The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā (MIT Press) - Explore Islamic Philosophy & Mysticism for Academic Study & Spiritual Growth

Christian Jambet is his book The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra, elaborates on some of the central concepts of the Iranian Shi'ite philosopher Mulla Sadra. An enigmatic figure of the Persian Islamic world, Mulla Sadra's views could be described as a philosophy influnenced by Aristotle and Avicenna (Ibn Sina), obviosly based on Qur'anic revelation and Shi'ite world view. And that was just a gross simplification.Bulk of the book is devoted to ontology of Islam as understood by Mulla Sadra and the place of Mulla Sadra's view in Aristotelian and Avicennian systems of thought. It is worth pointing out how Jambert reaches the above conclusion in order to emphasize the study of metaphysics and politics in the same vein.Jambert although acknowledges that study of figures such as Mulla Sadra will primarily remain within the scholarly world, he mentions that it is not just another "antiquarian passion" (p. 13). He cogently argues that the philosophical thought of Islam did not come to a halt in the thirteenth century after being the "springboard" philosophy for Aristotelian thoughts, which is a common perception among some historians:"On the contrary, reasonable scholars will admit that one cannot treat Islamic thinkers after the thirteenth century as if they were simply "mystics" or "spiritual masters" devoted entirely to an inner salvation devoid of any conceptual intelligence. One goal of the present work, among the other purposes it attempts to serve, is to show how a number of discourses, including metaphysics, the exegesis of the Qur'an, the sciences inherited from the Greeks, Sufism, and morality, were progressively constituted into coherent systems." (p. 12)And such systems are essential in understanding different world views and these are not just lofty metaphysics secured for scholars. They can contribute towards our understanding of the crude realities of the day to day troubles. Also these philosophical systems are part of the world history, not so much disconnected from, "even interlinked with our own metaphysical destiny, both Greek and biblical" (p. 15).Although a demanding book, I am finding this very thought provoking. An introduction to Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and other Islamic philosophers would be helpful in following some of the arguments in this book.