Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition

338 Pages·2010·1.68 MB·English

by  Ibrahim Kalin

KNOWLEDGE IN LATER
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
This page intentionally left blank
KNOWLEDGE IN LATER
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
Mulla adra on Existence,
S
Intellect and Intuition
IBRAHIM KALIN
1
2010
1
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kalin, Ibrahim.
Knowledge in later Islamic philosophy: Mulla Sadra
on existence, intellect, and intuition/Ibrahim Kalin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-973524-2
1. Sadr al-Din Shirazi, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim, d. 1641.
2. Knowledge, Theory of (Islam) 3. Philosophy, Islamic. I. Title.
B753.M84K24 2010
297.2(cid:2)61—dc22 2009031637
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe thanks to a large number of people who have been part of
the writing of this book in one way or another. Some of them
are aware of this, some not.
I am deeply indebted to my advisor and mentor Seyyed
Hossein Nasr. With his ‘ilm, ‘irf an and hilm, Prof. Nasr has been
a source of knowledge and inspiration for much of what I have
done over the last decade. I thank Prof. Peter Caws of George
Washington University for the wonderful exchanges during our
reading sessions of Plato and Aristotle. My thanks go to Mahdi
Aminrazavi who made valuable comments on my doctoral
dissertation on which the present work is based. I also thank my
friends and colleagues Caner Dagli and Joseph Lumbard for the
conversations we have had throughout our rihlat al-‘ilm in
different parts of the world. I thank Zohra Sirat for her unfailing
help during the initial stages of the present book.
Many people have been part of my intellectual upbringing and
shaped the way I came to understand things. Our conversations
from philosophy, metaphysics and science to history and politics
have found their way into my thinking and, by derivation, into
the pages of this book. Among the people I have had the privilege
of knowing and learning from, I should mention Rahim Acar,
Alparslan Açikgenç, Waleed al-Ansary, Cemil Aydin, Ghulam
Riza A’wani, David Burrell, William Chittick, Ahmet Davutogˆlu,
John Esposito, Ekmeleddin Ihsanogˆlu, Ghasem Kakaie, Ismail
Kara, Mahmud Erol Kiliç, Oliver Leaman and Mustafa Özel.
I would like to thank the TDV Center for Islamic Studies
(ISAM) for granting me a doctoral scholarship and supporting
me both in Turkey and abroad. I am thankful to the College of
the Holy Cross and particularly my colleagues at the Religious
Studies Department for the two wonderful years my family and
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I spent there. The book took its present form mostly during the
cold yet serene days of Worcester. I thank Prof. Nomanul Haq
for his helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript.
My deepest gratitude is to my wife Neriman who has always
stood by me during the moments of joy and frustration of my
academic life. As the mother of our three beautiful daughters
Rumeysa, Dilruba and Yaren, she has provided the comfort of a
loyal friend all seekers of knowledge yearn for. It is with an
immense sense of indebtedness that I dedicate this book to her.
CONTENTS

Key to Mulla Sadra’s Works ix
Introduction xiii
Chapter I
The Problem of Knowledge and the Greco-Islamic
Context of the Unification Argument 1
1.1. The Greco-Alexandrian Background 7
a. Plato’s bios theoretikos 7
b. Aristotle and the ‘Intellect from Without’ 11
c. Alexander of Aphrodisias: Beyond
Orthodoxy and Innovation 17
d. Plotinus Islamicus and the Unification Argument 25
1.2. Islamic Philosophy 34
a. Al-Kindi: The Beginning of the Problem
in the Islamic Milieu 35
b. Al-Farabi: Problem Restated 37
c. Ibn Sina: Sadra’s Greatest Challenge 46
d. Suhrawardi: On the Way to Sadra 59
Chapter II
Mulla Sadra’s Theory of Knowledge and the
Unification Argument 86
2.1. Sadra’s Ontology 86
a. Essence and Existence 89
b. The Primacy and Gradation of Existence 96
viii CONTENTS
2.2. Existence, Intelligibility and Knowledge 102
a. Disembodiment as Intelligibility
and Gradation in Knowledge 108
b. Four Theories of Knowledge and Their Critique 118
c. Modes of Perception and the Simple Intellect 135
d. Active Intellect, Intuition, and Peripatetic
Intellectualism 148
e. Unification of the Intellect and the Intelligible 159
f. Self-Knowledge and Knowledge-by-Presence 165
g. Knowledge-by-Presence and God’s Knowledge
of Things 173
Chapter III
Sadra’s Synthesis: Knowledge as Experience,
Knowledge as Being 195
3.1. Epistemology Spiritualized: Is Mystical
Knowledge Possible? 198
3.2. Knowledge as Finding Existence 227
Appendix
Treatise on the Unification of the Intellector
and the Intelligible 256
(Risalah fi ittihad al-‘aqil wa’l-ma‘qul)
Bibliography 292
Index: Arabic and Persian Terms 305
Index: Proper Names 313
KEY TO MULLA ADRA’S
S
WORKS
Asalah Asalat ja’l al-wujud in Majmu‘a-yi rasa’il-i
falsafi-yi Sadr al-Muta’allihin, ed. Hamid Naji
Isfahani (Tehran: Intisharat-i Hikmat, ah
1375).
Asfar al-Hikmat al-muta‘aliyah f i’l-asf ar al-‘aqliyyat
al-arba‘ah, (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-
‘Arabi, 1981), 9 Vols.
‘Awisah Ajwibat al-masa’il al-‘awisah in Ajwibat al-
masa’il, ed. Abdullah Shakiba (Tehran: Bunyad-
i Hikmat-i Islami-yi Sadra [SIPRIN], ah 1378)
Hashr Risalat al-hashr, ed. with Persian translation by
M. Khwajawi (Tehran: Intisharat-i Mawlawi,
1998).
Huduth Huduth al-‘alam, ed. S. H. Musawiyan (Tehran:
Bunyad-i Hikmat-i Islami-yi Sadra [SIPRIN], ah
1378).
Iksir Iksir al-‘arif in, ed. and tr. William Chittick, The
Elixir of the Gnostics, (Provo, Utah: Brigham
Young University Press, 2003).
Ittihad Ittihad al-‘aqil wa’l-ma‘qul in Majmu‘a-yi
rasa’il-i falsaf i-yi Sadr al-Muta’allihin, ed.
Hamid Naji Isfahani (Tehran: Intisharat-i Hikmat,
ah 1375).