Work · Philosophy in the Islamic World
Commentary on the Aims
Al-Taftazani’s commentary, completed in January 1383, on his own summa of theology, the Aims (al-Maqāṣid): knowledge, being, substance and accident, God, prophecy and the imamate; here he answers Ibn Sina and rejects the identification of God with absolute being in the school of Ibn Arabi.
Introduction
Saʿd al-Din al-Taftazani completed his “Commentary on the Aims” (Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid) in January 1383, near the end of his life; it explains his own compendium of theology, the Aims, and is his most comprehensive work. It treats knowledge, being and its divisions, substance and accident, God’s existence and attributes, prophecy, the afterlife and the imamate, reporting the positions of philosophers and theologians before judging them. Among its best-known arguments are a reply to Ibn Sina’s claim that essences cannot be made by an agent, and an attack on the metaphysics of the school of Ibn Arabi, which identified God with absolute being; for al-Taftazani absolute being is a concept in the mind. The work also contains his discussion of the Liar paradox under the name “the irrational root”, which later authors adopted. Together with al-Jurjani’s Commentary on the Stations it marks the high point of post-classical kalām.
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