JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Year:2005 | Volume:6 | Issue:2-3 (22-23)|Papers Count:8

Mir Damad and Mullah Sadra were two leading figures in the realm of Islamic philosophical thought, the former from Astarabad (later name Gorgan) and the latter from Shiraz. They met each other at Isfahan. Each of them had his own profound thoughts in resolving Islamic philosophical debates. The present article deals with some of their thoughts and viewpoints on cosmology. The topics dealt with in this paper are as follows: originality of existence, the essential movement, the eternal movement of the universe, the temporal advent of the universe, or the temporal advent without its point of origin in time, and the relation of caused and the eternal.      

Ontology is one of the most important issues in the western philosophy which is neglected in the modern period. Recently, Martin Heidegger has made many efforts to renew the statues of ontology in western philosophy. He, like Mulla Sadra attempts to go beyond conceptual realm and comes near to the realm of discovering the reality of existence. " In Heidegger's view the only way for knowing the existence is to understand and analyze the concrete and real existence of the things especially human beings. Mulla Sadra also takes the knowledge by presence the best way for knowing the reality of existence. Both philosophers discussed in their existential philosophy some important issues such as cosmos, God, motion, time and Logos (God's word).      

According to Quranic verses and traditions, there are two broad spheres of creation. That is, the sphere of light and that of objects. Depending on the former, the sphere of light functions as the guide light for the sphere of objects. The first Divine creation was the existential light of the Prophet Muhammad, of which everything else appeared. It was the origin of the whole enterprise of creation, for which there have been other designations such as intellect, light, soul, and pen. The light of the Infallibles, i.e. Imam Ali, Lady Fatima, other Imams, the prophets and apostles, the Divine Throne, the Divine Table, the Paradise, and the souls of believers were all derived from the light of the Prophet Muhammad. In the sphere of objects, water was the first creation, which was ultimately from the light of the Prophet. Then the whole universe came into being within six days in the Divine scale of time.

The present paper concerns Mowlana's views of the intellect. He believes in a hierarchical ranking for the intellect as well as drawing some divisions within the intellect. The most important of these divisions concern holistic/major vs. partial/minor intellect, describing each in terms of the weaknesses and strengths found. Out of the negative features of partial/minor intellect, he refers to the point that it denies love, discards repentance, and proves incoherency where consistency is a requirement. On the other side, the holistic or major intellect relieves man from worshipping lustful desires and egocentric feelings and prevents him or her from going astray. It is this intellect which elevates him or her far above the level of angels and gets him or her close to God. The conflicts of intellect vs. love, intellect vs. soul, and that of madness are dealt with in the final section of this paper.        

Faced with the rule "Only one is generated from one", Muslim theologians are divided into two camps. Those who had more powerful philosophical leanings and orientations defended this rule and accepted one version of the theory of emanation. For example Nassir al-Din Tusi formulated the rule in terms of a mathematic and symbolic language. Over against this trend, a great majority of Muslim theologians opposed the rule. The latter camp's rejection of the emanation deserves reflection from two perspectives a-psychologically it seems that the theory of emanation contradicts the omnipotence and free will of God and b- logically the peripatetic philosophers' analysis of the first intellect mostly proves erroneous.      

The question of metaphysics has played a key role in the philosophy of Kant and Heidegger Hence it made impressions on their philosophies, too. It follows that the major question Kant was confronted with was major metaphysical challenges present in his time in the rationalistic and empirical trends which led on to the fall of metaphysics. Hence Heidegger's chief contribution focused on rescuing metaphysics from the superstitions associated with it. Like Kant, Heidegger directed his attentriuon to metaphysics, hence regarding his contemporary metaphysics entangled with major crises which necessitated its foundations being rescued.

Jesus Christ holds a special status in the Quranic literature and in the hadith related from the Prophet Muhammad. The present article deals with the status of Jesus Christ in Muslims' conviction in the End of Time, for it has a noteworthy position in Sunnite hadith sources. This topic is categorized under the topic of kitab ishrat al-sa'a "book of the features of the time". One of the signs of the advent of "sa'a "the time", or Resurrection, is the coming down of Jesus from the heavens. This will be take place along with the advent of the Infallible Imam al-Mahdi as well as that of Dajjal.