Essays in Philosophy and Kalam
Year:2021 | Volume:53 | Issue:1|Papers Count:12

One of the important features of many of Ibn Taymiyyah’s works is their polemical nature, that is, he composed these works in the form of intense theological or jurisprudential polemics against his opponents. In these disputes, Ibn Taymiyyah has used arguments to defeat his opponents. This research aims to show that these arguments of Ibn Taymiyyah can sometimes turn into measures against himself and challenge some of his own most basic intellectual foundations. Our research method in this article is such that we follow a pattern of comparative study in Ibn Taymiyyah’s works and examine four examples of his polemical arguments against his opponents: arguing with Christians over their oral tradition arguing with Sunni jurists on the subject and instances of consensus, the issue of criticism and praise (jarḥ wa taʿdīl) of Abū Ḥanīfah, and finally the punishment of heretics. In the end, as research findings, we will show the contradictions in some of the issues Ibn Taymiyyah has argued over.

In order to find a way to analyze metaphysics, Kant introduced four types of theorems in his philosophy. After analyzing these theorems, only post-analytic theorems can be considered as a general title for all theorems and a more accurate way to measure external truth and falsehood. Presented theorems. Since metaphysical theorems are also present in post-analytic theorems, the truth of metaphysical theorems does not need to be referred to the outside world, and the rest of the theorems are determined to be true or false, depending on whether their predicate is sensory or inductive. .The fruit of a posteriori analytic theorems in proving metaphysics is due to the need for a posteriori perception of "existence", followed by the provability of God with metaphysical theorems that are certain and in accordance with reality in which there is no possibility of inaccuracy.This study has an analytical and critical view of Kant's philosophy and has tried to start in a chain of its theorems and defects in order to find the serious flaw in Kant's philosophy that has prevented the presentation of proof to prove God, and not only metaphysics. Introduce something supernatural but also scientifically provable and certain and without the need to measure truth and falsehood.

In the process of reasoning, the self-analysis of reason is common in all schools of Islamic philosophy. Some have succeeded in this difficult test and some have failed and have been doomed to skepticism and agnosticism. The question of the union of the intellecting subject and the intelligible object is among those issues in which the intellect deals with the ability, realm and quality of its own reasoning. Various aspects of epistemology, ontology and psychology are manifested in this issue. This has made theorizing this doctrine doubly difficult. Influenced by the inadequacy of some of his principles, Ibn Ṣīnā has considered part of its realm as absurd and accused the one who believes in it to lack understanding. Only Mullā Ṣadrā has tried to revive and reconstruct this doctrine, both on the basis of the principles of the common philosophy, even those accepted by Ibn Ṣīnā, and on a higher level on the basis of the specific principles of his own Transcendent philosophy. In Transcendent philosophy, important epistemological and anthropological results are expected and the rational justification of some original religious beliefs is subject to a transcendent analysis of it. A researcher has considered either side of the dispute incapable to prove their claim and has himself claimed the deferment of judgment. An analysis shows that this claim is based on misinterpretations of the positive arguments proposed by Mullā Ṣadrā, and the claim of equality between arguments for and against the doctrine of the unity of the intellect, the intellecting subject and its intelligible object can be rejected.

In Islamic philosophy, cause is divided into efficient cause (‘llat-e ījādī) that bestows existence, and occasional or preparatory cause (‘llat-e i‘dādī). Based on the definition and criteria of cause proposed by Muslim philosophers, preparatory cause is only metaphorically called a cause. In this article, with a philosophical method and with the aim of explaining the real position of the preparatory cause among the causes and rereading some philosophical issues concerning causality, it is proved that causality is a graded reality that enjoys a wide range of intense and weak levels. Causality is consistent and harmonious with existence in this sense; cause and effect are among the modes of existence, and existence is graded. High levels are efficient causes and weak grades are preparatory causes. Therefore, though possessing a weak and low level, the occasional cause is also a real cause. According to the criteria of a cause, “co-existence” (ma‘iyyat) and/or “being directly and originally created” (ibdā‘) are not conditions of being a cause, and considering these two as the criteria of causation is due to the part-to-whole fallacy. The method of this research is analytical-rational and its purpose is to explain the true position of the preparatory cause among the real causes.

Moral cognitivism is one of the topics of moral philosophy and epistemology of ethics and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī is among the moral cognitivists because: first, he refers to various ways for knowing the reality such as reason, fame, experience, revelation and intuition; second, he deals with the middle term as a criterion for knowledge; third, he accepts the demonstrability of the rational moral statements; and fourth, he adheres to moral absolutist. Since he is a moral cognitivist and given that all moral cognitivists are considered moral monists, Ṭūsī is also considered a moral monist; it seems, however, that Ṭūsī, in explaining the demonstrability of moral statements, has not proved the real relationship between the granting of divine blessings and the necessity of gratitude, and has come to the conclusion by claiming that this relationship can be considered the result of a causal relationship between moral act and its result; that is, every moral act, such as thanksgiving, causes happiness and perfection of human beings, and the obligation of thanking God shows the causal relationship between gratitude and the resulting happiness for the grateful person. Therefore, if it is asked why thanksgiving is obligatory, the answer is that this thanksgiving is obligatory because it can lead to happiness and perfection.

That “what makes an individual being the one it is” has been a question great thinkers have long tried to resolve. As the innovator or strong advocate of the doctrine of existential primacy of existence over the quiddity, Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī maintains that the individuation of a thing depends on the mode of its existence. He believes that this standpoint was also held by Fārābī. He has confirmed this attribution in eight of his works: asfār, sharḥ al-ḥidāya al-athīriyya, al-rasāʾil al-tisʿa, al-ḥāshīya ʿalá ilāhiyyāt al-shifāʾ, al-mabdaʾ wa al-maʿād, risāla fī al-tashakhuṣ, risāla al-limmiyya and risāla fī ittiṣāf al-māhiyya bi al-wujūd; however, he does not mention any evidence for this attribution. By reviewing the documents, this writing evaluates this Mullā Ṣadrā’s explicit attribution and shows that it is not the case. This evaluation results from three arguments and pieces of evidence: some other attributions of Ṣadrā, the explicit opinions of Fārābī himself, and reviewing this viewpoint based on the principle of recognizing the predecessors in the light of the successors. These indicate that Mullā Ṣadrā is the first who has made such a claim. This article is not limited to description only, rather, based on a general principle, it provides an explanation why such an invalid attribution has been occurred.

According to Qāḍī Saʿīd Qumī, monotheism means the negation of any cognation between God and the creatures. The purpose of this article is to present the most important implications of this negative interpretation of monotheism in his thought and to show how this interpretation can lead to such implications. According to the apophatic theology of Qāḍī Saʿīd, no positive concept applies to the First Principle and He is not described by any attribute; therefore: 1. The dispute over the primacy of existence or quiddity does not arise in the case of God, because God is neither of the existence realm nor of the quiddity, 2. There is no graded (tashkīkī) relationship between God and His creatures, 3. God even transcends beyond the necessity of existence, and the “Necessary Being” is His name and His creation, so all three modes of contingency, impossibility and necessity are excluded from Him, 4 & 5 & 6. The “argument of possibility and necessity”, the “argument of the Righteous” and other arguments for proving the Necessary Being and His oneness would be no more valid, 7. The criterion for dependence on a cause is neither temporal emergence nor contingency, but combination (though a mentally posited combination), 8. The Essence of God cannot be worshiped, rather, the very “greatest name” (Allah) is worshiped, 9. God’s power means doing an action without requiring the attribute of power and in a state free from the three modes of contingency, impossibility and necessity, 10. God’s knowledge is neither conceptual nor presential.

Temporality (ḥudūth) and eternity (qidam) of the world has always been one of the important issues in Islamic theology and philosophy. In order to explain and evaluate the theory of Ikhwān al-Ṣafā, who are among the first Islamic philosophers, the authors have discovered two arguments for the temporality of the world by scrutinizing their works. The first argument is based on the concomitance between temporality and being caused, or, the contradiction between eternity and being caused. In the second argument, the changes in the world have been considered as the reason for its temporality. The first reason, though well-established, is flawed in terms of failing to explain the concomitance between eternality and being caused. Also, the second argument is not inclusive since it does not include the incorporeal existents. It is a positive point in Ikhwān’s theory that they did not limit the temporality to “time”, but since the temporality, which is the “existence after non-existence,” implies a kind of anteriority and posteriority and thus requires determining a criterion for anteriority, they should have proposed the criterion, but they have not. Ignoring the views of the opponents is another weakness of their viewpoint. Therefore, Ikhwān al-Ṣafā did not properly analyze the aspects of the problem.

This paper aims to explain an innovative formulation of the argument of the Righteous (burhān Ṣiddīqīn) from Imam Khomeini’s point of view and to compare it with the existential argument of Anselm and Descartes. This was done using a descriptive-analytical and a library research method. One of the basic shortcomings of the Anselm-Descartes existential argument is the confusion between the concept and the referent, or between primary essential predication and common technical predication, while burhān Ṣiddīqīn does not suffer from such a fault, in neither of its Avicennian or Sadrian formulations. However, the fundamental principle that enables Imam Khomeini to give a new spirit to the arguments for the proof of God is that he expresses his view and reading of burhān Ṣiddīqīn with solid foundations, and that is departure from the canonical meanings and theoretical words in proving the existence of God. He believes that the argument of the Righteous is basically grounded on intuition and does not require argumentative or philosophical preliminaries.

This paper aims to provide a historical and comparative explanantion and analysis of the discourse of contemporary Asharites of Islamic world and the contemporary Asharite intellectuals of Iranian Kurdistan. For this purpose, a library-documentary, descriptive-analytical, and hitorical-comparative research method was adopted. The findings of the study indicate that the contemporary Islamic theologians such as Taha Abdurrahman, Abu Zaid, Arkoun, al-Jabri and Muhammad Abduh due to their Arabic fanaticism, adopted an anti-Aristotelian attitude and supported a sort of philosophy rooted in religious scripts. Due to their intellectual interactions with the western world, contemporary Arab Asharites of Islam have a more friendly attitude toward philosophy and philosophizing and do not accept traditional Asharites’ disagreements with philosophy. On the other hand, with the exception of Takhti Mardukhi family who due to their family authority have shown interest in philosophy and have even taught philosophy, other contemporary Asharites theologians of Iranian Kurdistan including Musannef Chory, Mahmoud Modarres and Mulla Baqer Balak have not shown any tendency toward philosophy; that is rooted in the conditions dominant on traditional religious seminaries in Kurdistan and lack of interaction with academicians in comparison to other contemporary Asharites in the Islamic world. Only a few of today’s seminarians who have university education are interested in philosophy, but they are still not interested in projecting their views in society.

Ḥāfiẓ Rajab Bursī is the author of books such as Mashriq Anwār al-Yaqīn, Mashriq al-Amān, al-Dur al-Thamīn, al-Fayn, and several others. He is best known for his specific Imamological ideas based on mentioning the virtues and ontological stations of the Ahl al-Bayt (P.B.U.T.). We have little information about his life. He is considered one of the scholars of the eighth and ninth centuries. Kafʿamī first mentioned Bursī decades after his death. His name entered the works of biographers such as Afandī and Shaykh Ḥurr thirty hundred years after his lifetime. All those who have written about Bursī have taken his historical existence for granted. The main question of this research is whether the ambiguities about his historical existence can be removed? The purpose of this study is to address these ambiguities and evaluate them. According to the findings, there are no names of his shykhs and tutors, students, co-debaters and children. No contemporary has mentioned him or written a rebuttal to him. Bursī has not directly narrated from anyone. The research method is descriptive-analytical using a library research method. The result is that the ambiguities about his historical existence are so great that they can be taken into consideration.

In the book Faḍā‘iḥ al-Bāṭiniyya, Ghazālī, in rejecting the ideas of Bāṭiniyya (Ismaʿilites), criticized the infallibility of the Imam and attributed some ideas to them that are doubtful. In this research, this book is introduced and Ghazali’s method, literature, and the content of the book are reviewed. The main criticisms of Ghazālī over Bāṭiniyya are denying the rational method, the belief in the infallibility of the Imam, and the belief in the Imam is designated by nass (divine designation). The last two are common between Bāṭiniyya and the Imāmiyya, and their main difference is in determining who is Imam. The most important argument of Ghazālī is that Bāṭiniyya deny the rational method, therefore they only acknowledge the teachings of the infallible Imam who is determined by divine designation, while the Imam is neither infallible nor chosen by divine designation because the Imam’s infallibility leads to the belief that the revelation is revealed to him and leads to the rejection of khātamiyya (finality of prophethood), and the massivereport of the divine designation of the Imam necessitates that the knowledge of the existence and clarity of nass is evident and the person will indisputably become Imam. The answer to this argument is that Bāṭiniyya do not deny the rational method, rather, they consider it insufficient. Also, in his second and third criticisms, Ghazali bases his arguments on the denial of reason by Bāṭiniyya which is a false premise. Other concerns over Ghazālī’s criticisms are as follows: he himself admits that the Imams have a kind of infallible knowledge; the Imams claim Imamate, not prophethoodmassive report and clarity of divine designation does not require the same understanding by all people; that something is evident does not lead to its occurrence.