Mulla Sadra al-Din Society

Biography

Ṣadr al-Dīn, Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Shīrāzī (b. 979/1571-1572 - d. 1050/1640) is a well-known Shiite philosopher, mystic, and exegete of the Quran. He is also known as Mullā Ṣadrā and Ṣadr al-Muti'allihīn. He was a student of Mir Damad and Baha' al-Din al-'Amili. His best-known student was al-Fayd al-Kashani. Mulla Sadra was the founder of the influential philosophical school known as the Transcendent Wisdom or philosophy—the third main philosophical school in Islam.

Education

He studied the preliminaries under his father in Shiraz. When his father died, he moved to Isfahan—the then Safavid capital with flourishing seminary schools. He studied philosophy and other reflective disciplines under Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Mir Damad (d. 1041/1631) and traditional disciplines (such as fiqh and hadith) from Baha' al-Din al-'Amili (d. 1030/1620). He received permissions (for teaching and other positions) from the two teachers. He must have been of a distinguished academic ranking when he moved to Isfahan, because he immediately attended Baha' al-Din al-'Amili's courses.

After his studies in Isfahan, Mulla Sadra returned to Shiraz where he taught in Khan Seminary. However, he was offended by some scholars in Shiraz. So he left Shiraz to Kahak, a village around Qom, where he was isolated from people for years. After this, he started to write his works and establish his own philosophical school until his death. According to some sources, he spent the last years of his life in Qom.

List of Works

Mulla Sadra wrote many works on different subjects. Here are his main books:

1.Al-Hikmat al-muta'aliya fi al-Asfar al-'Aqliyyat al-Arba'a: also known as al-Asfar, This Mulla Sadra's main work.

2.Al-Mabda' wa al-Ma'ad: This work is also called al-Hikmat al-Muta'aliyyah. The book counts as a summary of the second part of al-Asfar.

3.Tafsir al-Quran al-Karim (the exegesis of the Quran). Mulla Sadra wrote an exegesis of different verses and suras of the Quran. Late in his life, he started to write a complete exegesis of the Quran, but it remained unfinished by his death.

4.Sharh Usul al-kafi: his incomplete commentary on Usul al-Kafi in seven volumes.

5.Al-Shawahid al-Rububiyyah

6.Kasr al-Asnam al-Jahiliyyah

7.Kitab Al-Masha'ir