Ayeneh Ma‘refat
Year:2009 | Volume:- | Issue:18|Papers Count:9

Raising the issue of the necessity of the system of being in the philosophical structure of the companions of transcendental wisdom and the effect of religious teachings and scriptures especially the holy Quran on this school of thought in this respect is of high importance. This might be the reason why this issue is reflected both in the exegetic texts and the philosophical texts of the leading figures of this school.The issue of the necessity of the system is on the one hand related to the knowledge of the Creator about everything other than Himself as a degree of divine knowledge and on the other hand to the all other than God and the cause and effect structure of the system of being which has an important position in the interpretation and analysis of divine cosmology. The division of divine decree to the levels of innate and actual, scientific and objective, legitimate and genetic in this system of thought is very significant in explaining the above-mentioned issue.This article aims at explaining the fundamental  principles of the issue of the necessity of the system of being from the perspective of transcendental wisdom as it is reflected in Molla Sadra’s works and his commentators especially Allamah Tabatabai and the effect of the holy scriptures on them.

The present article, after evaluating Ibn Rushd’s criticisms and disparagements levelled against Avicenna and comparing and contrasting their schools of philosophy in relation to four issues of ‘differing existence from quiddity’, ‘possibility and necessity’, ‘emanation or procession’, ‘the principle of the one’, concludes that notwithstanding the fact that Ibn Rushd has laboured and speculated meticulously upon comprehending Aristotle’s school of philosophy, he seems not to have made the same efforts in understanding Avicenna’s school and his criticisms, in some cases, are based on a fundamental misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Avicenna’s school of philosophy.

Ibn Khaldun is one of the forerunners of the philosophy of history and social science and his major work which is known as Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun is concerned with these two fields of knowledge. The significance of Ibn Khaldun is derived from this fact that many of the concepts used in the philosophy of history and sociology are his inventions. Contrary to previous historians, who studied historical events independent of social phenomena, he claimed that historical events are the effects of social phenomena. He considers human societies as subject to the cause and effect system and believes that social causes are originated from the nature of society itself. Accordingly, in his analysis and explication of historical events, Ibn Khaldun uses the principle of cause and effect in the sense that, instead of studying what happened, he is seeking to find out why something happened. The present article is an attempt to introduce, to some extent, the views of this Moslem philosopher and innovative historian on philosophy of history and social science.

The trichotomy of the cosmos into dominion, heaven and omnipotence corresponds to the three partite nature of human understanding including sensation, imagination and intelligence. Accordingly, the senses are the gates through which man recognizes the material world, his imagination is the traveller on the road to heavens and his intelligence is the seeker of the dominant lights.Shahab Addin Suhrawardi, titled as the ‘Master of Illumination’, focused his endeavours on the images in suspense as the detached imagination, and in this direction he considered himself as the heir of the Iranian sages and the Greek wises. The world of images in suspense, which is different from the world of Platonic archetypes, is created by equivalent intellects. It is a vast world derived from illuminated archetypes which contains an instance of each creature in the material world.From this theosophist perspective, the imaginal forms are not derived from the human soul or mind power, rather they belong to a different world. Their relationship with the human mind is not like the relationship between an act and its agent or a recipient and perceptions, it is rather a relationship between the apparent and the epiphany. The imagianl forms are the heavenly inhabitants of the world of ideas emerging temporarily in human imagination. He had the same view of the speculum forms.The present paper is an attempt to explore this heavenly realm through the imaginary cognition and explain its features. For this purpose, Suhrawardi’s illuminationist philosophy will be regarded as the source of cognition.

Islamic theologians and scholars have different views on the origin and cause of evils in the world. From the Asharite’s perspective, God is the creator of evil, both moral and natural. From the Mutazilite perspective, God’s domain is free from creating tyrannical evil. Evil in the world is relative and in the hereafter God will compensate for the natural evils. Mutazelites consider moral evils as the outcome of man’s free will. For Islamic philosophers, good is innate and multiple and evil is non-existential, relative, accidental and caused by the finitude of the physical world. Hakim Sanaei has the same view as the Islamic philosophers and Mutazelites. His view is that God is all good and that there is no absolute or true evil. It is rather non-existential, relative and accidental. Therefore, world phenomena are not evil in essence. It is man who, unwittingly and selfishly, divides phenomena into good and evil. Moral evils originate from man’s free will and his behaviour. Further, the world is a place for experimentation and the existence of a minimum of showy evil is necessary for human beings for evaluation purposes and the achievement of ultimate good.

Mawlana’s belief is that there is a perfect, conscious and infinite Being with all the attributes and perfect names behind all phenomena in the universe. Mawlana calls this Being God. God is the permanent source of being and life. God is the Creator who created the cosmos from vacuity out of His own will. The centre of Mawlana’s thought is the Active All-Powerful Creator. From Mowlana’s point of view, on one side there is an infinite Being as the soul of the universe and on the other side there is the finite universe, constantly in the process of dialectical contradiction and reshaping. All contradictions belong to the multiplicity and multiplicity is ultimately moving toward unity. This world as the creation of God’s will and power enjoys the grace of God all the time. God exercises His divinity, sovereignty and providence to all parts and particles of the universe. In the world, all powers and competences are in fact dependent on God’s power.On the one hand, there is an infinite Being, on the other, there is the finite universe, constantly in the process of dialectal contradiction and reshaping. Man lies between the two universes, experiencing his own presence.In Mawlana’s opinion, based on this contradiction, man as a Unitarian, is totally absorbed by the divine names and attributes. To overcome his internal contradictions and desires, man is involved in a constant struggle with his own self. The journey on the Path, passionate worship and self-construction are means to this end. Having accepted all the challenges of this divine journey, man is striving to make himself closer and closer to the domain of divine attraction. Therefore, Mawlana with the help of his mystic language, poetic imagery and soul-cherishing prose expresses his view of God, universe and man and their relationship. The use of Quranic verses and concepts has added richness and clarity to Mawlana’s view. The present article is aiming at studying and analyzing this view.

The leading exegetist Naseraddin Abulkhair (Abusaeed) Abdolah ibn Omar ibn Ali Bayzavi Shirazi was among the great scholars of the ninth century (Hejirah). He was the top of most of the his time knowledge fields including justice principles and divine law, eloquence, logic, philosophy and theology and he was the centre of attention of knowledge seekers to the extent that Sobki in his book ‘Tabaghat’ has mentioned that Bayzavi was in charge of the judge position in Shiraz.Bayzavi has a number of works in different fields of knowledge, ‘Almenhaj’ and its commentary in the field of the principles of religious jurisprudence, ‘Attavale’e’ in theology and ‘Anavarattanzil’ and ‘Asraratta’vil’ in exegesis. Some have considered Bayzavi’s exegesis a summarized version of Zamakhshari’s ‘Kashaf’. Altjough Bayzavi in his exegesis has summarized all topics included in ‘Kashaf’, he has added his views wherever he had deemed necessary. In dealing with theological issues, Bayzavi adopts an Asharites tone and levels criticism against Zamakhshari’s schismatic ideas and views. Although, in some cases, he confirms Zamakhshari’s theological views, in almost all disputed verses he resituates the Sunni branch of Islam, the E’tazali branch and other theological branches and finally gives his preference to Asharite theological beliefs. As an example, in his interpretation of the cow Surah, the second and third verses, he delineates the meaning of belief and hypocrisy among the Sunnis, Mutazilaists and Khavrej in detail and then states the Asharites’ views as his preferred ones.Bayzavi’s theological references in Anvarattanzil are not all made explicit. He sometimes covers the issues on which there is no agreement under words and expressions. In fact, he uses an allusive language when focusing on disputed theological notions. Although Bayzavi’s purpose in his exegesis is not just to explain the theological beliefs and although in addition to Kashaf he has made use of other exegeses like exegesis of ‘Fakhre Razi’ and ‘Ragheb Isfahani’, as he himself has stipulated in his introduction to the exegesis, his most important purpose is to express the different theological views and explain what he himself believes in and deems not to be misleading.