Abstract

Sadr al-Mutaallihin Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra, the reputable philosopher of Isfahan, living in the llth century A.H, is the founder of a school of philosophy that he, himself, calls the Transcendent Philosophy in his two well-known works, al-Asfar and al-Shawahid al-mbubiyya.The purpose of the writer in this paper is to answer the following questions:What is meant by the Transcendent Philosophy, and why has its founder called it so? The answers to the above questions could be obtained from the words of the prominent author of al-Asfar in the introduction to the book, as well as those in his other works. Mulla Sadra believes that intellectual wayfarings cannot be separated from mystic ones, and that both of them together could aid the seekers of the truth I to reach their goal. Mulla Sadra has introduced the witnessed coordination between gnosis and philosophy in all the stages and levels of existence in al-Asfar as the distinguishing feature of this book comparing to other books written on Islamic philosophy. In fact, his major aim is to establish a kind of coordination between philosophy and gnosis or synthesize them with each other. He has called the result of this coordination or synthesis the Superior or Transcendent Philosophy.