ASRA HIKMAT
Year:2013 | Volume:5 | Issue:3 (17)|Papers Count:7

Revelation and the issues related to it have been the focus of the intellectuals’ interpretations even during the time that it was being revealed. In order to understand the nature of revelation, two kinds of interpretations have been presented: a) Divine interpretation, and b) human interpretations. Those who have presented human interpretations of the revelation have done so in two separate forms of “traditional” and “modern” with the traditional form having been presented in the age of the revelations and the modern ones being presented in the contemporary era. The present research is an attempt to investigate the interpretations of the modern exegetes of the revelation and it seeks to find out about the viewpoint of ayatollah Javadi Amoli about the modern interpretations of the revelation made by Neo-Mutazilites (prophetic experience). Ayatollah Javadi Amoli has addressed this issue from the rational and traditional points of view. He believes that the Quran itself is the only reliable and valid reference for finding the answers in this regard. Based on his viewpoint, revealed knowledge and prophetic wisdom are “superhuman realities” and of “parapsychological” nature. The Prophet (may Allah bless him and his descendants) would receive this knowledge by means of his “special connection” with Allah. Moreover, Allah also revealed his Divine words to the Prophet with or without a mediator.

The present research seeks to discuss the emergence of the Islamic philosophy in the Islamic world by means of the concept of conditions for adoption. Of course what is investigated in this paper is the possibility of the adoption of the Greek philosophical heritage in the Islamic philosophy during its onset. In other words, the attempt is made here to realize under what conditions Muslim intellectuals faced the Greek philosophical heritage and were, then, able to absorb such heritage and make it their own. An understanding of such conditions in that historical era, and if we are able to understand the Muslim philosophers, will open new possibilities for our condition today and for our relations with the western human sciences and in order to establish Islamic human sciences. To this end, it will be shown that “seeking the truth” and “considering thinking by means of thinking” have been among the most important conditions that made the establishment of the Islamic philosophy, by means of the Greek philosophical heritage, possible.

Indeed Mulla Sadra had been extensively influenced by bin Arabi’s school of thought. This is why some have considered Mulla Sadra, not as the founder of a school of thought, but as subordinate to Mulla Sadra. However, in this paper first Mulla Sadra’s critical view of bin Arabi’s mysticism and a list of his criticisms in this regard will be presented. Then it will be discussed that, though Mulla Sadra’s school of thought initially accepts bin Arabi’s mystic views, there are some differences between these two as well. These differences can be found in the existential views, diversity of methods, and emphasis that is put on logics. Moreover, since Mulla Sadra’s philosophy is like an epistemic network that includes speculation, problems, method and purpose, if some of its sides are changed other sides will also change dramatically.

A discussion of the epistemic foundations of a school of thought is, in effect, an attempt to explain the significance, realm, resources, method and logics of knowledge in that school of thought. In this regard, the Separation School, as one of the schools of thought in the history of Islamic thought, has a special epistemological foundation. Although this school of thought has been met by various differing interpretations and has undergone a number of modifications throughout history, the unchangeable emphasis of all its proponents have always been the necessity of making a distinction between the three sources of knowledge, i.e. the Quran (the revealed source), philosophy (the intellectual source), and mysticism (intuitive source) (Hakimi, 1996). This way, the proponents of the Separation school have sought to access religious and Quranic knowledge in its pure dorm and devoid of eclectic and interpreted matters (Hakimi, 1996). Thus, the source and the method of gaining the religious knowledge used by the Separation School are considered to be more genuine than the other two sources. In this regard, the ideas of Mirza Mahdi Esfahani, the founder of this school of thought, seem to be quite notable as they reflect a maximalist interpretation of the Separation approach. The present paper is an attempt to investigate this scholar’s epistemological principles.

Indeed studying the philosophical ideas of a philosopher requires a sufficient knowledge of the logics governing those ideas and their basic principles. Likewise, the separation of entity and essence which is one of the significant philosophical issues in Avicenna’s philosophy is only explicable and interpretable by means of an appropriate knowledge of the significance of entity and essence in this philosophy and based on its principles. In addition to its specific meaning (i.e. the nature of things), the issue of essence in Avicenna’s philosophy enjoys two other important roles, which are the “analysis” and “positing” of Divine Knowledge. The separation of entity and essence occurs in the realm of analysis but its scientific positing about the Divine Knowledge determines its ontological aspect. The important point in the interpretation of the relationship between entity and essence is the determination of the nature of entity which shows the fact that it is created by the essence and this is the concept of entity and not the entity itself. The present paper seeks to describe and analyze the aforementioned issue through the principles of Avicenna’s philosophy.

This paper seeks to substantiate the fact that, contrary to the claims made by Hubert Dreyfus that indicate the precedence of Heidegger to kuhn in discussing the idea of normative sciences and scientific revolutions, there is no relationship between Heidegger’s philosophical idea with regard to modern science and kuhn’s philosophy of science, hence, there will be no room, whatsoever, for talking about Heidegger’s precedence to kuhn concerning the aforementioned issues. To this end, first Heidegger’s view concerning the nature of modern science will be discussed. Then, a review of Dreyfus’s view with regard to Heidegger’s precedence to kuhn in presenting their ideas about normative science will be presented. Following this discussion, Dreyfus’s view about the precedence of Heidegger to kuhn in discussing the idea of scientific revolution will be reviewed and, finally, a conclusion, based on all the discussions presented in the paper, will be made.

In addition to the discussion of light, Suhrawardi has also made some statements about the realization of darkness in the outside world in some of his works. In the present paper, in addition to presenting Suhrawardi’s view of light and darkness, the illuminationist categorization of beings, the statements of Suhrawardi concerning the consequential realization of darkness, the background of his thought, an account of the different meanings of the concepts of “original” and “mentally posited”, the relationship between light and darkness based on Suhrawardi’s view, and the process of applying these two on the concepts of existence and essence will be analyzed. To this end, it has been clarified that what Suhrawardi means by light is a less general concept compared to what Mulla Sadra means by the term “existence” and this is why Suhrawardi has sometimes been accused, by Mulla Sadra and some of his commentators, of self-contradiction. However, by taking into account the concepts of existence and essence as utilized by Sheik Ahsaaii and applying them on the concepts of light and darkness, as put forth by Suhrawardi, one arrives at a novel interpretation of the “fundamental reality of existence” through which Suhrawardi’s philosophical school seems a bit more coherent and dynamic. Based on this latter interpretation, light or existence is considered to be “self-existent”, and darkness or essence “consequential being”, and not “accidental being”.