Abstract
Sabzawari is one of the greatest Muslim philosophers of the nineteenth century. He belongs to Sadrian Existentialism, which became a dominant philosophical tradition during the Qajar dynasty in Iran. This paper critically analyses Sabzawari’s ontological discussion on the dichotomy of existence and quiddity and the relation between existence and non-existence. It argues against Sabzawari by advocating the idea that ‘Existence’ rather than quiddity is the ground for identity as well as for diversity, and that non-existence, like existence, is able to produce an effect.
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Notes
For Suhrawardi’s arguments against the principality of Existence see: Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Hikmat al-Ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination), translated by John Walbridge and Hossein Ziai, Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1999, pp. 44–46.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sadr al-Din Shirazi and his Transcendent Theosophy, Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1997, p. 69.
Mulla Sadra, al-Asfar al-Arba'a, vol.1, Beirut: Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi, 1999, pp. 68–69.
Mulla Sadra, al-Asfar, vol. 1, p. 432.
Mulla Ali Jamshid Nuri (d. 1830) was a great scholar and profound Sadrian philosopher who studied at Mazandaran and Qazvin, and settled in Isfahan. He taught the philosophy of Mulla Sadra and the mystic ideas of Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa‘i, the founder of the Shaykhi Sufi order. He was also the teacher of Mulla Ismail Isfahani, Mulla Abdullah Zunuzi, Mulla Agha Qazvini, Muhammad Rida Qumshahi and Mulla Hadi Sabzawari. The Qajar ruler, Fath Ali Qajar, founded Khan Marvi’s school and invited Mulla Ali Nuri, a profound Sadrian scholar and philosopher, to teach philosophy in Tehran. It seems that Mulla Ali Nuri did not accept the offer but sent Mulla Abdullah Zunuzi, one of his students, to undertake this responsibility while he himself stayed in Isfahan. Mulla Hadi Sabzawari also studied philosophy with Mulla Ali Nuri for ten years.
Henry Corbin, History of Islamic Philosophy, London and New York, in association with Islamic Publications for the Institute of Islamic Studies, 1993, p. 351. See also: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ‘The Metaphysics of Sadr al-Din Shirazi and Islamic Philosophy in Qajar Iran’, in Qajar Iran: Political, Social and Cultural Change 1800–1925, (eds.) Edmund Bosworth and Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1983, pp. 190–91.
Mulla Sadra, al-Masha‘ir, translated by Parviz Morewedge, New York: SSIP, 1992, section 57, p. 30.
Shahab al-Din Suhravardi (1171–1208), another Muslim philosopher, who advocated the principality of essence and is known as the founder of Illuminationism, believed in the illuminative presence of knowledge by presence.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, translated from the Arabic by Mehdi Mohaghegh and Toshihiko Izutsu, New York: Caravan Books, 1977, p. 33. This book is commonly known as Sharh-i manzumah (Commentary on a Philosophical Poem). The commentary, entitled Ghurar al-fara’id, is divided into seven headings. Each heading deals with one aspect of Sabzawari’s philosophy. They are further divided into chapters and sections.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 31.
Mulla Sadra, al-Masha‘ir, pp. 7–8.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarie and Edward Robinson, London: Blackwell, 1992, p. 23. I have discussed the problem of the definition of ‘Existence’ in the philosophy of Mulla Sadra and Martin Heidegger in my book From Essence to Being: The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra and Martin Heidegger, London: ICAS Press, 2010, pp. 101–6.
These predicables are relations between a universal term and a subject in a proposition. Aristotle mentioned four of them: genus, specific difference, property and contingent accident. Later, Porphyry (234–c. 305 AD) added Species as the fifth predicable.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 32.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 35.
Toshihiko Izutsu, The Fundamental Structure of Sabzawari’s Metaphysics, Tokyo: Keio University Press, 1971, p. 51.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p.43.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 44.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 37.
Mulla Sadra, Al-Asfar al-Arba‘a, vol. 1, introduction by Shaykh Muhammad Rida al-Muzafar, Beirut: Dar al-Ahya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1999, p. 59. Martin Heidegger defined the ontological difference as the differentiation between Being and beings in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, translated by Albert Hofstadter, printed by Indiana University Press in 1982 (see pages 17, 72 and 78).
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 54.
Martin, J. Henn, Parmenides of Elea, a verse translation with interpretative essays and commentary to the text, London: Praeger, 2003, p. 26.
Aristotle, ‘Metaphysics’, Book Kappa, 12: 10–20, and ‘Categories’, 3b 24–32, in The Complete Works of Aristotle. Aristotle also explained his ideas on change and movement in ‘Physics’ Book 5, 1 and 2.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, pp. 69–70.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, pp. 75–77. These rationalist Muslim theologians were the members of the Mu‘tazila school founded in Basrah and Baghdad by some pupils of Hasan al-Basri (642–728) who had seceded from him. The Mu‘tazila attempted to interpret religion in the light of human reason. They strongly advocated the Unity of God (al-tawhid) by denying the reality and eternity of the Divine attributes, and believed in Divine Justice. For that they were called the people of Justice and Unity of God (Ahl al-‘Adl wa al-Tawhid). They also advocated the doctrine of free will.
Al-Shahrastani, Nihayat, Cairo, 1960. P. 132.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 79.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, translated by Hazel E. Barnes, Routledge: London, reprinted 1996, p. 7.
Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, The Metaphysics of Sabzawari, p. 84.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 7. (Sartre also believes that nothingness provides the ground for negation and negative propositions and not vice versa (see p. 19).
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 79.
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Kamal, M. Existence and Non-existence in Sabzawari’s Ontology. SOPHIA 51, 395–406 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0283-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0283-z