18 Facts About Mulla Sadra

1.

Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism.

2.

Mulla Sadra was born in Shiraz, Iran, to a notable family of court officials in 1571 or 1572, In Mulla Sadra's time, the Safavid dynasty governed over Iran.

3.

Safavid kings granted independence to Fars Province, which was ruled by the king's brother, Mulla Sadra's father, Khwajah Ibrahim Qavami, who was a knowledgeable and extremely faithful politician.

4.

Mulla Sadra had no children, but after much prayer and supplication, God gave him a son, whom the family named Muhammad but called Sadra.

5.

Years later, Sadra was nicknamed "Mulla", that is, "great scientist".

6.

In 1591, Mulla Sadra moved to Qazvin and then, in 1597, to Isfahan to pursue a traditional and institutional education in philosophy, theology, Hadith, and hermeneutics.

7.

Mulla Sadra became a master of the science of his time.

8.

Mulla Sadra obtained most of his knowledge of philosophy and gnosis from Damad and always introduced Damad as his true teacher and spiritual guide.

9.

Mulla Sadra then retired for a lengthy period of time to a village named Kahak, near Qom, where he engaged in contemplative exercises.

10.

Mulla Sadra devoted his rest of life to teach the intellectual sciences, particularly his own teachings Transcendent Theosophy.

11.

Mulla Sadra died in Basra after the Hajj and was buried in the present-day city of Najaf, Iraq.

12.

Indeed, Mulla Sadra provides immutability only to God, while intrinsically linking essence and existence to each other, and to God's power over existence.

13.

Mulla Sadra believed that an essence was by itself a general notion, and therefore and does not, in reality, exist.

14.

Mulla Sadra argued that all contingent beings require a cause which puts their balance between existence and non-existence in favor of the former; nothing can come into existence without a cause.

15.

Mulla Sadra believed that a causal regress was impossible because the causal chain could only work in the matter that had a beginning, middle, and end:.

16.

The Causal Nexus of Mulla Sadra was a form of Existential Ontology within a Cosmological Framework that Islam supported.

17.

For Mulla Sadra a true statement is a statement that is true to the concrete facts in existence.

18.

Mulla Sadra held a metaphysical and not a formal idea of truth, claiming that the world consists of mind-independent objects that are always true and truth is not what is rationally acceptable within a certain theory of description.