Mulla Sadra

Agora

Mulla Sadra

c. 1572–1640

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Existence itself is what is real, it comes in degrees, and everything is constantly changing in its very substance toward greater perfection.

Placement

Philosophy in the Islamic World · West Asia & North Africa · Metaphysics, Religion

Persian philosopher of the school of Isfahan: existence is primary and graded, and everything is in “substantial motion” toward perfection.

Key ideas

Primacy of existence
Substantial motion
Gradation of being

Teachers: Mir Damad

Students: Muhsin Fayd Kashani

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Influence

Influenced by 6

Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

influenced by
Mulla Sadra started from Avicenna’s distinction of existence and essence, but turned it into the primacy of existence and its gradation (al-Asfar al-arbaa). Mulla Sadra, al-Hikma al-mutaaliya fi l-asfar al-arbaa; SEP “Mulla Sadra”
Evidence: AI draft
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) › 980–1037
Suhrawardi

influenced by
Mulla Sadra wrote glosses on the commentary on Suhrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination and transferred Suhrawardi’s gradation of light to existence itself. Mulla Sadra, Taliqat ala Sharh Hikmat al-ishraq; SEP “Mulla Sadra”; SEP “Suhrawardi”
Evidence: AI draft
Suhrawardi › 1154–1191
Ibn Arabi

influenced by ✓
Mulla Sadra quoted Ibn Arabi extensively in The Four Journeys and gave his unity of being a philosophical form as the gradation of a single existence. Mulla Sadra, al-Asfar al-arbaa; S. Rizvi, Mulla Sadra and Metaphysics (2009); SEP “Mulla Sadra”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Ibn Arabi › 1165–1240
Athir al-Din al-Abhari

influenced by
Mulla Sadra wrote a commentary on al-Abhari’s Guide to Philosophy (Sharḥ al-Hidāya al-athīriyya), which became the cornerstone of the rationalist curriculum of the Indian madrasa from the eighteenth century. SEP “Mulla Sadra” (S. Rizvi)
Evidence: AI draft
Athir al-Din al-Abhari › c. 1194–1265
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi

influenced by
Mulla Sadra wrote glosses on Qutb al-Din’s commentary on the Philosophy of Illumination, reading Suhrawardi through it. Mulla Sadra, al-Taʿlīqāt ʿalā Sharḥ Ḥikmat al-ishrāq; SEP “Suhrawardi”
Evidence: AI draft
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi › 1236–1311
Mir Damad studied with

studied with
Mulla Sadra studied the rational sciences in Isfahan with Mir Damad, as well as with Shaykh Bahai; no teaching licence (ijaza) from them survives, but the relation is not doubted. SEP “Mulla Sadra” (S. Rizvi); S. Rizvi, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life and Works and the Sources for Safavid Philosophy (2007)
Evidence: AI draft
Mir Damad › c. 1561–1631

Influenced 6

Muhsin Fayd Kashani taught

taught
Fayd Kashani studied with Mulla Sadra in Qom from 1620/21 to 1628/29, as he records in his autobiographical treatise Sharḥ-i ṣadr, and married Sadra’s daughter Zubayda. Fayd Kashani, Sharḥ-i ṣadr; SEP “Mulla Sadra” (S. Rizvi)
Evidence: AI draft
Muhsin Fayd Kashani › 1598–1680
Hadi Sabzawari

influenced
Sabzawari wrote glosses on Mulla Sadra’s Four Journeys, and his Commentary on the Versified Treatise (1845) sums up Sadra’s doctrines of the primacy and gradation of being; with Ali Nuri he established Sadra as the master philosopher of Iran. SEP “Mulla Sadra” (S. Rizvi); S. H. Nasr, “Hādi Sabzavāri”, Encyclopaedia Iranica
Evidence: AI draft
Hadi Sabzawari › 1797–1873
Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai

influenced
Tabatabai taught the philosophy of Mulla Sadra in Qom, wrote glosses for a new edition of the Four Journeys and summed up Sadrian philosophy in his textbooks The Beginning of Wisdom and The End of Wisdom. S. H. Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present (2006); Tabāṭabāʾī, Bidāyat al-ḥikma, Nihāyat al-ḥikma
Evidence: AI draft
Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai › 1904–1981
Fazlur Rahman

influenced
Fazlur Rahman’s The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (1975) gave a systematic account of his doctrines of existence, substantial motion and the soul. F. Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) (1975)
Evidence: AI draft
Fazlur Rahman › 1919–1988
Seyyed Hossein Nasr

influenced ✓
Nasr presented Mulla Sadra’s transcendent theosophy as the synthesis of philosophy, illumination and gnosis in Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy (1978). S. H. Nasr, Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy (1978)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Seyyed Hossein Nasr › b. 1933
Abdolkarim Soroush

influenced
Soroush’s early book The Restless Nature of the World (1978) expounded Mulla Sadra’s doctrine of substantial motion, the constant change in the substance of things. A. Soroush, Nahad-e na-aram-e jahan (1978); M. Sadri & A. Sadri (eds.), Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam (2000)
Evidence: AI draft
Abdolkarim Soroush › b. 1945

Works

c. 1628The Four Journeys (al-Asfar al-arbaʿa)
A summa of metaphysics as the journeys of the soul to God and back – grounded in the primacy of existence.

Position

Mulla Sadra’s “transcendent wisdom” unites Avicenna’s philosophy, Suhrawardi’s philosophy of illumination, Ibn Arabi’s mysticism and Shi‘i theology. Its starting point is the primacy of existence: what is real in things is their existence, while essences are only the outlines our minds draw around it. Existence is one single reality that comes in grades of intensity, from God as pure being down to matter. Even substances are not fixed; they change from within in “substantial motion”, so that the whole world, including the soul, is moving toward perfection. His synthesis became the backbone of philosophy in Iran up to the present day.

Life & context

Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi, called Mulla Sadra, was born around 1572 in Shiraz and studied in Isfahan, the Safavid capital, with Mir Damad and Shaykh Baha’i. Suspected of heterodoxy by jurists, he spent years in seclusion in the village of Kahak near Qom. He later taught in Shiraz at a college built by the governor of Fars and died in Basra around 1640 while on pilgrimage to Mecca.