Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra

Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra PDF Author: Zailan Moris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136858598
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This book examines and analyses the legitimacy of the widely held claim that Mulla Sadra's philosophy (al-hikmah al-muta'aliyyah) is a synthesis of principles and doctrines drawn from revelation (wahy), gnosis ('irfan/ma'rifah) and discursive philosophy (al-hikmah al-bahthiyyah). In Mulla Sadra's view, these three major sources of knowledge can be brought together without contradiction and accorded their respective roles in the human quest for true and certain knowledge. This book discusses and demonstrates how Mulla Sadra achieves this synthesis as contained in and exemplified by his text, al-Hikmah al-'arshiyyah or Wisdom from the Divine Throne. An evaluation on whether or not Mulla Sadra's synthesis is successful is also undertaken. The criteria used for the evaluation are the internal coherence of his ideas, their conformity to Islamic teachings and impact on Islamic thinkers after him.

Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra

Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra PDF Author: Zailan Moris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136858598
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines and analyses the legitimacy of the widely held claim that Mulla Sadra's philosophy (al-hikmah al-muta'aliyyah) is a synthesis of principles and doctrines drawn from revelation (wahy), gnosis ('irfan/ma'rifah) and discursive philosophy (al-hikmah al-bahthiyyah). In Mulla Sadra's view, these three major sources of knowledge can be brought together without contradiction and accorded their respective roles in the human quest for true and certain knowledge. This book discusses and demonstrates how Mulla Sadra achieves this synthesis as contained in and exemplified by his text, al-Hikmah al-'arshiyyah or Wisdom from the Divine Throne. An evaluation on whether or not Mulla Sadra's synthesis is successful is also undertaken. The criteria used for the evaluation are the internal coherence of his ideas, their conformity to Islamic teachings and impact on Islamic thinkers after him.

Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy

Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy PDF Author: Ibrahim Kalin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199739587
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This study looks at how the seventeenth-century philosopher Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra, attempted to reconcile the three major forms of knowledge in Islamic philosophical discourses: revelation (Qur'an), demonstration (burhan), and gnosis or intuitive knowledge ('irfan). In his grand synthesis, which he calls the 'Transcendent Wisdom', Mulla Sadra bases his epistemological considerations on a robust analysis of existence and its modalities. His key claim that knowledge is a mode of existence rejects and revises the Kalam definitions of knowledge as relation and as a property of the knower on the one hand, and the Avicennan notions of knowledge as abstraction and representation on the other. For Sadra, all these theories land us in a subjectivist theory of knowledge where the knowing subject is defined as the primary locus of all epistemic claims. To explore the possibilities of a 'non-subjectivist' epistemology, Sadra seeks to shift the focus from knowledge as a mental act of representation to knowledge as presence and unveiling. The concept of knowledge has occupied a central place in the Islamic intellectual tradition. While Muslim philosophers have adopted the Greek ideas of knowledge, they have also developed new approaches and broadened the study of knowledge. The challenge of reconciling revealed knowledge with unaided reason and intuitive knowledge has led to an extremely productive debate among Muslims intellectuals in the classical period. In a culture where knowledge has provided both spiritual perfection and social status, Muslim scholars have created a remarkable discourse of knowledge and vastly widened the scope of what it means to know. For Sadra, in knowing things, we unveil an aspect of existence and thus engage with the countless modalities and colours of the all-inclusive reality of existence. In such a framework, we give up the subjectivist claims of ownership of meaning. The intrinsic intelligibility of existence, an argument Sadra establishes through his elaborate ontology, strips the knowing subject of its privileged position of being the sole creator of meaning. Instead, meaning and intelligibility are defined as functions of existence to be deciphered and unveiled by the knowing subject. This leads to a redefinition of the relationship between subject and object or what Muslim philosophers call the knower and the known.

Mulla Sadra and Metaphysics

Mulla Sadra and Metaphysics PDF Author: Sajjad H. Rizvi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134008589
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Mulla Sadra is one of the most important Islamic philosophers after Avicenna. In this exploration of his philosophy, Sajjad H. Rizvi examines the central doctrine of the modulation of being, and contextualises his work within the intellectual history of philosophical traditions in the Islamic East. Reading and critiquing the works of Mulla Sadra from an analytical perspective, this book pays particular attention to his text the Asfar, a work which, due to its complexity, is often overlooked. Looking at the concept of philosophy as a way of life and a therapeutic practice, this book explores the paradigm of the modulation of being in the philosophical method and metaphysics of Mulla Sadra and considers its different manifestations. Rizvi relates his philosophy to larger trends and provides a review of the field, charting and critiquing the discussion on the topic to date and exploring recent thought in this direction, to show how Sadrian thought was addressed well into the 19th and 20th centuries. This major contribution to the study of Mulla Sadra and the intellectual life of the Safavid period fills an important gap in the field of Sadra studies and Islamic philosophy, and is indispensable to students of philosophy, religion and Islamic studies, and Islamic philosophy in particular.

The Early Modern in South Asia

The Early Modern in South Asia PDF Author: Meena Bhargava
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100927662X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Did modernity arrive in South Asia with British colonialism? Or was South Asia already modern by then? What might have that modernity looked like? The Early Modern in South Asia engages with these questions. It brings together ten chapters, which collectively trace the contours of South Asia's early modernity between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. They do this by examining the nature of historical change in various domains, including philosophy, warfare, law, environment, politics, violence, religion, and society. The chapters argue that in all these fields, there were noticeable developments during this period, marking a shift from the medieval to the early modern. The introductory chapter contextualizes this by analysing the politics of periodization in history-writing across the world. It discusses the meanings of the relatively new concept of early modernity and the implications of its use for how we understand historical change and continuity in South Asia.

The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan

The Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan PDF Author: Yasmin Saikia
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108483879
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Examines Sayyid Ahmad Khan's life and contribution in the nineteenth century and his legacy in our current times.

Universal Science: An Introduction to Islamic Metaphysics

Universal Science: An Introduction to Islamic Metaphysics PDF Author: Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004343113
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The Universal Science (ʿIlm-i kullī) by Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī, is a concise, but authoritative, outline of the fundamental discussions in Islamic metaphysics. For many years used as a textbook in Iran, this short text offers English readers a readily accessible, lucid, and yet deeply learned, guide through the Sadrian, Avicennan, and Illuminationist schools of thought, whilst also demonstrating how the ‘living tradition’ of Shīʿī philosophy engages with central ontological, epistemological, aetiological, and psychological questions. Discussions include the primacy of existence; the proper classifications of quiddity; and the manifold properties of causality and causal explanation. This is the first of the various influential works authored by this leading Shīʿah intellectual to have been translated into English from the original Persian.

Ibn al-'Arabī and Islamic Intellectual Culture

Ibn al-'Arabī and Islamic Intellectual Culture PDF Author: Caner K Dagli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317673913
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Ibn al-'Arabī (d. 1240) was one of the towering figures of Islamic intellectual history, and among Sufis still bears the title of al-shaykh al-akbar, or "the greatest master." Ibn al-'Arabī and Islamic Intellectual Culture traces the history of the concept of "oneness of being" (wahdat al-wujūd) in the school of Ibn al- 'Arabī, in order to explore the relationship between mysticism and philosophy in Islamic intellectual life. It examines how the conceptual language used by early mystical writers became increasingly engaged over time with the broader Islamic intellectual culture, eventually becoming integrated with the latter’s common philosophical and theological vocabulary. It focuses on four successive generations of thinkers (Sadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī, Mu'ayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī, 'Abd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī, and Dāwūd al-Qaysarī), and examines how these "philosopher-mystics" refined and developed the ideas of Ibn al-'Arabī. Through a close analysis of texts, the book clearly traces the crystallization of an influential school of thought in Islamic history and its place in the broader intellectual culture. Offering an exploration of the development of Sufi expression and thought, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Islamic thought, philosophy, and mysticism.

Fifty Key Figures in Islam

Fifty Key Figures in Islam PDF Author: Roy Jackson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134257228
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
The perfect resource for those wishing to learn more about the Muslim culture, its people and its teachings, Fifty Key Figures in Islam explores the lives and thoughts of fifty influential individuals in Islam and surveys a heritage that spans 1,500 years. Covering key figures such as the Prophet Muhammad, Suleiman 'the Magnificent' and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), the entry for each figure includes: biographical details a presentation and analysis of their main ideas an account of their impact and influence within and, if appropriate, beyond the Islamic tradition list of major works and additional reading. Fully cross-referenced for ease of use, this clearly presented work is ideal for those interested in or studying the area, and could not have come at a more fascinating time in history for Islam.

Mulla Sadra and Eschatology

Mulla Sadra and Eschatology PDF Author: Eiyad S. Al-Kutubi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317639065
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The book explains Sadrā’s theory of the nature of afterlife. It presents Sadrā’s philosophical premises concerning the nature of human beings and their physical and psychological developments through which Sadrā shows how the afterlife is intimately connected to the nature of the human being and how it is a natural stage of the evolution of each individual in which a corporeal body has no role. Presenting Mullā Sadrā in a new light, the aim of this book is to investigate Sadrā’s metaphysical principles of the Return (al-ma‘ād) that have been either partially presented or misunderstood in most of the existing secondary literature. Focusing on Sadrā’s philosophical works, specifically the Asfār and his commentary on the Quran, this study demonstrates how Sadrā is a philosopher able to carry the premises of the previous philosophical theories to radically different conclusions. Mullā Sadrā and Eschatology demonstrates the manner in which Sadrā explains the Return as presented in the Quran and Hadith, but also shows how he presents the Return as a natural stage of the evolution of human beings in which a corporeal body has no role. Thus, Sadrā offers a plausible philosophical explanation to the problem of bodily resurrection that had occupied Muslim philosophers for centuries. Explaining Mullā Sadrā ‘s distinctive method of "doing" philosophy, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Islamic Philosophy, Religion and Islamic Studies more broadly.

An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol. 5

An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol. 5 PDF Author: S. H. Nasr
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786739925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 565

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Book Description
Persia is home to one of the few civilizations in the world that has had a continuous tradition of philosophical thought lasting more than two and a half millennia. From the time Zoroaster brought the Gathas, the sacred scripture of Zoroastrianism, until today, it has had a philosophical tradition comprising diverse schools and various languages including Avestan and Pahlavi as well as Arabic and Persian. The West has seen surveys of Persian art and anthologies of Persian literature, but this work is the first to present a millennial tradition of philosophy in Persia in the form of translated selections and introductory sections for each period and figure. Existing translations have been used where possible but most of the selections have been newly translated for this work which, with the help of the explanatory introductions, makes possible an intellectual journey into a philosophical continent much of which has been uncharted for Westerners until now. The fifth and final volume of An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia deals with some seven centuries of Islamic thought stretching from the era following the Mongol invasion to the end of the Qajar period. Organized around the cities which became the main centres of philosophical activity during this long period, the volume is divided into three parts: 'The School of Shiraz', whose importance not only for Persia but also for Ottoman Turkey and Muslim India is only now being recognized; 'The School of Isfahan', which marks the integration of some eight centuries of Islamic thought and culminates with Mulla Sadra; and finally 'The School of Tehran', where traditional philosophy first encountered modern thought in Persia, bringing this series into present times.