NOTE K.
MULLÁ SADRÁ AND HIS
PHILOSOPHY.
Gobineau in his
Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale (pp. 81-91) has given so
admirable an account of the life of this great philosopher and of the part
played by him in the revival of metaphysical learning in Persia that any very
detailed notice of his career on my part would be superfluous. I shall therefore
confine myself to reproducing
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a brief sketch of his biography as it was
related to me by a most learned and amiable scholar - himself a pupil of Hájí
Mullá Hádí of Sabzawár, whose fame as a metaphysician has almost eclipsed that
of the illustrious Mullá Sadrá - with whom it was my privilege to study
for some time in Teherán. This account agrees in the main with Gobineau's, but
differs in some few points.
Mullá
Sadrá's father was a rich merchant of Shíráz, but though he had reached
an advanced age he had no child to whom he might bequeath his wealth. This
caused him much sorrow, and he prayed earnestly to God that a son might be
vouchsafed to him, making a vow that if his prayer were granted he would bestow
a túmán a day in alms on the poor. Shortly after this, that which he so
earnestly desired came to pass, and a son - afterwards the great Mullá
Sadrá - was born to him. From an early age the boy gave indications of
extraordinary talent and virtue. When his father died, he decided, after
consulting his mother, to give the greater portion of the wealth which he had
inherited to the poor, reserving only what was sufficient for his modest needs.
He then left Shíráz and took up residence in Isfahán, which was at that time
unrivalled in Persia as a seat of learning. On his arrival there he enquired who
were the best teachers of philosophy, and was answered that they were three -
Mír Dámád, Mír Fandariskí, and Sheykh Behá. To the first of these he forthwith
presented himself, and asked advice as to the course of study which he should
pursue. "If you want sheer ideas," replied Mír Dámád, "go to Mír Fandariskí; if
you want merely eloquence, go to Sheykh Behá; if you want both, come to me."
Mullá Sadrá accordingly attended with diligence the lectures of all
three, but chiefly those of Mír Dámád. After a while Mír Dámád, wishing to make
the pilgrimage to Mecca, bade a temporary farewell to his students, and
instructed each of them to compose during his absence a treatise on some branch
of Philosophy. On his return he asked to see the results of their labours. These
he glanced over in private, and all of them he laid aside after a cursory
inspection save the treatise composed by Mullá Sadrá under the name of
Shawáhid-i-Rubúbiyya ('Evidences of Divinity') - a treatise to this day
most
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highly esteemed in Persia. A few days after, as
he was riding through the streets attended by his disciples, he called Mullá
Sadrá to him and said:- "Sadrá ján! Kitáb-i-mará az meyán
burdí!" ("My dear Sadrá, you have done away with my book!"), meaning
to signify that the pupil had superseded the teacher. Shortly after this Mullá
Sadrá, having completed his studies, went to Káshán, and thence, after a
while, to Kum, in the mountains around which city he long lived a
secluded and studious life, troubled occasionally by the malice and hostility of
the mullás.
Gobineau says (loc.
cit., p. 89) that Mullá Sadrá's philosophy was simply a revival of
Avicenna's and contained nothing new; but this, as he himself remarks, is not
the general opinion in Persia. The following three points, as I was informed,
constitute the chief original features of Mullá Sadrá's
system:-
(1) The aphorism
[one line of Persian/Arabic
text]
"The elementary Reality is all
things, yet is no one of them."
(2) The
doctrine of "the Union of the Intellect with the Intelligible" (~~~), according
to which the clear apprehension of an idea implies and involves the
establishment of a kind of identity between it and the mind which apprehends
it.
(3) The doctrine of "the Incorporeality
of Imagination" (~~~) - a doctrine involving the important consequence that
Reason (or the development of that principle which stands above Imagination in
the evolution of the spiritual faculties) is not a necessary condition of
immortality, and hence that not infants only but even animals possess a
spiritual part which survives the death of the body.
Mullá Sadrá composed a great number of works, whereof the
Asfár ('Treatises'), in two large volumes, and the Sha-
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wáhid-i-Rubúbiyya ('Evidences of
Divinity') mentioned above, are the most important. His influence on Persian
thought has been great; and his relations with the later developments thereof -
especially with the Sheykhí school (concerning which see Note E supra) -
merit a much more careful study than they have yet received.
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