Sadrian Metaphysics

Imam Reza (as) is reported to have stated : ”ولم يتغير مع المتغيرين، ولم يتبدل مع المتبدلين“ translation : “And He never changes along with the things that change, and never alters along with things that alter” [Al-Kafi,kitab-ul-tawhid,hadith#338] Change [تغير] is defined as a transition [انتقال] of a thing from potentiality [قوۃ] towards actuality [فعليۃ], with the potential to change residing within an underlying substrate known as matter [مادۃ], therefore that which undergoes change or alteration is a composite [مرکب] of potentiality and actuality, where the potentiality for receiving a new form [صورۃ] is denoted by its matter, and the aspect of actuality is denoted by some prior existing form, and every composite is necessary through another [واجب بغيرہ] and is subsistent through another [قايم بالغير], being therefore something dependent [محتاج], but that which is dependent for its subsistence [قوام] upon another such as matter and form, is not subsistent in itself [قايم بالذات]...

Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa ibn ‘Ubayd from Hammad from Hariz from Muhammad ibn Muslim from abu Ja’far (as), who has said the following : ”انه واحد صمد احدى المعنى ليس بمعنى كثيرة مختلفة, قال قلت جعلت فداك يزعم قوم من اهل العراق انه يسمع بغيرالذى يبصر و يبصربغيرالذى يسمع, قال فقال كذبو و الحدو و شبهوا تعالى الله عن ذلك انه سميع بصير يسمع بما يبصر و يبصر بما يسمع“ translation : “He, Allah, is One, the Self-sufficient. He is One and only One without any multiplicity in different meaning.The narrator has said that I further inquired, ‘May Allah keep my soul in your service, certain people in Iraq think, that Allah hears with something different from what He sees with, and He sees with something different from what He hears with.’ The Imam replied, ‘They have said a lie and have (deviated from the truth) become atheists for considering Allah similar to other things. Allah, the Most High, indeed is above all things. He is All-hearing and All-seeing. He hears with wh...

Evil is defined in Islamic Philosophy as the negation or the absence of Good, and since good is synonymous with existence, and the contrary of existence is given as non-existence, therefore evil would be equivalent to non-existence, and absolute-evil would be identical to absolute non-existence ; now all contingent/possible things that can be conceived, fall in either one of the following four categories : 1) purely-good, 2) primarily or predominantly good, 3) primarily or predominantly evil and 4) purely-evil ; things that are purely-good are completely free from corruption and evil, and things that are purely-evil are pure-nothingness and hence cannot exist, whereas things that are primarily evil also cannot exist because the greater evil in them overcomes the lesser good ; it means that things that are evil or that are said to be evil are those that fall under category (2) and are primarily or predominantly good and evil only accidentally, such as the existence of the entire physica...

Hisham say’s that an Atheist asked Imam Abu Abdullah (as) , “what is it [God]?”, the initial part of the Imam's reply is as follows: ”شئى بخلاف الاشياء ارجع بقولى الى اثبات معنى و انه شئى بحقيقة شيئية“ translation: ““He is something but different from all things. I repeat my statement that speaks about Him as a thing. He is a thing in the sense of the reality of things” [Al-Kafi,kitab-ul-tawhid,hadith#215] God can be referred to as a ‘thing [شئى]’ because according to Mullah Sadra and his foremost commentator Allama Tabataba’i ‘thingness [شيئية]’ is synonymous with existence [وجود] and reality [حقيقة], just as its opposite meaning ‘nothingness [لاشئى]’ is synonymous with non-existence [عدم] and the negation of reality [نفى حقيقة], therefore the assertion of ‘thingness’ in relation to God would simply be an affirmation [اثبات] of His Existence and Reality and the denial of thingness for the Divine would be tantamount to a denial of His Existence & Reality and would imply t...

Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Tayalisi from Safwan ibn Yahya from ibn Muskan from abu Basir who said the following: “I heard Abu ‘Abd Allah (as),saying; ”لم يزل الله عز و جل ربنا و العلم ذاته و لامعلوم و السمع ذاته و لامسموع و البصر ذاته ولامبصر و القدرته ذاته و لامقدور“ translation: “The Exalted, the Glorious, Allah, our Lord, is eternal. Knowledge [العلم] is His Self [ذاته] even if there is nothing to be known [معلوم ]. Hearing is His Self even if there is nothing to be heard [مسموع]. Seeing is His Self even when there is nothing to be seen [مبصر]. Power is His Self even if there is nothing to exercise the power [مقدور]” [Al-Kafi,kitab-ul-tawhid,hadith#286] Human knowledge [علم] is empirical [حسى] in nature, because our knowledge of the sensible objects [محسوسات] existing around us comes to us by means of sense-perception [حسى ادراك], for instance one’s knowledge of how an apple tastes comes from his experience of consuming an apple, and so one who has...

Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from ‘Abbass ibn ‘Amr al-Faqimi from Hisham ibn al-Hakam in the narration about the atheist who came to (Imam) abu ‘Abd Allah (as), and the Imam had explained to him the following: “You assume that there are two eternal and powerful powers (who control the universe) or that both are weak or only one of them is weak and the other is powerful. If they both are powerful why then does neither one ever make an effort to remove the other one to have full control of the universe? If you assume that one is powerful and the other is weak then it is proof that there is only one, as we believe; the weakness of the other is so apparent. Besides, if you say that they are two then they either agree with each other in all matters or disagree in the same way” [Al-Kafi,kitab-ul-tawhid,hadith#215] If a plurality of Necessary Beings [واجب الوجود] is asserted so only one of the following three possibilities will be true, a) One of them is the cause [علت] o...

Imam Hussain (as) states: “It is You Who have introduced Yourself to me in all things [فِي كُلِّ شَيْءٍ]; therefore, I have seen You Manifest [ظَاهِراً] in all things”[Dua-e-Arafa] The One or Pure-Existence [وجود محض] is the source that endows all contingent-essences [ماهيات] with existence [وجود]. This existence which emanates [صدور] from Pure-Existence on contingent-essences is neither inside these essences nor external to them, because in order for existence to be eithe r inside or external to them [meaning the essences], these essences must have an existence or a reality prior to receiving the existence emanated upon them from Pure-Being, which means that the essences must have an existence prior to receiving existence, which is evidently absurd, because according to Mullah Sadra’s theory of the ‘Primacy of Existence Over Essence’, [اصالت الوجود واعتبارالماهية] essences do not have any independent reality [حقيقت] in the external-world [خارج] distinct and separate from existence....