Mulla Sadra

The article aims to demonstrate that Avicenna’s (d. 428/1037) centrality in Islamic intellectual history is not restricted to the branches of theoretical philosophy; rather, he also has had a deep and strong influence on the conception of practical philosophy until modern times. I will discuss the impact of Avicenna’s view of practical philosophy by analyzing his different classifications of practical philosophy throughout his career and the factors behind his disregard for practical philosophy in his philosophical summas on the basis of his view of the relationship between philosophy and šarī‘a. To demonstrate my argument regarding Avicenna’s influence on the conception of practical philosophy in Islamic tradition, I will refer to major works on the classification of sciences, and the commentaries (šurūḥ) and glosses (ḥāwāšī) on the two most important and widely circulated philosophical summas in the post-Avicennan philosophy, including al-Abharī’s (d. 663/1264) Hidāyat al-ḥikma and al-Kātibī’s (d. 675/1276) Ḥikmat al-‘ayn.

This article deals with the “Perfect Man” in Mulla Sadra`s point of view. Mulla Sadra`s metaphysics is a well-proportioned mixtre of theological philosophical and mystical ideas of the past along with his intellectual innovations.
Mulla Sadra has merged the verses of Quran and Islamic traditions with the intellectual thoughts thus creating a well- balanced collection of ideas. In his Transcendent Metaphysics, the intellect is not contrary to tradition, nor logical proof to the Quran, rather they assist and complement one another.
In what proposed, the author has dealt with the perfection of human soul and particularly with the concept of “Perfect man” in Mulla Sadra`s point of view. Making use of his special principles such as “Asalat-u al-wujud (priority of existence)”, trans-substantial motion, and the like he was able to introduce the question of human mind into an unprecedented phase.

Mullā Ṣadrāov ambiciozni pokušaj da definira znanje kao modalitet egzistencije omogućava mu da podvede noetiku pod ontologiju te sprječava da se njegova epistemologija stropošta na filozofiju subjektivizma. To Mullā Ṣadrā postiže čvrsto se držeći svoje gradacijske ontologije. On predstavlja znanje činom sudjelovanja radije negoli reprezentacijom, iskustvom posvjedočenja, a ne apstrakcijom. A to još jednom potvrđuje da nema fajde od epistemologije bez odgovarajuće ontologije.

هایدگر در هستی و زمان با تحلیل هستی¬شناختی- اگزیستانسیال زمان¬مندی دازاین در پی طرح معنای هستی است. وی در بخش نخست کتاب، پروا را به عنوان معنای هستی دازاین طرح می¬کند و ساختار سه وجهی، متکثر و بندبند آن¬را نشان می¬دهد و در بخش دوم با طرح مسألۀ زمان¬مندی به عنوان معنای پروا سعی می¬کند تا زمان¬مندی را به عنوان بنیاد وحدت این ساختار متکثر و معنای هستی دازاین نشان دهد. خاستگاه تحلیل هایدگر تقسیم هستن دازاین به اصیل و غیراصیل است و در زمان¬مندی نیز در پی تحلیل زمان¬مندی اصیل و غیراصیل می¬رود. هایدگر در ادامه مفهوم غالب مابعدالطبیعی از زمان به عنوان توالی آنات یکسان و مسطح را مفهومی زمان نااصیل (مبتذل) می¬داند و آن را بنیاد یافته در زمان¬مندی غیر اصیل معرفی می¬کند. در این مقاله در نظر است تا نشان داده شود که تلاش هایدگر در فراروی از فهم مابعدالطبیعی موفق نیست؛ چرا که تحلیل خود وی نیز مبتنی بر خواست دازاین در فراروی از عدم اصالت به اصالت است و هم¬چنان در دایرۀ اصالت فاعل¬شناسایی (سوبژکتیویسم) و به تبع مابعدالطبیعه قرار دارد. در نهایت نشان خواهیم داد که فروکاست طرح هستی و زمان به اراده و خواست دازاین علت اصلی شکست هستی و زمان و طرح چرخش در اندیشۀ هایدگر است.
این مقاله در مجله پژوهشهای هستی شناختی، دوفصلنامه علمی-پژوهشی، سال چهارم شماره 7، بهار و تابستان 1394 صفحات1تا21، به همراه آقای رضا دهقانی منتشر شده است
Heidegger, in his being and time (Sein und Zeit) by analyzing ontical- existential temporality of Dasein, proposes to explain the meaning of being. He, in the first part of his book, has considered the care as the meaning of Dasein and tried to articulate its trihedral structures, in the second part, by presenting temporality as the meaning of care, he also has attempted to show that the temporality is the basic state of unity of multiple structure and meaning of Dasein. Accordingly, his analysis based on the division of being of Dasein into original and objective. Then he has explained the temporality by the authentic and inauthentic temporality. Additionally, the dominant metaphysical concept of time which has been regarded as a stream of successive nows of which one is earlier than a later now, will be inauthentic concept which understood with regard to the objective time. This article wants to show that Heidegger has been frustrated going beyond the metaphysical concept, since his analysis based on the will of Dasein in passing from non fundamentality to the fundamentality and it has been remained in subjectivism and as a result fallen in the metaphysics. Finally, it will be discussed that the reduction of scheme of being and time in the will of Dasein, is the main reason of his frustration

Published in The Temenos Academy Review 2017. Identifies the root causes of our environmental crises in the modern scientific worldview, with its narrowed scope of inquiry limited to the material, mechanical and quantitative domains of reality, and the abandonment of the traditional understanding that all Reality is One, including the psychic and spiritual domains. Points to remedies of restoring and improving traditional technologies, and the works of Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din Shirazi, d.1640) on "substantial motion" as the basis for establishing a new sacred science -- congruent with findings of prominent 20th Century physicists, such as Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, et al.

table of contents

Preface
Sources
Various Translations of the Fragments
Life of Heraclitus
Dark Philosopher

Thoughts:
(1) Persian Translations of the Fragments
(2) Logos
(3) Cosmology
(4) Ethics
(5) Epistemology
(6) Political Philosophy
(7) The Capital Point of Heraclitus' Philosophy

Effects
(1) Zoroastrian Religion
(2) Plato on Heraclitus
(3) Aristotle on Heraclitus
(4) Arabic Philosophers on Heraclitus
(5) Hegel and Heraclitus
(6) Nietzsche and Heraclitus
(7) Popper's Criticism

Persian Translations of the Greek Text of the Fragments of Heraclitus,  With Notes

Appendix
(1) Persian Translations of the 'Life of Heraclitus' by Diogenes Laertius
(2) Heraclitean Terms
(3) Final Note

Religijska filozofija, kao pojam, odnosi se na dugu i bogatu istorijsku filozofsku misao koja je u različitim oblicima pokazala vitalnost sve do danas, dok kao teorija opovrgava poslerenesansni pristup odnosu religije i filozofije i ukazuje na isprepletenost ove dve spoznajne baštine. Autor ovog članka postavlja islamsku filozofiju u centar pažnje i usredsređuje se na njenu originalnost.
Čitajući različite teorije o suštini islamske filozofije koju, ne obazirući se na njen sadržaj, neki mislioci nazivaju arapskom, retko se nalazi primer da su, jedna pored druge, opisane dve islamske i filozofske svojstvenosti te filozofije.
Stoga, većina postojećih definicija i opisa islamske filozofije teži ka okrnjenom određivanju glavnih osnova islamske filozofske misli, zbog kojih se, na kraju, dovodi u pitanje apsolutna originalnost islamske filozofije.
U ovom članku, autor nastoji da pojasni teorijske postulate potrebne za poimanje svojstvenosti islamske filozofije, u potpunosti, kako bismo mogli da pojmimo i opišemo filozofiju koja jeste, istovremeno – i filozofija i islamska.

This is a previous version of a paper published in _Gott — jenseits von Monismus und Theismus?_ Hg. Bernhard Nitsche, Klaus von Stosch und Muna Tatari, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2017, 309-321. References should be to the published version only. The paper argues that Mulla Sadra offers an alternative to pantheism, panentheism, and strict apophatic (negative) theology based on the twin pillars of transcendental wisdom: the primacy of existence and the variable intensity of existence.

Winner of Iran’s 31st World Book of the Year Prize

From the publisher:

“Sculpting the Self is a masterpiece. It is among the finest explorations of selfhood and subjectivity in contemporary philosophical literature. Muhammad Faruque’s approach is breathtakingly erudite, analytically precise, and extraordinarily synoptic. He draws effectively on a wide range of Western philosophical literature-classical, modern, and contemporary; on classical and recent Indian philosophy; on contemporary cognitive science; and especially, and with great nuance, on a great swath of the Islamic tradition from the medieval period through the work of Muhammad Iqbal. Each of these many threads is spun with great care. But most impressive is the skill with which they are woven into a profoundly illuminating tapestry. Sculpting the Self is not only a superb exploration of selfhood, but a master class in the practice of cross-cultural philosophy.”
—Jay L. Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Smith College and Visiting Professor of Buddhist Philosophy, Harvard Divinity School

"Philosophically dense but yet eminently accessible, this book is a landmark publication in the fields of Islamic Studies and the study of religion more broadly."
—New Books Network in Religious Studies

“Sculpting the Self is a rare but essential treat that presents a creative analysis of major thinkers in Islam, and demonstrates how one might fruitfully read their work to move towards a truly global study of selfhood and philosophy.”
—Sajjad Rizvi, University of Exeter

“Sculpting the Self is an impressive book. Situated at the crossroads between Western and Islamic philosophies of the self, both modern and non-modern, it offers a new way forward: a ‘multidimensional’ model that is richer, more expansive, and more inclusive than most theories available today. Smart, deeply informed, and engaging, Faruque’s book will be a cornerstone for future thinking about the elusive entity we call the self.”
—James I. Porter, Irving Stone Professor of Literature, Departments of Rhetoric and Classics, UC Berkeley

“In Sculpting the Self we are guided along the maze of the concept of the self in Islamic philosophy by one of the most promising, young global philosophers writing today. Muhammad Faruque’s breadth in this work is extraordinary, bringing many key pre-modern and modern Muslim philosophers from Iran and India into conversation with various currents in philosophy, consciousness studies, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience. The result is nothing less than a sophisticated, first of its kind account of Islamic philosophical conceptions of selfhood, personhood, and identity.”
—Mohammed Rustom, author of Inrushes of the Heart: The Sufi Philosophy of 'Ayn al-Qudat

“Faruque has delivered a tour de force study of selfhood across time and tradition. His expertise in Islamic thought, together with his facility with a wide range of sources and approaches, succeeds in bringing the self’s full spectrum into view. The ambition of his project is as rare as it is refreshing.”
—Charles M. Stang, Professor of Early Christian Thought and Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School

“Faruque’s book is a welcome attempt to engage the various strands of Islamic philosophical psychology with contemporary work on subjectivity and selfhood in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. The approach is novel and should initiate a vigorous discussion concerning the contemporary relevance of the history of Islamic thought.”
—Jari Kaukua, University of Jyväskylä

“The variety of voices and sources, both Western and non-Western, bring to life the model of a multidimensional self especially in contrast to the reductionist models that Faruque critiques.”
—Sayeh Meisami, University of Dayton

“. . . a great survey on the study of self. Faruque develops a unique perspective in combining neuroscience and philosophy and offers a great conversation between Western, Islamic, and Eastern philosophers.”
—Ramazan Kilinc, University of Nebraska at Omaha

"This cross-cultural analysis of human identity or the self provides a brilliant and wide-spanning philosophical understanding of the current epistemological challenges in understanding selfhood. Faruque has amassed an extraordinary amount of source material in several European and Islamic languages by bringing the Islamic tradition into dialogue with the metaphysics of the East and West, including modern disciplines such as cognitive science, consciousness studies, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience—that offer a remarkable study of selfhood... This work will be important for mental health professionals seeking to better understand human identity as it is informed by the diverse cultures and their knowledge systems."
—The Humanistic Psychologist

"Explaining theories and conceptions of selfhood and subjectivity across Western, Islamic and Indian sources is no easy task; it is even more difficult to do so clearly, cogently and in a manner comprehensible to non-experts. ...Yet this is what Muhammad Faruque does in Sculpting the Self."
—Islam and Christian-Musim Relations

"In the perusal of contemporary philosophical literature, one rarely comes upon a work that engages in an analytic penetration of a philosophical topic with such erudition and cosmopolitanism. Faruque’s study draws on primary philosophical work from English, German, French, ancient Greek, Persian, Arabic, Urdu sources and then supplements them with the latest and most cutting-edge scientific and historical studies; this is all done in an elegant and inclusive manner. Indeed, this study is not only a comprehensive philosophical treatment of selfhood, but it is also a blueprint for an exemplary philosophical analysis which is not cramped by scholarly parochialism endemic to the run-of-the-mill academic essays."
—Comparative Philosophy

In this study, we have endeavored to elucidate the ‘project’ of Mullā Ṣadrā’s transcendent philosophy
(al-ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya), an expression that Ṣadrā himself saw fit to describe his philosophical works. The
meaning and method of Ṣadrā’s transcendent philosophy, which inform his unique philosophical positions,
can be better understood when it is placed against the backdrop of discursive philosophy (ḥikma baḥthiyya)
of the Muslim peripatetics (al-mashshāʾīn). In explaining the project of transcendent philosophy, Ṣadrā
suggests that the mutaʿllih (deiform one) like any other ordinary philosopher builds theoretical models to
describe the nature of reality and its diverse phenomena. However, what sets him/her apart from the latter
is that he/she believes that through spiritual practices his/her soul can be transformed to the extent that he/
she can attain presential knowledge (al-ʿilm al-ḥuḍūrī) of the reality of being (ḥaqīqat al-wujūd). That is, he/
she can well penetrate the true essences (al-dhawāt) of things insofar as this is a possibility.

Abstract. Despite forming a long-standing, distinct tradition, later Islamic philosophy has received relatively little serious attention within the existing scholarly historical literature. To partially fill the gap, this article provides the framework for a critical historiography of this enterprise in the post-Mullā Ṣadrā era, focusing primarily on identifying different attitudes taken to the philosophical system of this pivotal figure. In order to attain a novel picture of how Mullā Ṣadrā's philosophy became established, historical evidence for the status of this philosophy is discussed with regard to each of the successive periods following Mullā Ṣadrā's death. The main thesis is that Ṣadrian thought can be considered as functioning like a paradigm of recent Islamic philosophy, though this has become the case only after three preceding periods, each of which lasted roughly one century: first, practitioners of Islamic philosophy either ignored Ṣadrian philosophy in toto or at most rejected its doctrines as a plethora of misconceptions; second, philosophers gradually found it appealing for consideration and study; and third, it prevailed among them as an admirable philosophical system.

مع الفلسفة الوجوديّة تحوّل الاهتمام من نظريّة المعرفة والبحث الفلسفي المعرفيّ، إلى الاهتمام بحاقّ الوجود؛ أي الاهتمام بالوجود ذاته.  وقد أدّى هذا التحوّل إلى دخول الفلسفة الغربيّة في مسار مختلفٍ وترك بصماتٍ عظيمة الأثر على هذه الفلسفة.  كما إن الفلسفة الإسامية طرأ عليها أمرٌ مشابهٌ مع التحوّل الذي أحدثته مدرسة الحكمة المتعالية؛ حيث تحوّل مركز الاهتمام إلى الوجود بعد ما كان الهمّ الفلسفيّ هماًّ ماهويًّا يحصر اهتمامه بالتفسر الماهويّ للوجود. وتكمن أهميّة هذا التحوّل في الأثر الذي تركه على مسائل الفلسفة كلهّا.
ويبدو في النظرة الأوليّة أنّ المسارين متشابهين، بل ربّما يحسب الناظر أنّ ثمة مسارًا واحدًا اعتُمد في الفلسفتين، ينبغي أن يؤدّي إلى نتائج مشركة بينها. وفي هذه المقالة بحثُ مسهبٌ عن مفهوم الوجود عند المدرستين بغاية المقارنة بينها، لاكتشاف نقاط الالتقاء ونقاط الافراق بينها يجري ذلك على صعيد المفهوم، وكذلك على مستوى خلفيات التحوّل، فضلاً عن النتائج التي أفضى إليها هذا التحوّل.

An Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi (Mulla Sadra) with a Brief Account of His Life, Mulla Sadra, Islamic Philosophy,  Transcendental Philosophy, Transcendental Theosophy, Islamic Theology, Islamic Kalam, Theology, Islamic Thought, Ashary, Ashariyat, Islamic Philosophical School, Muslim Thinkers, Muslim Thinker,
http://alhassanain.org/english/?com=book&id=830

Mullā Ṣadrā's (c 1571-1640) commentary on Uṣūl al-Kāfī is one of the more famous commentaries on this significant Shi'i hadith collection. For his philosophical and Sufi background, Ṣadrā's approach to the hadith is slightly different and in some ways contrary to the earlier commentators such as`Allāmaas`Allāma Majlisī in Shi'aand Ibn Taymīyya in Sunni Islam. This paper aims to shed light on the way Ṣadrā interprets al-Kāfī and particularly to determine his understanding of the ʿaql (intellect) at the cosmic (as first created-being) and human levels as presented in the Kitāb al-ʿAql wa al-Jahl (The Book of Intellect and Ignorance). Ṣadrā, already well-versed in the philosophical discourses on ontology and cosmology, finds al-Kāfī as a fertile ground to develop and extend his vision of cosmos and existence. This paper, furthermore, investigates and reviews some later and contemporary scholars' critiques of Ṣadrā's view on hadith and intellect.

In order to understand Mulla Sadra " s view of God " s relation to the sensible and imaginal worlds a series of problems are traced that have figured prominently in the development of Islamic philosophy. We begin with Plato " s divided line and the idea that the human faculties correspond to levels of reality. In Aristotle and Plotinus, the imagination is given a role superior to that found in Plato " s texts. The role of the imagination is given still greater prominence in Avicenna, who links it to intellectual cognition. Sohravardi posits the existence of imaginal worlds to correspond to the faculty of the imagination. He also elaborates a complex hierarchy of sensory, imaginal, and intellectual lights and identifies God with the Light of lights. Elements in the hierarchy are distinguished by degrees of intensity of brightness and darkness. In Mulla Sadra " s philosophical system, Sohravardi " s hierarchy of lights is replaced by one of being and it is being itself that is said to differentiate itself by variations in intensity. Corresponding to the incorporeal imaginal worlds, Mulla Sadra argues that the faculty of imagination, and not just the intellect, is incorruptible. He uses this theory to explain divine rewards and punishments, the bodily resurrection, the purification of the soul, mystical visions, and the nature of revelation.

The main objective of this essay is to pose a dialogue between Deleuze and Islamic philosophy by considering the thought of Mulla Sadrā and his theory of the act of being. The paper begins with a review of two new books on Deleuze and theology: Daniel Colucciello Barber's, Deleuze and the Naming of God: Post-Secularism and the Future of Immanence, and F. LeRon Shults', Deleuze and the Secretion of Atheism.

This article examines four mystical treatises by the Safavid scholar, Fayd al-Kāshānī (d. 1090/1679).  Of the four, al-Kalimāt al-Maknūna  (“the Hidden Words”), serves as the basis for the three other versions, al-La’āli’, Qurrat al-‘Uyūn, and al-Kalimāt al-Makhzūna, composed at different times for different audiences.  Comparison of their structure and content reveals changes that occurred in Kāshānī’s presentation of the thought of Ibn ‘Arabī and Mullā Sadrā.  Kāshānī’s later emphasis on Shi‘i hadith sources says much about the context in which he wrote and perhaps more about his later assessment of the place of sufi cosmology, Islamic philosophy, and scripture in scholarly and popular circles.