Mulla Sadra

Mulla Sadra made major contributions to Islamic metaphysics and to Shi’i theology
during the Safavid period (1501-1736) in Persia. He started his career in the context
of a rising culture that combined elements from the Persian past with the newly
institutionalized Shi’ism and Sufi teachings. Mulla Sadra was heir to a long tradition
of Islamic philosophy that from the beginning had accommodated the speculations
of Greek philosophers, especially Neoplatonic philosophers, for the purpose of
understanding the world, particularly in relation to the creator and the Islamic faith.
Islamic philosophy originated in the rational endeavours to reconcile reason and
revelation though the results did not always satisfy theologians, but ironically
widened the gaps between reason and revelation.

Mulla Sadra, too, was deeply concerned about both reason and revelation, and he
tried a new way of reconciliation by openly employing a synthetic methodology in
which mysticism played an important part. For him and his followers, human
knowledge is tenable only as long as it goes back to the indirect grasp of reality which
in itself is not subject to conceptualization. Nevertheless, Mulla Sadra was dedicated
to the traditional forms of logical arguments that are based on premises evident to
the mind rather than on beliefs which come from religious faith and tradition. For
example, his use of Qur’anic verses and religious ideas, though it is an important part
of his system, is mainly confined to a secondary or supportive position. As for
mysticism, the extensive use of mystical concepts and terminology is acceptable from
the point of view of those thinkers who believe that mystical inspiration, intellectual
intuition, and revelation, originate in one and the same source, hence their
celebration of Mulla Sadra’s work as “prophetic philosophy.” As a result, the scope
of Mulla Sadra’s work is wider than his predecessors. In addition to metaphysics, he
wrote extensively on the Qur’an and the Tradition and no other major philosopher
before him had been so productive in the field of religion.

While focusing on Mulla Sadra’s metaphysics including his ontology, epistemology,

psychology, this article also brings to light the philosopher’s solutions to theological
problems. Owing to these solutions, not only did Islamic philosophy manage to
survive against religious and political odds, but also Shi’i theology never lost its
foothold on the intellectual ground. Although the organic unity of Mulla Sadra’s
system rests on all the various components of his thought, his independent works on
exegesis, mystical treatises, and his commentaries on preceding philosophers, are
outside the scope of this article.

Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Yahya al-Qawami al-Shirazi, commonly known as

Mulla Sadra, was born and grew up during the golden days of the Safavid period,
Iran’s first Shi’ite dynasty (c. 1501-1736). As the only son of a noble family, he
received both intellectual and financial support towards a good education that
started in his home town, Shiraz, in southeastern Iran. Though Shiraz had a glorious
past with regard to philosophy, in Mulla Sadra’s day it was not the best place for
satisfying his intellectual desire. In his quest for advanced religious and
philosophical training he left Shiraz for Qazvin and then moved to Isfahan where he
studied with the most eminent intellectual figures of the day, Mir Damad (d. 1631)
and Shaykh Baha’̓i (d. 1576) who were also affiliated with the court of the Safavid
King, Shah Abbas I (c. 1587-1629). While Mulla Sadra’s philosophical character
evolved in conversation and debates with Mir Damad, he owed to Shayk Baha’i his
broad knowledge of exegesis (tafsir), tradition (hadith), mysticism (irfan) and
jurisprudence (fiqh). There is yet no historical evidence that he ever studied with
Mir Findiriski (d. 1640/1), the other leading intellectual of the time. However, the
frequency of associating the two by scholars such as Henry Corbin (d. 1978) suggests
an inclination on their part towards providing a perfect picture of the philosopher’s
integration in the intellectual life of Isfahan with all the pivotal thinkers involved in
shaping what has been called “the full flowering of prophetic philosophy” in Mulla
Sadra’s hands (Nasr 2006).

In 1601, upon the death of his father, Mulla Sadra returned to Shiraz. Later he related
his experience during the time spent in Shiraz in a doleful and critical voice
denouncing the intellectual atmosphere of the city for being hostile, suppressive, and
philistine with regard to philosophy (al-Asfar I 7). He decided to leave Shiraz for a
life of solitude and contemplation in Kahak, a quiet village near the city of Qom. The
peace and quiet of life in Kahak gave Mulla Sadra the opportunity to start the
composition of his most foundational work, al-Hikmat al-muta ‘aliya fi’l-asfar al-
‘aqliyya al-arba (Transcendent Wisdom in the Four Journeys of the Intellect).
There he also found some of his life-long students who became well-known scholars
of their own time.

This period was followed by several journeys between Shiraz, Isfahan, Qom, Kashan,
and most importantly, seven pilgrimages to Mecca. Apparently, this itinerant stage
played an important part in his intellectual and spiritual growth that is also
suggested by the “journey” metaphor in the title and divisions of al-Asfar. It was also
during this period that Mulla Sadra accepted the invitation to teach at Khan School,
which was built in Shiraz on the order of the new governor, Allahwirdi Khan, in Mulla
Sadra’s honour and for the purpose of his lectures.

Mulla Sadra had a family of six children, three sons and three daughters. All his sons
became scholars and his daughters were married to three of Sadra’s students whom
he treated as family even prior to the marriages. We know that two of these students
Muhsin Fayz Kashani (d. 1679/80 ) and Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji (d. 1661/2 ) succeeded
their father-in-law as two influential figures of their time though different to him in
their philosophical orientation and working under more pressure due to the growing
antagonism to philosophy and mysticism under Shah Abbas II (c. 1642-1666).

The intellectual network consisting of Mulla Sadra, his teachers and students that
was later dubbed “the School of Isfahan” was formed in a unique political and
religious context. Philosophers such as Mir Damad and Mulla Sadra managed to get
their voices heard by their contemporaries and posterities in spite of the conservative
religiosity of the newly established Shi’ite rule partly owing to the religious and
political state of affairs. Since the Safavids strove to establish their identity as a
Persian-Shi’ite state in contrast to the Sunni caliphate of the Turks and Arabs, they
were in need of philosophy as a stronghold of knowledge that could reinforce, not to
say generate, power through systematic thought. At least during the formative and
golden days of the Safavid period the attacks on philosophers targeted their Sufi
leanings rather than their endeavours to reconcile metaphysics with Shi’ite theology.

A prolific writer, Mulla Sadra composed a large number of treatises on ontology,

epistemology, cosmology, psychology, eschatology, theology, mysticism, the Quran
and the Tradition. However, many of his philosophical and theological works are
repetitions of or elaborations on chapters from his magnum opus al-Hikmat al-
mutaliyah fi’l-asfar al-arba‘a al-‘aqliyyah, commonly referred to as al-Asfar that is
printed in nine volumes. Rather than simply holding Mulla Sadra’s theses, the latter
work is an encyclopaedia of different schools of Islamic philosophy and theology.
With the exception of Risala-yi si asl (Treatise on the Three Principles) which is in
Persian, he wrote all his works in Arabic that was the lingua franca of the Muslim
world at that time. He also wrote extensive commentaries on the Qur ‘an and the
tradition among which respectively al-Mafatihal-ghayb (Keys to the Invisible) and
his voluminous commentary on the famous collection of Shi’ite tradition, Usul al-
kafi by Kulayni (d.939) are the most important.

After a pious life of dedication to acquiring and expanding philosophy and Islamic
sciences, Mulla Sadra died in Basra on the way to his seventh pilgrimage to Mecca.
His death was once believed to have occurred in 1640 with his body being buried in
Basra. However, modern scholarship offers new evidence, though not conclusive
evidence, in support of the date of 1635-6 and his burial being in Najaf (Rizvi 2007
30).