Abstract

In his Transcendent Philosophy Mulla Sadra claims that Suhrawardi failed to reply to Ibn Kumunah's objection concerning the oneness of God through his rule of Sirf al-Shay. Consequently he reconstructed that rule and called it basit al-haqiqah in order to find an exact solution. The hypothesis of this piece of research is that philosophically there is no difference between these two rules unless a fundamental change from the principiality of quiddity into the principiality of existence, so that the rule of sirf al-shay can be read on the basis of the principiality of existence which is equal to the rule of baist al-haqiqah in Mulla Sadra's words. In other words, the rule of basit al-haqiqah is the rule of Sirf al-shay reproduced on the basis of the principiality of existence.The following points are proved in this article:1- Sirf al-shay is sirf al-wujud and the latter is basit al-haqiqah.2- The real simple consists of all thing below itself.3- Sirf al-wujud consists of all things below itself.Concluding that on the basis of the principiality of existence these two rules are the same and philosophically there is no difference between them, as Allamah Tabatabai said in his Nahayah al-hikmah, one of them is direct and the other one is through reductio ad absurdum.