Abstract

This short thesis contains many philosophical and mystical views of Mulla Sadra. He has divided this book into forty chapters and presented the basis of his philosophical views in it. Among these views are Divine Essence and Attributes, the Reality of "being", creation and its stages, the spiritual journey and a discussion of the effects of love.In the first chapter, Mulla Sadra explicated the meaning and the definition of "being". He asserted that being is an external reality which has true existence. All other things except for attributes and their relations do not have true existence. Mulla Sadra based this view on the "principality of being" and the "unity of being". Before reaching this conclusion, Mulla Sadra takes into account the views of Ibn Sina and Aristotle, but his true inspiration and teachings are rooted in the great gnostic, Ibn Arabi.Mulla Sadra agreed with the Peripatetic and the Illuminationist Philosophers on the order of creation and creation itself. He believed that God Almighty first created a divine "united essence" and out of it came "Intelligible substances" which are the cause for the celestial soul and the noble bodies. Sheikh al- Ishraq pays a lot of attention to the issue of celestial bodies and soul. The other mystical issue of this thesis is the spiritual journey. The thing that Mulla Sadra is most concerned with is the first of the four journeys in his celebrated book,AL-Asfar The journeys of the servant to the Creator and the journey of the devoted to the One who is worthy of love.