themselves become so interesting and absorbing that they even philosophically supercede the reader's interest in the thesis itself.
Sadra's influence in his own time was strictly limited and his school had but few followers, the most significant of them being Mulla. 'Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji, who survived his master by about twenty-one years.
It appears, as Ashtiyani states,
that Sadra's teaching permeated gradually, thanks initially to the fact that his commentaries on Ibn Sina. and al-Suhrawardi's works attracted the attention of the followers of the Peripatetic and the Illuminationist schools respectively. This process, by a slow intermingling of these two schools of thought and further combined with Ibn 'Arabi's theosophy, brought Sadra's own personal thought into focus. The first really important personality of Mulla Sadra's school and one who created a number of able and active disciples is Mulla Àli Nuri (d. 12 6 A.H.), who wrote the first systematic commentary on the Asfar. Ashtiyani states that during the Qajar period, all important teachers of philosophy in Tehran came from Nuri's school. But the most perceptive and sensitive commentator of the Asfar, in my view, is al-Sabzawari (d.1288); my acquaintance with the commentary of 'Ali al-Mudarris (d. 1310. A.H.) is limited to a few notes, but Ashtiyani declares him to be “the greatest of the followers and the best among the recent commentators of Sadra.”
As we noted earlier, at present Sadra stands at the center of the traditional philosophic studies in Iran; besides the traditional madrasas, he is keenly studied by intellectuals at several modern universities. Persian intellectuals' pride in Sadra can be measured by the following declamation of Ashtiyani : “It may be said that with the birth of Mulla Sadra, Metaphysics came to maturity in the East in the same measure as [at the same point of time] natural sciences progressed in the West.”
Sadra's commentary on the Metaphysics of Ibn Sina's al-Shifa' was studied in the Indian subcontinent and constituted the highest philosophical text in certain seats of learning.
In the West, the first study of Sadra was written by Max Horten with the title, “Das Philosophische System yon Schirazi “ (Strasbourg, 1913). This is a summary of the Asfar and although it contains some serious misunderstandings of Sadra's ideas, which this is not the place to go into, it does deserve respect as a pioneering work. As we have noted carlier, his judgment of Sadra's overall performance as something new in the history of Islamic Philosophy is certainly sound. The only other work on Sadra by a Western scholar is Henri Corbin's translation with commentary of Sadra's treatise “al-Mashaìr,” published under the title “La Livre des Pénétration Méta-physiques,” Tehran, 1961.
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Author: Dr. Fazlur Rahman
