Sophia Perennis
Year:2010 | Volume:7 | Issue:2|Papers Count:10

The human, rational soul (al-nafs al-na h iqah) has always been a focus of attention for Islamic philosophers, and theologians.It is possible to trace the developmental and evolutionary flow of thought on the soul from the Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle with his independent treatise On the Soul, to the Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophers Finally, in Mulla Gadra's Transcendent Philosophy, in addition to rational and intuitive resources, the teachings and doctrines of religion are also emphasized as being among the effective means for truly knowing and understanding the soul.As Gadra believes, human reason and thought are insufficient and even useless for properly understanding one's own essence without resorting to Divine revelation and religious teachings as well as spiritual training, purification of the soul, and practical endeavors. This approach, which is a new achievement in studies of the soul, claims that religious guidance, which springs from Divine inspiration, assists us in our reasoning in order to reveal to us our true nature.Based on the ideas of Mulla Gadra this investigation seeks to shed light on the roles of the three above mentioned elements in the understanding and purification of the soul, using a descriptive-analytic methodology. As such it also documents the necessity of resorting to religion for the wayfarers of the path of understanding the soul. The topics presented in this paper include: a brief introduction to Mulla Gadra's rational proofs regarding the abstractness of the soul, his intuitive methodology, and his method of citation of Scripture, namely Qur'an and Eadith.

In Islamic traditional textbooks modal operators sometimes come before propositions, sometimes before the predicates and sometimes at the end of propositions. This makes the interpretation of modality in each case as de re or de dicto difficult. Given Ibn SVnÏ's discussion of and sensitivity to this distinction, in this paper by examining the position of modality in the contradictories and converses of modal categorical propositions as well as their positions in modal syllogisms I will try to find a reasonable answer to this important issue.

Franz von Baader (1765 - 1841), one of the most important philosophers in the age of German idealism and romanticism, has considered it the most important task of his life to bring the modern rationalism in philosophy to an end. The focus of his criticism lies on the philosophical anthropocentrism and egocentricity of Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650), uttered in his famous saying ' Cogito ergo sum ' (' I think therefore I am'). Baader also criticized Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) and other philosophers of German idealism, who have absorbed at least partially the rationalism of Descartes.In this article it will be shown how Baader, who follows the tradition of the theosophy of Jacob Boehme (1575 - 1624), the philosophy of Paracelsus (1493-1541), the mysticism of Meister Eckhart (1260 - 1328) and to many other sources which break the anthropocentrism and egocentricity of modern rationalism, opposes the Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) statement with his Cogito ergo sum (I am cognized <by God> therefore I am). Man can only recognize God if he is recognized by God. In other words, Baader shows that the human ego cannot be the principle of philosophy, but solely the participation in God.

Although only one treatise has been devoted to the subject of love in the Illuminationist system of Suhrawardi, he was able to make use of this limited opportunity to do justice to the three realities of beauty/goodness (eusn), love (' ishq) and sadness (euzn).In the treatise, On the Reality of Love (Fi eaqiqat al-' ishq) the triads of beauty/goodness, love and sadness have a metaphysical basis, and develop from the universal intellect. These three realities are three heavenly principles, which are manifested in the story of Adam and the angels, and in a more complete way in the story of Joseph, Jacob (upon them be peace) and Zulaykha. According to Illuminationist thought, this eternal triad, whilst maintaining its celestial nature, comes into our material world, and each of its elements finds a vehicle of manifestation.In the treatise On the Reality of Love, Suhrawardi tells of the different stages and levels of love. In this telling he takes into consideration Greek metaphysical thought, and also benefits from Zoroastrian ideas and the subtleties and illusions of Qur'anic teachings.In this way, Suhrawardi' s treatise on love, like many other of his works, is the meeting place of three great traditions: Iranian, Islamic and Greek, without there being any syncretism. In an atmosphere filled with the life-giving fragrance of the Sophia Perennis, the union of these spiritual traditions leads to the manifestation of a single reality, which is precisely the Illuminationist meaning of the sun (mihr).The aim of the present research is to investigate the mystery of the creation of the three realities of beauty/goodness, sadness and love, and their place in Illuminationist cosmology and epistemology, in order to provide act as an introduction to the Illuminationist philosophy of art.

This paper investigates the relation between Language and Being as it is articulated in the so-called philosophical digression of Plato‘s alleged Seventh Letter. Here the author of the letter claims, in contrast to the testimony of Plato‘s many dialogues, that there has never been and there will never be any written word on Plato‘s philosophy; and in addition, as if this was not sufficiently perplexing, he goes on to explain that the matters of philosophy do in fact not admit of verbal expression at all.In discussing the arguments for and the consequences of these claims, this paper explores what in the letter is argued to be the only viable way out of the ontological and epistemological deficiencies inherent in language. In trying to lay bare how the author of the letter argues for the insufficiency of a rational, theoretical and linguistic understanding of ultimate reality, this paper explores the notions of sunousia and tribo (translatable in context perhaps as ‘lived conversation’ and ‘spending of time’) as the only acts powerful enough to overcome the obstacles of language and to reach a true understanding of Being.Arguing against a mystical interpretation of the notions of sunousia and tribo – in terms of a certain union between subject and object – this paper claims that a true philosophical relation to Being, according to the letter, is not be understood as the end of a particular type of search, but must rather be understood as the search itself. It argues that neither sunousia nor tribo are to capture a type of meditative situation, but rather an articulated conversation reflecting the particular conditions of a philosophical approach.

When Henry Corbin (1903-1978) during his youth in the first half of the 20th century began his research, the French tradition of Islamic studies, due to the works of Louis Massignon (1883-1962), was well acquainted with the name of Salman al-Farisi.Corbin also, in the research which he conducted in cooperation with Paul Kraws (1904-1944) in the 1930s on the Kitab al-majid of Jabir ibn Eayyan came more than ever directly in contact with ' the subject of Salman'. As for the relationship between Corbin and Suhrawardi, the great volume of his research about the Master of Illumination, and the events related to him which to such a great extent influenced Corbin's destiny, is itself a certain proof that, at the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third, the names of Henry Corbin and the Master of Illumination have become firmly connected with each other.But what is the relationship between the Master of Illumination and Salman the Pure? Corbin saw Salman as the prime example of the orphan and the exile, the one who, by turning aside from the way of ordinary people, becomes a follower of the path of the Imams to the extent that he becomes the bearer of their mysteries. Corbin, with a sound generalization, considers ' exiles' to be all those who seek after the understanding and realization of the hidden message of Islam, just as Iranians, the people of mystery and the spiritual, have over the centuries understood Islam and have sincerely devoted themselves to it.In this sense, Suhrawardi is to be considered one of the outsiders, just as the subject of ' exile' is one of the fundamental subjects of both his ' western' philosophical works, and his Persian symbolic stories. In this way he is a member of that group of whom Salman is the leader.Corbin begins the second volume of En Islam Iranien, which is entirely devoted to Suhrawardi, with a mention of Salman, and ends the volume in the same way. In many other places in this great four volume work he also refers to Salman. On the basis of this four volume work we will extract and present Corbin's views about the relationship between Salman and Suhrawardi.To conclude, Henry Corbin considers Salman, Suhrawardi and all those who follow these two figures to be representatives of what is referred to by Imam al-Sadiq (a.s.) in the following hadith, "Islam began in exile and will return as it began, so blessed be the exiles."

The concept pir, or 'spiritual master' is one of the fundamental concepts of Sufism. The novice's need to choose a pir, the status and station of the pir, and his role in traversing the way are among the main topics of the oldest Islamic mystical sources, and various Sufi masters have tried to explain various aspects of this concept in both poetry and prose.In particular the concept pir and the discussion of the pir’s status and the conditions necessary to reach this station are among the topics which are dealt with in detail in the sources of the Alevis of Anatolia. At the same time, the conditions and status of this station according to the Alevis has been expressed with different dimensions from traditional Sufism. The goal of this article is to investigate this subject and to compare the perspectives of these two groups.