Mullā Ṣadrā on Knowledge and the Imamate

Meisami, Sayeh

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71192-8_4

Sayeh Meisami²

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Abstract

In this chapter, after a brief review of the historical and intellectual context of Mullā Ṣadrā’s work, the author explains Mullā Ṣadrā’s theory of knowledge and the soul. Next, she analyzes his discourse of the imamate and absolute authority, which arguably rests on his theory of knowledge. Since much work has already been done on Mullā Ṣadrā’s epistemology and psychology, the analysis is focused on those concepts and narratives that lead the author to understand the potential in Mullā Ṣadrā’s synthetic discourse which she sees as playing a part in shaping the discourse of Shīʿī imamate as the source of both spiritual and political authority. In examining Mullā Ṣadrā’s theory of knowledge and the human soul, primary reference is made to his Risāla fī ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa’l-maʿqūl and parts of al-Asfār.

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Notes

1.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, “Risāla fī ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa’l-maʿqūl” in Majmūʿa-yi rasāʾil-i falsafī-yi Ṣadr al-mutaʾallihīn, ed. Ḥāmid Nājī Iṣfahānī, 63–103 (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Ḥikmat, 1996).
2.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, ed. Muḥammad Riḍa Muẓaffar, 9 vols (Beirut: Dār al-iḥyāʾ al-turāth al-ʿArabī, 1999).
3.
Prior to the 1970s, a German Orientalist, Max Horten (d. 1945) wrote a book on Mullā Ṣadrā in German, which did not have a remarkable impact at the time. See Max Horten, Das Philosophische System von Schirázi (1640) (Strassburg: K.J. Trübner, 1913).
4.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, Kitāb al-Mashāʿir, trans. Henri Corbin: Le livre des pénétration métaphysiques (Tehran: Institut Francais d’Iranologie, 1964); Kitāb al-ʿArshiyya, trans. James Winston Morris: The Wisdom of the Throne (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981); Iksīr al-ʿārfīn, trans. William Chittick: The Elixir of Gnostics (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2003).
5.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī and his Transcendent Theosophy: Background, Life and Works (Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1978); Islamic Philosophy from its Origins to the Present (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Hossein Ziai, “Mullā Ṣadrā: His Life and Works,” in History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman (London/New York: Routledge, 1996). Sajjad Rizvi, Mulla Sadra: His Life and Works and the Sources for Safavid Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Sayeh Meisami, Mulla Sadra (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2013). Ibrahim Kalin, Mulla Sadra (Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2014).
6.
See Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ḥaq, “Mulla Sadra’s Concept of Being,” Islamic Studies 6 (1967): 268–276. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Mulla Sadra and the Doctrine of the Unity of Being,” Philosophical Forum 4 (1972): 153–161. Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975). Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra (New York: Zone Books, 2006). Cecil Bonmariage, Le réel et les réalités: Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī et la structure de la réalité (Paris: Librairie Philosophique, 2007); J. Vrin. David Burrell, “Mullā Ṣadrā’s Ontology Revisited,” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 6 (2010): 45–67. Sajjad Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of Being (London/New York: Routledge, 2009).
7.
See Muḥammad Haʾirī Yazdī, The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by Presence (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992); Ibrahim Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mullā Ṣadrā on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010). Zailan Moris, Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (London/New York: Routledge, 2003). Mahmoud Khatami, From a Sadrean Point of View: Towards an Ontetic Elimination of the Subjectivistic Self (London: London Academy of Iranian Studies, 2004). Jari Kaukua, Self-Awareness in Islamic Philosophy: Avicenna and Beyond (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
8.
Eiyad S. al-Kutubi, Mullā Ṣadrā’s Eschatology: Evolution of Being (Abingdon, London/ New York: Routledge, 2015).
9.
Shigeru Kamada, Mullā Ṣadrā’s imāma/walāya: An Aspect of His Indebtedness to Ibn ʿArabī,” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 6 (2010): 67–79. Maria Massy Dakake, “Hierarchies of Knowing in Mullā Ṣadrā,” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 6 (2010): 5–46.
10.
Latima-Parvin Peerwani, On the Hermeneutics of the Light Verse of the Quran (London: Saqi Books, 2004). Mohammed Rustom, “The Nature and Significance of Mullā Ṣadrā’s Qurʾānic Writings,” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 6 (2010): 109–30; The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mullā Ṣadrā (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012).
11.
Alparslan Açikgeneç, Being and Existence in Sadra and Heidegger (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1993). Reza Akbarian, The Fundamental Principles of Mulla Sadra’s Transcendental Philosophy (London: London Academy of Islamic Studies, 2000). Muḥammad Kamal, Mulla Sadra’s Transcendental Philosophy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).
12.
On this topic, see Marco di Branco, “The Perfect King and His Philosophers,” Politics, Religion and Graeco-Arabic Philosophy in Safavid Iran: the Case of the Uthūlūjīyāʾ,” Studia graeco-arabica, The Journal of the Project Greek into Arabic Philosophical Concepts and Linguistic Bridges 4 (2014): 191–218.
13.
For Mullā Ṣadrā’s relation to these figures, see Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī: His Life and Works, 8–14.
14.
Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from its Origins to the Present, 221.
15.
This section is partly based on my Mullā Ṣadrā (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2013). For an annotated bibliography of Mullā Ṣadrā, see Ibrahim Kalin, “An Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Mullā Ṣadrā with a brief Account of his Life,” Islamic Studies 42:1 (2003): 21–62.
16.
Maytham b. ʿAlī al-Baḥrānī, Sharḥ nahj al-balāghah, eds. Team of scholars, 5 vols (Tehran: Muʾassisa al-Naṣr, 1959). His book on theology is imbued with philosophical themes and terminology. See also Maytham b. ʿAlī Baḥrānī, Qawāʿid al-marām fi ʿilm al-kalām, ed. Sayyid Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī (Qum: Kitābkhānah-yi ʿumūmī-yi Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā Marʿashī Najafī, 1398 A.H.). Also see Majīd Rūḥī Dihkurdī, “Muʿarrifī wa rawish-shināsī-yi Sharḥ nahj al-balāghah by Maytham Baḥrānī,” ʿUlūm-i ḥadīth 48 (1378 S.H.): 56–77. For the influence of Maytham Baḥrānī on Shiʿi imamology, see Hamid Mavani, “Doctrine of Imamate in Twelver Shiʿism: Traditional, Theological, Philosophical and Mystical Perspectives” (PhD dissertation, McGill University, 2005).
17.
Ḥaydar ibn ʿAlī Āmulī, Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār, eds. Henry Corbin and Ismail Othmān Yaḥyā (Tehran: Anīstītū-i Īrān va Faransah, 1969). This is a systematic endeavor to reconcile the Sufi teachings of Ibn ʿArabī with Twelver Shiʿism. Āmulī identifies the Shīʿī imamate with the Sufi wilāya, and writing for a Shīʿī audience in the north of Iran, he influenced all later attempts to harmonize Shiʿism with Sufism. In reading Āmulī, we are advised by Robert Wisnovsky not to reduce the influences on him only to Ibn ʿArabī. The author believes that Ḥaydar Āmulī had a different concern from that of Ibn ʿArabī. The latter’s interest in the Neoplatonic metaphysics of perfection was due to his interest in, not only an ontological context for the imamate, but also a way to explain how the world connects to God through the perfection of the human soul. Wisnovsky tries to show that Ḥaydar Āmulī is also indebted to Ibn Sīnā and the Neoplatonic reading of perfection. So Wisnovsky advises readers to be aware of the influence of disparate sources when reading a classical figure, instead of only limiting themselves to a single source. See Robert Wisnovsky, “One Aspect of the Akbarian Turn in Shiʿi Theology,” in Sufism and Theology, ed. Ayman Shihadeh, 49–62 (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2007).
18.
See ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Ibn Turkah Iṣfahānī, Tamhīd al-qawāʿid, eds. Jalāl al-Dīn Āshtiyānī, Muḥammad Riḍā Qumshaʾī, and Mīrzā Maḥmūd Qummī (Tehran: Anjuman-i shāhanshāhī-yi falsafa-yi Īrān, 1976). The treatise tries to show the unity of reason and gnosis, and one of its main themes is the perfect human (al-insān al-kāmil). Ibn Turkah relies on philosophical concepts and logical arguments to explain Ibn ʿArabī’s mystical doctrines of the oneness of being (waḥda al-wujūd) and the perfect human. In his identification of knowledge as a form of being, he also anticipates Mullā Ṣadrā’s epistemology.
19.
In an article on the relationship between Shiʿism and mysticism, Nasr mentions Āmulī, al-Baḥrānī and Ibn Turkah among those who paved the way for a Shīʿī intellectual renaissance under the Safavids by reading Shīʿī texts in a gnostic (ʿirfānī) light. See Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Shiʿism and Sufism: Their Relationship in Essence and History,” Religious Studies 6:3 (September 1970): 229–242. On this theme, also see Kāmil Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī, al-Ṣilaḥ bayna al-taṣawwuf wa’ l-tashayyuʿ (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, 1969).
20.
Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2007), 52–69.
21.
Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant, 68. The theme of knowledge as light in Sufism is expanded by Rosenthal in chapter 6 of the book.
22.
Ibn Sīnā, al-Ishārāt wa’l-tanbihāt, ed. Sulayman Dunya, 2 vols (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, 1960), 368–372.
23.
Ibn Sīnā, Ilāhiyyāt al-Shifā, trans. Michael Marmura: The Metaphysics of the Healing (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Press, 2005), 25. On Ibn Sīnā’s theory of mental existence, see Deborah Black, “Avicenna on the Ontological and Epistemic Status of Fictional Beings,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 8 (1997): 425–445.
24.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 287.
25.
Mullā Ṣadrā discusses this extensively in his commentary on Suhrawardī’s Ḥikmat al-ishrāq. See Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mullā Ṣadrā on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition, 59–67; Ghulām Ḥossein Ibrāhīmī Dīnānī, Shuʿāʿ-i andīshah wa shuhūd-i falsafa-yi Suhrawardī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i ḥikmat, 1986), 335–345.
26.
Suhrawardī’s influence on Mullā Ṣadrā can be traced in many parts of the latter’s philosophy, but in this study I only discuss his influence regarding their views on the nature of knowledge.
27.
Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī, al-Mashāriʿ wa’l-muṭāriḥāt cited by Mehdi Ḥāʾirī Yazdī, The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by Presence (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 67.
28.
See Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy, 59–66.
29.
Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī, The Philosophy of Illumination, eds. and trans. John Walbridge and Hossein Ziai (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1999), 70–73.
30.
Ibrāhīmī Dīnānī, Shuʿāʿ-i andīshah wa shuhūd-i falsafa-yi Suhrawardī, 359.
31.
For Suhrawardī’s science of lights, see Suhrawardī, The Philosophy of Illumination, 83–89.
32.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 297.
33.
Muḥammad Ḥussein Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Nihāya al-ḥikma (Qom: Muʾassasa al-nashr al-Islāmī, n.d.), 240.
34.
In Peripatetic philosophy, knowledge by correspondence is our knowledge of the external world through the intermediary of quiddity (māhiyya), abstracted from the external object and representing it. The only example of knowledge by presence is the knowledge that the soul has of herself without the intermediary of any mental forms or images. While Mullā Ṣadrā and his school begin their sections on knowledge with this division, unlike their Peripatetic predecessors, they finally reduce all knowledge to knowledge by presence. On the two-fold division of knowledge, see Haʾirī Yazdī, The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy, 43–56. On different theories of knowledge, see Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy, 118–135.
35.
Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Nihāya al-ḥikma, 241.
36.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 366.
37.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 487.
38.
Ibid.
39.
Porphyry’s demonstration of the unification of the knower and the known follows his arguments against unification in the case of sense perception and imagination, which reach out of themselves for their objects. He says that “In the case of these faculties, then, their mode of apprehension is of such a nature as this: in no case would any of them, through reverting towards and being concentrated on itself, come to the recognition of any form, sensible or nonsensible. In the case of intellect, on the other hand, apprehension does not take place in this way, but in virtue of its concentrating on itself and contemplating itself.” This passage is from Plotinus ’ Enneads as edited by Porphyry and is known as Launching Points to the Intelligibles. See John Dillon and Lloyd P. Gerson, Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), 190.
40.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, ed. Sayyid Jalāl al-Dīn Ᾱshtiyānī (Mashhad, IR: Dānishgāh-i Mashhad, 1968), 221; “Risāla fī ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa’l-maʿqūl,” 88.
41.
Aristotle, De Anima, ed. and trans. R.D. Hicks (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert Publisher, 1965), Book II: 3, 59.
42.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 337.
43.
Mullā Ṣadrā, Shīrāzī, Kitāb al-Mashāʿir, ed. Ibrahim Kalin and trans. Seyyed Hossein Nasr: The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations: A Parallel English-Arabic Text (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2014), 13.
44.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, IX: 186. Translated in Meisami, Mulla Sadra, 35. For Mullā Ṣadrā’s arguments against the authentic reality of essence (aṣāla al-māhiyya) in favor of the authentic reality of being, see Shīrāzī, Kitāb al-Mashāʿir, 40–47.
45.
In quoting this passage, I had to change the original translation of the term from “intelligibilia ” to “the intelligible” to be consistent with the rest of my text.
46.
Shīrāzī, “Risāla fī ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa’l-maʿqūl,” 21. The translation of the passage is by Kalin, “Appendix: Treatise on the Unification of the Intellector and the Intellect,” in Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy, 269; al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 322.
47.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 202.
48.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 203. Here Mullā Ṣadrā also mentions estimation (tawahhum), which is strange because he famously argues against the existence of this level of the mind in his criticism of Ibn Sīnā’s epistemology. Estimation is defined by Ibn Sīnā as the perception of particular meanings (maʿānī al-juzwiyya) such as the sheep’s fear of wolves. See Ibn Sīnā, Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and Metaphysics, trans. Shams Inati (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 101.
49.
In the words of John Esposito, fiṭra is “according to the Quran, the original state in which humans are created by God. In the Qurʾan, God is called Fāṭir , that is, creator of heaven and earth, and the verb faṭara is also used to mean ‘to create.’ However, the commonly accepted meaning of the word derives from the traditions of Muḥammad, according to which God creates children according to fiṭra, and their parents later make them Jews or Christians . As such, every child is born a Muslim. The concept of fiṭra was commonly invoked by Sufis, who often viewed their own quest as the means for restoring the original harmony of creation.” John L. Esposito, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 87.
50.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 202–203.
51.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 515.
52.
In his Iksīr al-ʿārifīn, which is a translation of Afḍal al-Dīn Kāshānī’s Jāwīdān nāma, Mullā Ṣadrā draws heavily on Sufi concepts and narratives to explain the ontological and epistemological state of the human soul. He calls the soul in the beginning of her creation a “broken leg” (maqṣūra al-qadam): “At the beginning of her configuration, the soul’s leg is broken. When the brokenness disappears, she comes forth inverted (mankūsa) among the plants. When she inclines away from inversion toward the level of the dumb beasts (al-bahāʾim), she is midway between inversion and standing straight. When in her movement she reaches the degree of humanness (al-daraja al-insāniyya), her stature has stood up straight and her ‘resurrection (al-qyāma) stood forth’ so that she stands before the Author (al-bārīʾ).” See Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, Iksīr al-ʿārifīn, trans. William Chittick: The Elixir of Gnostics (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2003), 45. Also compare Mullā Ṣadrā’s use of plant imagery to a similar one in Kirmānī’s text where he describes the soul as being, in the beginning, a “weak sapling.” See Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, ed. Muḥammad Muṣṭafā Ḥilmī (Cairo: Dār al-fikr al-ʿArabīyya, 1953), 348.
53.
Mullā Ṣadrā was not the first thinker to synthesize the Sufi and philosophical discourses. Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Ibn Turkah Iṣfahānī (d. 835/1432) preceded Mullā Ṣadrā in generating a synthetic discourse of this kind. This is especially noticeable in his al-Tamhīd al-qawāʿid, which is a commentary on Abū Hāmid Iṣfahānī’ s al-Qawāʿid al-tawḥīd, and expands on Ibn ʿArabī’s views on being and knowledge. In his approach to philosophy, Ibn Turkah diverges from Ibn ʿArabī by arguing that the journey of the soul in quest of truth goes through the illuminated fields of philosophy but ends up on the heights of gnosis. In his Prologue (Khuṭba) to al-Tamhīd al-qawāʿid, he clearly explains his synthetic methodology and appreciates the necessity of rational speculation. The main theme of the Prologue is that reason and revelation are both necessary as constituents of true knowledge. That is why the author frequently mentions the ancient philosophers, such as Plato, whom he calls “divine Plato.” Similar to philosophical compendiums, Ibn Turkah begins with different categories of sciences and their subjects to define the science of gnosis (ʿirfān) as a superior form of knowledge based on the generality of its subjects and the methodology of acquiring it. See ʿAli ibn Muḥammad Turkah Iṣfahānī, “Khuṭba al-kitāb” cited in ʿAbdullah Jawādī Āmulī, Tahrīr-i Tamhīd al-qawāʾid, ed. Ḥamīd Pārsānīya, 3 vols (Qom: Markaz-i nashr-i asrāʾ, 1387 S.H.), I: 115–118. The contemporary Iranian historian of philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr believes that Ibn Turkah was Shīʿī. See Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006), 210.
54.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshānī , Iṣṭilāḥāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. Muḥammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm Jaʿfar (Qom: Intishārāt-i bīdār, 1991), 156.
55.
For the influence of Ibn ʿArabī on Islamic literature, see James Winston Morris, “Ibn ʿArabī Part II (Conclusion): Influences and Interpretations,” Journal of American Oriental Society 107:1 (Jan-Mar 1978): 101–119. For major scholarship on the influence of Ibn ʿArabī on Mullā Ṣadrā, see Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra (New York: Zone Books, 2006); Shigeru Kamada, “Mullā Ṣadrā’s imāma/walāya: An Aspect of His Indebtedness to Ibn ʿArabī,” Journal of Islamic Philosophy, 6 (2010): 67–79.
56.
William Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination: The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), 166.
57.
Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination, 4; 149.
58.
Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination, 286. It is important to note that according to Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s ethics follows a theomorphic approach based on his metaphysics, so it must be distinguished from ethics in the common sense of the term. On this subject, see Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination, 22–26.
59.
Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination, 287.
60.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 309.
61.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 303.
62.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 311
63.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 351.
64.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 431; Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, ed. Muḥammad Khājawī (Tehran: Muʾassasa-i taḥqīqāt-i farhangī, 1363 S.H.), 116.
65.
For the light analogy in Neoplatonism as transmitted through Arabic translations, see ʿAbdul Raḥmān Badawī, Aflūṭīn ʿinda ‘l-ʿArab (Kuwait: Wikāla al-maṭbūʿāt, 1977), 119–120.
66.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, VIII: 259. In my arguments for the independence of the human intellect, I was inspired by Abdulrasūl ʿUbūdiyyat, Darʾāmadī bi niẓām-i ḥikmat-i Ṣadrāʾī, 2 vols (Tehran: Intishārāt-i samt, 2007/1386 S.H.), II: 94–99. On the promotion of the human intellect to the level of the agent intellect, also see Shīrāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 579. Here, he also makes references to Sufi discourses. See Shīrāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 598.
67.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, 117.
68.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 162.
69.
In Shīʿī literature, the term is derived from tafwīḍ which means “delegation,” a doctrine according to which God has delegated to the imam the management and care of the world. It refers to a theological narrative that attributes superhuman qualities to the imams. See Suleiman A. Mourad, “Muways b. ʿImrān, Abū ʿImrān,” in Encyclopedia of Islam Three, eds. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2013), accessed June 20, 2016, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/muways-b-imran-abu-imran-COM_23884?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-3&s.q=tafwid
70.
Hossein Modarresi, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shiʿite Islam (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1993), 49.
71.
Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, ed. ʿAlī Akbar Ghaffārī, 8 vols (Tehran: Maktabat al-Ṣādiq, 1381 A.H./1961); Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, ed. Shaykh Muḥammad al-Ākhūndī, vols 3–8 (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya, 1377 A.H./1957–1379 A.H./1959). Al-Kulaynī’s al-kāfī is the earliest extant authoritative collection of Shīʿī traditions (ḥadīth) and one of the four most authoritative sources of traditions among Twelver Shīʿīs. See Mojan Momen, An Introduction to Shīʿī Islam: The History and Doctrine of Twelver Shiʿism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 174. One of the hallmarks of al-Kāfī is its emphasis on the concepts of knowledge, intellect, and reason. It is also said that Kulaynī tends to interpret al-ʿaql more in the sense of reason. On this topic, see Lynda Clarke, “Doctrine of the Shiʿah according to the Early Shiʿi Sources,” PhD dissertation, McGill University (Canada), 1994.
72.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, II: 485.
73.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, eds. Muḥammad Khājawī and ʿAlī Nūrī, 2nd ed. 4 vols (Tehran: Pizhūhishgāh-i ʿulūm-i insānī wa muṭālaʿāt-i farhangī, 1383 S.H./2004), II: 482.
74.
Sayeh Meisami, “Mullā Ṣadrā’s Philosophical Arguments for the Necessity of the Imamate,” Religion Compass 10 (2016): 251.
75.
Ibn ʿArabī, The Meccan Revelations, ed. Michel Chodkiewicz, trans. William Chittick and James W. Morris, 2 vols (New York: Pir Press, 2004), I: 109; 213; 217; 234; 320; 322.
76.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 487–488.
77.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Tirmidhī, Kitāb khatm al-awliyāʾ ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā (Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿah al-kātūlīkiyyah, 1965), 422. Ibn ʿArabī addressed many of the points related to this concept in answering metaphysical and mystical questions raised by Tirmidhī. In this book, Ibn ʿArabī’s comments are included in the footnotes on the text cited above. On Tirmidhī’s work, see Bernd Radtke, “Some Recent Research on Al-Hakim Al-Tirmidhi,” Der Islam 83:1 (2006): 39–89.
78.
Tirmidhī, Kitāb khatm al-awliyāʾ, 346.
79.
I have previously written on the influence of Ibn ʿArabī on Mullā Ṣadrā as an example of the synthesis of Sufism and Shiʿism. See Sayeh Meisami, “Mullā Ṣadrā on the Efficacy of Prayer (Duʿā),” The Brill Journal of Sufi Studies 4 (2015): 59–83. For major writings on the confluence of Sufism and Shiʿism, see Kāmil Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī, al-Ṣilāḥ bayna al-taṣawwuf wa’l-tashayyuʿ (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1969); Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Shiʿism and Sufism: Their Relationship in Essence and History,” Religious Studies, 6:3 (1970): 229–242.
80.
Shigeru Kamada, “Mullā Ṣadrā’s Imāma/Wilāya: An Aspect of His Indebtedness to Ibn ʿArabī,” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 6 (2010): 71.
81.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 377–378; Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 450–451. The quotation was originally translated in Meisami, Mulla Sadra, 112.
82.
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, al-Wāridāt al-qalbiyya wa maʿrifa al-rubūbiyya, ed. Ahmad Shafīʿīhā (Tehran: Anjuman-i falsafa-yi Irān, 1980), 186. Also see Kāshānī, Iṣṭilāḥāt al-ṣūfiyya, 41.
83.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 228.
84.
Meisami, “Mullā Ṣadrā on the Efficacy of Prayer,” 64.
85.
Chittick, Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination, 239. On the station of all-comprehensiveness, see also Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, trans. Muhammad Ali Muvaḥḥid and Ṣamad Muvaḥḥid (Tehran: Nashr-i kārnāmeh, 1385 S.H./2006), 157.
86.
Ibn ʿArabī, The Meccan Revelations, I: 44.
87.
Mullā Ṣadrā, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 201.
88.
Dakake, “Hierarchies of Knowing in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Commentary on the Uṣūl al-kāfī,” 9.
89.
For the meanings of knowledge in Twelver Shīʿīsm and references on this subject, see Amir Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994), 6–22.
90.
Mullā Ṣadrā. Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 73. The term “taʾyīd” was previously translated as “inspiration” in the Ismaʿili context. In translating from Mullā Ṣadrā’s Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, I use “inspiration” for the term “ilhām.” However, the frequent adoption of this Qurʾanic term by Mullā Ṣadrā may suggest the incorporation of Ismaʿili concepts and narratives.
91.
Dakake, “Hierarchies of Knowing in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Commentary on the Uṣūl al-kāfī,” 35. On the expandability of Sufi-Shīʿī terminology, James Morris has an interesting article in which he analyzes the use of the term “Mahdī” by Ibn ʿArabī in Futūḥāt al-Makiyya. Based on his interpretation of the term, Mahdī has the Qurʾanic sense of a person whose soul has evolved through divine guidance (hidāya), and it is a state that can be reached by every soul who seeks it. See James Winston Morris, “Ibn ʿArabī’s Messianic Secret: From ‘the Mahdi’ to the Imamate of Every Soul,” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society 30, (2001): 1–18. For an analysis of the relation between the Shīʿī use of the term wilāya and its meaning in Sufi literature, based on a sociological approach, see Maria Massi Dakake, The Charismatic Community: Shiʿite Identity in Early Islam (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007).
92.
For Āmulī’s intellectual contribution to Sufi-Shīʿī dynamics, see Henry Corbin, En Islam iranien, aspects spirituels et philosophiques, 4 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), III: 149–213. For the influence of Ibn ʿArabī on Shīʿī discourses through Ḥaydar Āmulī, see Robert Wisnovsky, “One Aspect of the Akbarian Turn in Shiʿi Theology,” in Sufism and Theology, ed. Ayman Shihadeh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007); Khanjar Ḥamiӯah, al-ʿIrfān al-shiʿi: dirāsa fi-l-ḥayāt al-rūḥiyya wa-l-fikriyya li-Ḥaydar al-Āmulī (Bayrūt: Dār al-Hādī, 2004); Hermann Landolt, “Ḥaydar Āmulī et les deux miʿrāj,” Studia Islamica 1:91 (2000): 91–106.
93.
Āmulī, Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār, 494.
94.
Āmulī, Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār, 561.
95.
Āmulī, Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār, 246; 443; 444; 456.
96.
Arzina R. Lalani, Early Shīʿī Thought: The Teachings of Imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir (London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 83. Lalani explains al-Bāqir’s contribution to the formulation of the doctrine of the imamate including the doctrine of infallibility (ʿiṣma). Also, the author provides evidence for the incorporation of al-Bāqir’s traditions in Ismaʿili texts.
97.
Mullā Ṣadrā, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 427.
98.
In Ismaʿili discourses, both Fatimid and Nizārī , ḥujja is often used in the sense of a rank of the Summons (daʿwa) below the imam and is not identified with the imam though the ḥujja has a very high status. For a history of the use of “ḥujja” in Ismaʿili literature, see Farhad Daftary, The Ismaʿīlīs: their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 117–118; according to Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī “the soul of the supreme ḥujja, which by itself, knows nothing and is nothing, is illuminated by the effulgent radiation of the divine assistance (taʾyīd) [or inspiration] from the imam.” See Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-yi taslīm, ed. and trans. S. J. Badakhchani: Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought (London: I.B. Tauris in association with Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2005), 131.
99.
Mullā Ṣadrā, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 440.
100.
While this is attributed to Peripatetic philosophers, Fārābī’s position is debatable because he explains revelation in terms of the perfection of imagination rather than intellection. For the relation between the faculty of imagination and prophecy, see Fārābī, On the Perfect State, 224–225; 245–247. Also, see Richard Walzer, “Al-Fārābī’s Theory of Prophecy and Divination,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 77:1 (1957): 142–148.
101.
Mullā Ṣadrā, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 442.
102.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 101–107.
103.
Suhrawardī, The Philosophy of Illumination, 107.
104.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 503.
105.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 504.
106.
Ibid.
107.
Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm Naysābūrī, The Degrees of Excellence: a Fatimid Treatise on Leadership in Islam: a new Arabic Edition and English Translation of Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Naysābūrī’s Kitāb Ithbāt al-imāma, ed. and trans. Arzina R. Lalani (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 48–50.
108.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 504.
109.
Badawī, Aflūṭīn ʿinda ‘l-Arab, 134–139.
110.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 509.
111.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 511.
112.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 530.
113.
In Aristotelian logic as formulated by Islamic philosophers, definition (taʿrīf) comes under essential definition (ḥadd) , which is based on genus and differentia, and definition by accidents (rasm) by using inclusive accident (ʿaraḍ al-ʿāmm) and particular accident (ʿaraḍ al-khāṣṣ).
114.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 532.
115.
According to Qurʾan (2:269): “And He gives wisdom to whoever He will. Whoever is given wisdom has truly been given much good, but only those with insight will bear this in mind.”
116.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 551.
117.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 571.
118.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 585; 605.
119.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-yi taslīm, 121. For the Twelver tradition of supernatural assumptions about the preexistence of the imam in light of Sufi narratives, see Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism, 29–59.
120.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 134.
121.
Among Mullā Ṣadrā’s successors, Fayḍ Kāshānī’s narrative of the imamate is one of the best examples of the continuation of the above-mentioned account of the imamate as a cosmic rank, instances of which must always exist. See Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī, ʿilm al-yaqīn, trans. Hussein Ustād-Walī, 2 vols (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Ḥikmat, 2014), I: 482–484. In his discourse on the imamate, Fayḍ Kāshānī also follows Mullā Ṣadrā in synthesizing Sufi and Shīʿī narratives. On this subject, see Shigeru Kamada, “Fayḍ al-Kāshānī’s walāya: The Confluence of Shiʿi Imamology and Mysticism,” in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought: Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson, 455–468 (London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005).
122.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 573–574.
123.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 584.
124.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 487.
125.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 562.
126.
Typical of Shīʿī traditions on the authority of the imamate, this tradition suggests the deprivation of the Shīʿī imams from their rightful position as rulers and implies that their unrivaled perfection was the cause of envy and hostility.
127.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 566.
128.
In Shīʿī philosophical theology, this issue is discussed under the topic of divine attributes (al-ṣifāt al-ilāhiyya) and their identity with the divine essence (al-dhāt al-ilāhī) . See Allāma Muḥammad Ḥillī, Kashf al-murād fī sharḥ tajrīd al-iʿtiqād, ed. Ḥasan Ḥasanzāda Āmulī (Qom: Muʾassasa-i nashr-i Islāmī, 1433 A.H.), 410.
129.
On the identity of divine knowledge and power in Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy, see Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, VI: 333. Also see Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra, 142.
130.
Shīrāzī, al-Ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliya fi asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa, III: 362–366; al-Wāridāt al-qalbiyya wa maʿrifa al-rubūbiyya, 113–114.
131.
For an example, see Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 479.
132.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 404.
133.
For the imams’ divine appointment (naṣṣ) in philosophical theology, see Ḥillī, Kashf al-murād fī sharḥ tajrīd al-iʿtiqād, 495–496; Maytham ibn ʿAlī Baḥrānī, Qawāʿid al-marām fi ʿilm al-kalām, 181.
134.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 404–405.
135.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 405.
136.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 611.
137.
Etan Kohlberg, “Waṣī” in Encyclopedia of Islam Three, eds. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2013), accessed June 14, 2016, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/wasi-SIM_7881?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.cluster.Encyclopaedia+of+Islam&s.q=wasi
138.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 377.
139.
Kamada, “Mullā Ṣadrā’s imāma/walāya: an Aspect of His Indebtedness to Ibn ʿArabī,” 72.
140.
In certain instances in Sufi history, the spiritual saint is also regarded as the deputy of the Concealed Imam and is endowed with the authority to legalize the rule of the state. For a study of the Shiʿitization of the Sufi wilāya, see Oliver Scharbrodt, “The Quṭb as Special Representative of the Hidden Imam: the Conflation of Shiʿi and Sufi Vilāyat in the Niʿmatullāhī Order ,” in Shiʿi Trends and Dynamics in Modern Times (XVIIIth-XXth centuries): Courants et dynamiques chiites à l’époque moderne (XVIIIe-XXe siècles), eds. Denis Hermann and Sabrina Mervin, 33–49 (Beirut: Ergon Verlag Würzburg in Kommission, 2010). On the interrelationship between Sufism and politics, also see Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Pre-modern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
141.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 377; Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 423; 431; 478; 500; 523; 555; 564.
142.
The “bearers of good news” (al-mubashshirāt) refers to the prophets and messengers of God. “They were messengers bearing good news and warning, so that mankind would have no excuse before God, after receiving the messengers: God is almighty and all wise.” (Q. 4:165).
143.
For this Qurʾanic term (Q. 3:58; 13:28; 15:6; 15:9; 20:124; 21:7; 43:5; 51:55; 54:40) and its usage in Sufi narratives, see Luis Gardet, “Dhikr,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, Three, eds. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2013), accessed June 16, 2016, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/dhikr-COM_0162?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=dhikr
144.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 377. A similar passage appears in Uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 450.
145.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 349.
146.
Allāma Muḥammad Ḥillī, “Tadhhīb al-wuṣūl ilā ʿilm al-uṣūl,” trans. John Cooper in Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand, 243–248 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), 243. For the meaning and a historiography of the term, see Ahmed El Shamsy, “Fiqh, Faqīh, Fuqahā,” in Encyclopedia of Islam Three, eds. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2013), accessed June 16, 2016, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/fiqh-faqih-fuqaha-COM_27135?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-3&s.q=fiqh
On the history of the emergence and development of ijtihād, see Norman Calder, “Doubt and Prerogative: the Emergence of an Imāmī Shīʿī Theory of Ijtihād,” in Shiʾism: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, eds. Paul Luft and Colin Turner, 4 vols (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), III: 177–194.
147.
According to Ismail Poonawala, the transmission of authority from the imams to religious scholars started in the imamate of al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq but during the imamate of the later imams and especially the lesser occultation, “historical circumstances ensured that practical authority would be gradually transferred to the learned disciples.” See Ismail K. Poonawala, “The Imam’s Authority during the Pre-ghayba Period: Theoretical and Practical Considerations,” in Shiʿite Heritage: Essays on Classical and Modern Traditions, ed. Lynda Clarke, 103–123 (Bonghamton: Global, 2001), 121. On this topic, also see Wilferd Madelung, “Authority in Twelver Shiʿism in the Absence of the Imam,” in La notion d’autorité au Moyan Âge: Byzance, Occident, eds. George Makdisi, Dominique Sourdel, and Janine Sourdel Thomine, 163–173 (Paris: Presse Universitaires du France, 1982).
148.
On the absolute authority of the jurists, see Said Amir Arjomand, “The Mujtahid of the Age and the Mullā-bāshī: An Intermediate Stage in the Institutionalization of Religious Authority in Shiʿite Iran,” in Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand, 80–98 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), 80–84.
149.
Shīrāzī, al-Shawāhid al-rubūbiyya, 349.
150.
The first title was given to Shaykh ʿAlī al-Karakī (d. 940/1534) by Shāh Ismail I (r. 906–930/1501–1524) and although the Karakī family retained a special authority among later scholars, this title was not given to one particular person later; a number of mujtahids were regarded as authorities and were given the title of shaykh al-Islām. Among these, the shaykh al-Islām of Isfahan, the capital of the Safavids since the reign of Shah Abbas I (r. 995–1038/1587–1629), had the greatest power among religious scholars. The best example of the authority held in this office was Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (d. 1110/1699) who relied on certain Shīʿī narratives to undermine both Sunnism and Sufism. See Arjomand, “The Mujtahid of the Age and the Mullā-bāshī ,” 82–84.
151.
On religion and politics during the Safavid era, see Colin P. Mitchell, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric (London/New York: Tauris, 2009); Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shiʿite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
152.
Abbas Amanat, “In Between the Madrasa and the Marketplace: the Designation of Clerical Leadership in Modern Shiʿism,” in Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand, 98–132 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), 105.
153.
Shīrāzī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, II: 551.

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Meisami, S. (2018). Mullā Ṣadrā on Knowledge and the Imamate. In: Knowledge and Power in the Philosophies of Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī and Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71192-8_4

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