THE LANGUAGE OF BEING: FROM IBN SINA TO MULLA

SADRA

Dr. Rafael RAMÓN GUERREROProfessor of Islamic Phylosophy in Complutense University

at Madrid

Philosophy was born when the Greek worlddiscovered the lo/goj, in which is founded a new way ofsaying that seeks to be true as far as it discovers thehidden and unifies the real beyond the apparentdiversity that we are given in experience. Heraclitusexpressed that fact in the fragment 112: «To think (to\fronei=n) is the supreme perfection. Wisdom is to saythe truth (le/gein a)lh/qeia) and to work according tonature (kata\ fu/sin) listening to it», —he says—.Knowledge consists in saying what is revealed, what ishidden in nature. This is the place of appearance andof concealment; for this reason, the truth is adiscovery of what there is, for what there is, i.e.being, is hidden beyond appearance. Heraclitus relates

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thinking and being in a unique saying. Parmenides didthe same in his fragment 6,1: «It should be said and itshould be thought what there is (xrh\ to\ le/gein tenoei=n t' e)o\n e)/mmenai)». He pointed out theimportance of grasping the hidden, or, in other words,what is not manifested, what is not apparent, and henotices the necessity of saying what is uncovered, whatis discovered, i.e. the truth or being.

From the beginning of philosophy, the problemof being has had to do with language. It has beenthought that being is no more than an image of thestructures of language or only a conceptual elaborationof reality without the immediate support of language1.Possibly the conjunction of both opinions responds in abetter way to reality.

Aristotle constituted metaphysics of beingfrom a reflection on language, for being is implied inall human speech2. In the Islamic world, where it wasspoken a language without a verb to express being,philosophers not only knew and assimilated that veryprecise metaphysics of being, but they also developedand transmitted it. Then, if Aristotelian metaphysicshad only been elaborated from within Greek language,the world of Arabic expression would have been unableto understand it. The reference to a reality, implicitin language, can satisfactorily explain such anunderstanding and such an assimilation. But truthful

1 Cf. J. Moreau: "Remarques sur l'ontologie aristotélicienne",Revue Philosophique de Louvain, 75 (1977) p. 578.

2 Cf. P. Aubenque: Le problème de l'être chez Aristote, París, 4ª ed.,1977, pp. 94-250.

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saying is the only one that allows us to think reality,i.e. being, since being appears in speech. Now, speech,language, does not tell us the thing, but it tells ussomething about it: language is not identification, butfundamentally predication, attribution of a thing toanother. Language provides, in this way, the basicconfiguration of properties that the mind recognizes inthings3. The Aristotelian metaphysics has to do withthe question of categories and with the structure ofpredication.

Being has not only a predicative function,but it also expresses existence, for it makes referenceto an implicit reality in the predication manifested bylanguage. Perhaps this was what prevented Aristotle tosolve the problem definitively, in spite of hispenetrating pages on being, and what led him to proposesome objections, when he affirmed, for instance, that«the question investigated from old times onwards, isalways difficult (a)porou/menon), i.e., what is “whatthere is", comes to be identified with this: what isthe entity (ou)si/a)?»4.

Arab language lacks a verb able to expressboth functions, the copulative and predicative and theexistential one, although the verb kâna, in the twosenses that grammarians speak of, the complete ant theincomplete one, may carry out both assignments5. In

3 Cf. E. Benveniste: Problèmes de linguistique générale, París, 1966,pp. 65-71.

4 Metaphysics, Z (VII) 1, 1028b 2-4.5 Cf. F. Shehadi: Metaphysics in Islamic Philosophy, Delmar, N.Y.,

1982, pp. 1-5.

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common language, the meaning concerning the verb “tobe” could be understood; in grammar, the lack of theterm was, at the best, an uncomfortable matter;however, in logic it was an enormous obstacle6.Translators chose some terms in order to represent thecopula and its meanings, but those terms were notaccepted fully. Arabian philosophers had to face thatdifficulty and solved it in their own way, choosingsome of those terms that worked as equivalents of theverb “to be”, although in exchange of numerousalterations which broke the syntactic natural movementof the Greek copula7. They made numerous intents torepresent the copula in Arabic language, as well as theexistential sense of the Greek verb.

Al-Fârâbî was the first in proposing ifArabic could provide an adequate language in order toexpress being, in both his commentary to Peri Hermeneias8

as in his Kitâb al-Hurûf, where he dedicates to it a wholechapter9. He was also the first in affirming that theapprehension of being is reached by means of anepistemological process which is, at the same time, thebeginning of the acquisition of language. His claim for

6 Cf. S. M. Afnan: Philosophical Terminology in Arabic and Persian,Leiden, 1964, p. 29.

7 Cf. A. Taha: Langage et philosophie. Essai sur les structures linguistiques del'ontologie, Rabat, 1979, pp. 30-31.

8 Al-Fârâbî's Commentary on Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (De interpretatione),ed. W. Kutsch and S. Marrow, 2e ed, Beirut, 1971, pp. 42, 46 y103.

9 Al-Fârâbî's Book of Letters (Kitâb al-hurûf). Commentary on Aristotle'sMetaphysics, ed. M. Mahdi, Beirut, 1969, pp. 110-128. Translation byR. Ramón Guerrero: "Al-Fârâbî: El concepto del ser", Revista deFilosofía, 3ª época, VII (1994) nº 11, pp. 27-49.

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finding a word that could solve the difficulty did nothave fortune.

Later on, Ibn Rud was neither able to settlethe question definitively, since he thought thatprevious solutions could be no longer accepted10. Hepicked up al-Fârâbî’s initial proposals and explainedthe four meanings to be found in Aristotle: being foraccident, being for itself, truthful being and being inpotency and in act. He studied the two more usual termsamong philosophers, huwiyya and mawûd, and preferredthis last one, for it belongs to the natural languageof the Arabs, although he recognized the value ofhuwiyya, a foreing term created by translators, in orderto overcome the error associated to mawûd, whichtakes implicit accidentality for it is a termgrammatically derived.

Anyway, the problem was expounded knowingthat the question of being had both a logical-grammatical aspect and an ontological one. It seem thatal-Fârâbî understood it in such a way, when he wonderedif existence is to be considered a predicate11:

«Question: Does the the proposition “Man exists”have a predicate or not ? He answered: This is aproblem on which both the ancients and the modern

10 Cf. Tafsîr mâ bad al-tabîa, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut, 1938-1952,pp. 552-563. Tahâfut al-tahâfut, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut, 1930, pp.367-389. Compendio de Metafísica, text and translation by C. Quirós,Madrid, 1919, §§ 19-23, pp. 11-14. Cf. R. Ramón Guerrero:"Comentario de Averroes a Metafísica V, 7", En torno a Aristóteles. Homenajeal Profesor Pierre Aubenque, Santiago de Compostela, 1998, pp. 403-418.

11 Cf. N. Rescher: Studies in the History of Arabic Logic, Pittsburgh,1963, pp. 39-42.

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disagree, for some say that this sentence has nopredicate, and some say that it does. In my sight,both of these judgments are correct, each one inits own way. When a physicist who studies thingsexamines this proposition and similar ones, thenit has no predicate, for the existence of a thingis nothing but the thing itself, whereas apredicate should be a concept whose existence orwhose negation is judged of the thing; accordingto this aspect, this proposition does not have apredicate. But when a logician examines theproposition, he will treat it as composed of twoexpressions, each forming part of it, and it issusceptible of truth or falsehood, thus thisproposition has a predicate. Therefore theassertions are both correct, but each of them onlyaccording to a different aspect»12.

Al-Fârâbî distinguishes the ontologicalenvironment, where existence is not a predicate, for itadds nothing to the description and characterization ofa thing, being so that predicates should add someinformation to the thing which is considered, and thelinguistic and logical environment, in which, insimilar propositions, there is always a grammatical andlogical subject, to which a predicate is attributed.Reconnaissance of this double environment led him torecognize the distinction between the existence of athing and its essence, when he refuses that existence

12 Risâla fî awâb masâ'il su'ila an-hâ, ed. in Alfarabi's philosophischeAbhandlungen, ed. F. Dieterici, Leiden, 1890, p. 90. Translation:M. Alonso: "Las Cuestiones Diversas de al-Fârâbî", Pensamiento, 19(1963) 342-343.

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may be a real predicate, for otherwise it would have tobe a component of the essence, what is to be found onlyin God, in Who both essence and existence coincide13.On the other hand, he also recognizes that being isexpressed by two characteristics: the individual andreal beings, of which one can only have experience, andthe intelligible concepts, the ideas which are usefulin order to talk about those real beings14.

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Ibn Sînâ did not pay attention to the termsused in Arabic language, although his great effort inelaborating an ontology led him to the notion of beingin connection with the One and the Necessary, thustransforming Aristotelian and Neoplatonic metaphysicsin the light of Islamic religion. He only bring forwardsome observations about the differences that Arabic,Greek and Persian languages present with reference tothe copula, and he is limited to highlight that Arablanguage does not use the copula:

«You should know that all predicative proposition(qadiyya hamliyya) must contain, besides the idea(ma’nà) of a predicate and a subject (al-mahmûl wa-l-mawdû’), the idea of the conexion of both. This isthe third of its senses15. If the correspondence

13 N. Rescher: o.c., pp. 41-42, observes that this distinctionis inspired by Anal. Post., II, 7, 92b 3-18.

14 Cf. P. Morewedge: "Greek Sources of Some Near EasternPhilosophies of Being and Existence", in P. Morewdge (ed.):Philosophies of Existence Ancient and Medieval, New York, 1982, p. 306.

15 He points out three parts in Naât, ed. M. Fakhri, Beirut,1985, pp. 53-54: «For the mind, the essential parts of allpredicative proposition are three: the idea of a subject, the idea

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between the number of words and the number ofideas was attempted, this third idea should have athird word that expressed it. This has beeneliminated in some languages, like it is sometimessuppressed originally in Arabic language, just aswhen we say “Zayd writer”, when it should be said“Zayd is (huwa) a writer”. Instead, in otherlanguages it is not possible to eliminate it, asit succeeds in Persian language with “ast”, justas when we say “Zayd dîrast"16. This word is calledcopula»17.

His terminology about being does not differto some extent of the one used by al-Fârâbî18. When inal-Iârât he deals with being, he begins discarding theopinion of common people who usually identifie it withsensible things, since there are ideas and conceptsthat are not sensible but intelligible forms:

«They are predominant ideas among common peoplethe following ones: that being is the sensitivebeing; that the supposition of existence of whatis not reached substantially by the sense isabsurd; and that what is not framed by a place ora position by itself, as the body, or by reason of

of a predicate, and the idea of the connection among them. In thelanguage many times those parts are limited to the word thatexpresses the idea of a subject and to the one that expresses theidea of a predicate, but the word that expresses the connectionidea cannot be found».

16 "Zayd is a writer". In another manuscript it is read dabîrast.17 Al-Iârât wa-l-tanbîhât, ed. S. Dunya, Cairo, 2ª ed., 1981, pp.

240-241.18 Cf. A.-M. Goichon: Lexique de la langue philosophique d'Ibn Sînâ,

Paris, 1939. Vocabulaires comparés d'Aristote et d'Ibn Sînâ, París, 1939.

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that in what it is, as the dispositions of thebody, has no fortune of existing. But it ispossible for you to meditate on the sensibleitself and for that reason you have been able toknow that their speech is false»19.

However, his lack of linguistic concern iscompensated by an accented sense of being20, whoseunderstanding is the object of metaphysics. For IbnSînâ, the object of science has to be imposed byitself, i. e., it must be known in an immediate way; itshould be common to everything which the scienceembraces, i.e, it should be universal; and, finally, ithas to embrace all beings that have become real andhave become in act21. What gathers these threeconditions in the scope of Metaphysics is being asbeing:

«From this it is clear for you that being(almawd) as being is something common (mutarak)to everything, and that it is necessary toestablish it like the object of this discipline,just as we have said. Since it does not require toknow its essence (mâhiyya) and neither to settleit down, so that a different science which wouldguarantee the explanation of the mode it adoptsshould be needed. It is impossible to establish anobject and to verify its essence in the science ofwhich it is its object, but rather it is only

19 Iârât, vol. III, p. 720 Cf. F. Shehadi: o.c., pp. 71-72.21 Cf. R. Ramón Guerrero: "Sobre el objeto de la metafísica

según Avicena", Cuadernos de Pensamiento, 10 (1996) 59-75.

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necessary to admit its being (anniyya) and itsessence. The first object of this science is,therefore, being as being; what is researched (wa-matâlibu-hu) in it are the things that follow itnecessarily as being without condition»22.

Ibn Sînâ affirms that the object ofMetaphysics is being as being, what Aristotle hadindeed already indicated23. But, what does Ibn Sînâunderstand by “being”? Is it perhaps that that we aregiven in an immediate way by sensible experience? Itseems that, in the Aristotelian tradition in which heis integrated, it should be understood in this way,since being given to us as a common and a veryuniversal concept is not a preexistent idea, it israther known in a confused way within the essences ofsensible things, and abstracted from within thedeterminations that individualize and particularizesingular things, which are accidental and extrinsic toits essence. That is to say, being is what we firstperceive by sensible knowledge, it is thus the objectwhich we are given immediately within sensibleexperience, for only through an image we can elaboratethe concept of being. However, it seems that Ibn Sînâdid not understand it so.

When he wants to explain what being is, IbnSînâ shows a constant ambiguity, for although being isthe most known in an immediate way, however, there isno definition of it. He says it in several texts. I

22 Al-Šifâ'. Ilâhiyyât, ed. M. Y. Moussa, S. Dunya et S. Zayed, Cairo,1960, p. 13:8-13.

23 Metaphysics, VI, 1, 1026a 27-32.

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prefer a text belonging to Dâni Nâma, which is writtenin Persian language and where the term “being” isexpressed by means of the word “hastî”:

«Being is recognized by reason itself without theaid of definition or description. Since it has nodefinition, it has neither genus nor differentia,for nothing is more general than it. Being doesnot have a description since nothing is betterknown than it. It is possible that one canrecognize its name in one language by means ofanother language. Thus, by some means, it ispossible to acquaint someone with what is meant bya term like being. For example, if “being” appearsin Arabic, it can be explained in Persian, and onecan indicate that it is that from which all otherthings are derived»24.

This text points how the problem of being andits determination has to do not only with reality, i.e.with what we know in an immediate way, but also withthe problem of language, since this is the one thatallows to manifest the own determinability of theconcept of being as expressed in a language, andindicates that it is the concept within whicheverything is. Thus, being is the most general conceptin metaphysical analysis, the concept which we have inmind without arriving to us from within sensiblethings:

24 P. Morewedge: The Metaphysica of Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ). A criticaltranslation-commentary and analysis of the fundamental arguments in Avicenna'sMetaphysicia in the Dânish Nâma-i 'alâ'î, Londres, 1973, p. 15.

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«Being (al-mawûd) cannot be explained by somethingdifferent to name, since it is a first principleof all explanation. It does not have explanation,but its concept (sûra) remains in the soul withoutmediation of anything»25.

«The concepts (ma’ânî) of being, of thing and ofnecessary are made within the soul with a primaryimpression which has not to be acquired throughbetter known things than them»26.

From a neoplatonic outlook, Ibn Sînâ movesaway from Aristotelian tradition explicitly: the notionof being is not obtained by sensible experience,through a contact with external things, but rather itis reached by an intuition in the soul27. The idea ofbeing is a primitive idea; it is the most familiar, butit is also the most inexplicable one. It is necessaryto appeal to other terms in order to explain what beingis, and they show off the difficulty in which Ibn Sînâwas in order to inform about being.

Let us advance a little more. Aristotle hadaffirmed that the problem of being is reduced to theproblem of “ou)si/a”. Was it also reduced to it for IbnSina? He moved away from Aristotle in order tounderstand the origin of being’s notion. He alsowithdrew from Aristotle’s view regarding this. Ibn Sînâ

25 Naât, p. 236.26 Al-žifâ'. Ilâhiyyât, p. 29.27 See his argument on the man suspended in the air, Iârât, vol.

II, pp. 343-346.

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maintains that being exceeds all divisions, since it isbeyond division both in substance and in accident:

«Being itself, as it is considered in itself, isonly being (wuûd), and thus none of other things;on the contrary, it is united to them withoutbeing divided by them»28.

But, besides being, there are other firstconcepts, such as those of thing or necessary, and onlyone shall explain what being is if one resorts to them.If beings we know by experience are always necessary,then we know that they are not by themselves, for theyhave had a beginning, they have arrived to existenceafter having been only possible. The concept ofnecessary is in connection with that of possibility,and both are, in turn, in relation to the concept ofimpossible. Regarding to these three modal categories,being is of two classes: necessary or possible.Possible being is which can exist or not by its ownnature, for it always requires a beginning. NecessaryBeing, on the other hand, is such that it is impossiblefor it not to exist.

It is a dissection of being that takes rootin causal connection among things. Possible beingdepends on a cause to exist; for it is indifferent withregard to existence or non-existence by itself. If itexists, it is because a cause has placed it to exist;if it does not, it is also for sake of an absence of

28 žarh kitâb «Utûlûgiyyâ li-mansûb ilà Aristâtâlîs, ed. A. Badawi: Aristûinda l-arab El Cairo, 1947, p. 61.20-22. French translation: G.Vajda: "Les notes d'Avicenne sur la «Théologie d'Aristote»", RevueThomiste, 51 (1951) p. 386.

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cause. Its existence depends on the cause and it isdetermined by it. This cause on which it depends isNecessary Being, which does not owe its existence toany cause; it is one, unique, without cause, necessaryin all aspects and first cause of all remaining beings;the notion of being corresponds solely to him in afull, total and proper manner.

Then, two elements are recognized in being:essence and existence. Essence is the characteristicnature of a thing and it is known through thedefinition of that thing. Existence is that by which anessence is produced either in reality or within themind.

«It is evident that all thing have a true ownnature which its essence is. It is also known thatthe true and own nature of all things is notexistence, which is synonymous of the affirmation[of that thing]. And this is so since if you say“the true nature of such a thing exists inreality, within the mind, or in an absolute way asbeing common to them both", it will be perceivedand understood»29.

«You know that each thing has an essence, which isonly recognized as existent in reality orconceived within the mind as far as itsconstituent parts are somehow present. If thething has an essence whose being does not consistto exist according to one of these two types ofexistence and whose constitution is not given by

29 Ilâhiyyât, p. 31.

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any of them, then existence will be a conceptrelative to its essence, either concomitant ornot. Besides, the causes of its existence aredifferent from the causes of its essence. Let usgive at least an example: humanity; it has withinitself a certain true nature and an essence, butto exist in reality or within the mind is notsomething constituent of it, but rather somethingrelative to it. For if [existence] was constituentof humanity, then it would be impossible for itsidea to be represented within the soul without itsconstituent part. And it would be impossible forexistence to make comprehensible [the idea of]humanity within the soul, just as it would beimpossible to outline the question concerning ifit has existence in reality or if it does not.But, regarding man, it is possible to outline thequestion of its existence, not in order tounderstand it, but in order to perceive itsparts»30.

Since beings are possible, they do have anessence, by which they are merely possible; but, inorder to exist, they need of another being that grantstheir existence. For this reason, there is in them adistinction between two elements, i.e. essence andexistence, since essence does not include the idea ofexistence by itself, but rather it is indifferenttowards it, that is to say, it is existentiallyneutral. Whereas with regard to Necessary Being itselftotal identification takes place between both its

30 Iârât, vol. I, p. 154-155.

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essence and its existence, since He does not depend ona cause to exist: His essence is in other words Hisexistence itself:

«The First has no essence unless existence. Youalready know, [for what has already been said] atthe beginning of our exhibition, what essence isand why it is distinguished from existence in thaton account of which it is thus distinguished. Wesay: Necessary Being cannot have an essence towhich the necessity of being would accompany»31.

Is this distinction real or is it merelyconceptual? Although it has been historicallyinterpreted as real, however, the only real distinctionthat Ibn Sînâ proposed has to do with Necessary Beingand possible being; he only affirmed that existence issomething external to the essence, something notincluded in the notion of the essence itself, sinceexistence cannot be inferred from what a thing is.Avicenna’s solution follows the same line outlinedwithin the above mentioned text of al-Fârâbî: from anontological aspect there is not distinction, forexistence is not to be distinguished from the essencewithin the real thing; whereas there is a cleardistinction from a logical view, since the predicate"existence" has to be different from the subject towhich this predicate is attributed in the proposition.Only in logical and grammatical analysis of realitythere is such a distinction which there is meanwhile

31 Ilâhiyyât, p. 344.

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not to be found in reality. For Ibn Sînâ, then, beingconsists on essence and existence all together.

***

With the renewal of the Iranian empire andreign of žâh Abbâs (1587-1629), Ispahan became ametropolis of Islamic arts and sciences, a center ofspiritual culture. Among the diverse orientations thatthe so-called “school of Ispahan” developed, it must bementioned the one within which both the statement oftime and the reality of the imaginal world wereemphasized as well as a new gnoseology which implied arevolution with regard to being’s metaphysics. The mainfigure within this orientation was Mullâ Sadrâ(979/1571 - 1050/1640), whose thought was not acontinuation of avicenian neither of irâqî philosophy,but a wide synthesis that sought to join philosophy,revelation and gnosis, being this the reason why hemeant to attain a summit within the context of islamicphilosophy. His objective was to achieve the knowledgeof the very last reality and the meaning of theuniverse.

Mullâ Sadrâ’s reflection about being ischaracterized by the inversion of essentialisticmetaphysics. This was the one that the previousphilosophers exposed, and by means of which they taughtthat the essence indicates what a thing is, without actof the “being” here implied refering to existence, forit is no constituent element of the essence. Heaffirmed the “existential” reality of essence itself;this is not what there is but on account of its act of

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being or way of existing. Hence, the act of being iswhat determines an essence, which, for that very samereason, ceases to be unalterable, thus becomingsusceptible of a “substantial” movement (harakaawhariyya), which leads it throughout eitherintensified or weakened degrees within a limitlessscale. This is what justifies the radical restlessnessof being, the extreme mobility that spreads from a sideto another in the scale of beings32.

Therefore, Mullâ Sadrâ renovated the interestin the study of “wuûd”, what implied a total revisionof the terminology that traditionaly expressed being33.He adopted in his own way the same language of whichthe falâsifa had formerly made use, in particular IbnSînâ, to whom Sadr al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî had read andthoroughly commented, and he afforded to place aGnostic content beyond that very same language, whoseterms differ in their meaning from the one Ibn Sînâ hadpreviously gave them.

Here is to be found the key of the inversionaforesaid: The metaphysics of Mullâ Sadrâ are no partof a strictly rational Philosophy (Falsafa), but part ofa Theosophy (Hikma)34 which transcends the reality of

32 Cf. H. Corbin: En Islam iranien (Aspects spirituels et philosophiques). IV.L’école d’Ispahn, París, 1973, pp. 77-79. “La place de Mullâ SadrâShîrâzî (ob. 1050/1640) dans la philosophie iranienne”, Studiaislamica 18 (1963) 81-113, particularly, pp. 105-107.

33 Cf. S. H. Nasr: “Post-Avicennan Islamic Philosophy and theStudy of Being”, P. Morewedge (ed.): Philosophies of Existence, pp. 339-341.

34 I translate this term, which means properly wisdom and thatamong the falâsifa it can be identified with the same "philosophy",for "theosophy", following to Corbin and Nasr.

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philosophical reason. This may be deduced from what hesays at beginning of his Kitâb al-Maâ’ir:

«Brothers you who walk towards God within thelight of gnosis (‘irfân)! Lend the hearings of yourhearts to my treatise, so that the light of mytheosophy (hikma) may deep penetrate in you /… /It does not consist in theological discussions (al-muâdalât al-kalâmiyya), nor in common traditions (al-taqlîdât al-‘âmmiyya), blamable discursive philosophy(al-falsafa al-bahtiyya al-madmûma), or in thecharacteristic imaginations of sufis, but ratherit results of the meditation on the signs of God(âyât Allâh) and of the reflection on its Kingdom(malakût), its skies and earth, together with afirm rupture regarding that to what the nature ofthose who discuss and of common people is devoted,together with the abandonment of what the heartsof common people appreciate»35.

This Theosophy represents a radical rupturewith theologians, philosophers in its classic andstrict sense, and sufis with a overflowing imagination.For Corbin, this revolutionary act dominates the wholestructure of Mullâ Sadrâ’s doctrine, and within itshall be implicitly found its most fundamental aspect,namely: the precedence of the act of existing over thequiddity, a precedence which conditions the notion ofwuûd as presence (hudûr). This is expressed ingnoseology by the unification of both the subject and

35 Mullâ Sadrâ: Le Livre des pénétrations métaphysique (kitâb al-maâir),ed. et trad. par H. Corbin, Teheran, Paris, 1982, pp. 2.10-3.11;transl., pp. 87-88.

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the object of perception, as well as in metaphysics ofSpirit, where being is to be considered the origin andthe source of everything:

«The question of being (mawûd) represents thegrounds of philosophical principles, the basis oftheological questions and the axis on which themill of the science of Unicity (‘ilm al-tawhîd) turns,the axle of eternal life's science (‘ilm al-ma’âd),of the encounter of spirits and bodies as well asof many things about which it has been given to usas to no one else hitherto the capability ofinferring and the deducing them. The ignorance ofthose who do not understand the knowledge of being(ma’rifat al-waûd) will infiltrate thus in the originof problems and in its primordial parts. Byneglecting that knowledge, the secrets and thearcanes of gnosis (ma’ârif), the science of divinethings (‘ilm al-rubûbiyyât) and of its prophecies, thelearning of the soul, its conjunctions (ittisâlât)and its turn towards the Principle of itsprinciples and ends will escape to them»36.

Within this text the distinction that Sadral-Dîn Shîrâzî perceives with regard to previousmetaphysics is clearly defined. His does not rest norit finds its reason of being within the most immediatereality which sets forth on explanation of the rationaluniverse and its principles; it is rather a thoughtthat arises, as Mullâ Sadrâ writes,

36 Ibídem, p. 4.6-11; trad. pp. 89-90.

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«from the proofs about unveiling [the hidden] (al-burhânât al-kafiyya), of whose authenticity the Bookof God, the tradition of his Prophet and theHadiths of the followers of the House of Prophecy,Friendship and wisdom give testimony»37.

The metaphysics of Mullâ Sadrâ is affirmedthroughout the characteristic topics of Islamicreligion. Hence his language of being has a differentsignificance with regard to Ibn Sînâ’s philosophicallanguage. For this very reason, being necessarily liesfor him on the divine command.

Mullâ Sadrâ begins his study on being byhighlighting its indefinable character. Being is themost evident thing, it is therefore percieved by usthrough an immediate presence: the reality of being(anniyya al-wuûd) is to be considered as a presence andas an immediate unveiling (hudûr wa-kaf), both given tous without more requirements. Its essence (mâhiyya), onthe other hand, shows up to be the darkest thing thatmay be found, what demands from us both arepresentation and a profound examination. And finallyits identity (huwiyya) is to be regarded as the mostcharacteristic of its properties.

In only three lines of the 5th paragraph ofthe same text38 we may find four main terms thatconfigured the metaphysics of being since al-Fârâbî:anniyya, wuûd, mâhiyya, huwiyya. Hitherto, the term mawûdis no found; it offered many difficulties according to

37 Ibídem, 5.11-12; trad. p. 91.38 Ibídem, p. 6.7-9; trad. p. 100.

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Ibn Rud by being a derived term in grammar. But wefind it later on, when he affirms that being (wuûd) isthe most worthy of things possessing an existentreality (haqîqa mawûda)39. From within all these termsused by Sadr Al-Dîn Shîrâzî, some have to do with thereality of being itself as long as being is: wuûd andmawûd, anniyya and huwiyya; whereas the remaining onedesignates the essence, i.e. what the thing is withindependence of its existence: mâhiyya. Therefore, weare in front of a fundamental duality concerning bothessence and existence. And thus we may ask: Is herecognizing the logical and linguistic distinctionbetween them, following thereby the classicalphilosophy of both al-Fârâbî and Ibn Sînâ? Is heaffirming its ontological identity? We shall answer:No, because, as we already know, Sadr al-muta’alihînoperated a radical inversion with regard to this veryprecise problem.

This fact was caused by the classicalstatement against which Mullâ Sadrâ fough on account ofwhich the essence is said to be the primary and chiefelement of being, or, rather, it was provoked by theidentification of being and essence, since it wasbelieved that existence was something added to it. Forhim, such a statement supposed to recognize a clearchimera: namely the one that sustains the being of theessence, which does not exist for itself. The onlything that, according to him, deserves the name ofbeing in a proper way, is the real existent, i.e. theessence which has an actual existence by virtue of its

39 Ibídem, p. 9.13-14; trad. p. 107.

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act of being: then, being is only to be found withinit. Mullâ Sadrâ could not admit that existence had tobe added to an essence in order to exist. He explainsit in following text, in which he also informs us aboutthe overturn that he gave to classical philosophy andabout his awareness, with regard to the subject:

«In the past, I devoted myself with intensity todefend the primordial character (ta’assul) ofquiddities and of the subjective aspect ofexistence (itibâriyya al-wuûd)40, until my Lord guidedme and made me see His demonstration. Then, Idiscovered, throughout unveiling up to its limit,that the matter was opposite to what philosophershad conceived and admitted. Praised be God, whohas made me leave the darkness of vain imagination(al-wahm) by means of the light of understanding(al-fahma), which has taken away from my heart theclouds of those doubts by rise of the sun oftruth, and who has secured me in the firm doctrineboth in this life and in the future one.Certainly, existences are primordial realities(haqâ’iq muta’assala) and quiddities are permanentessences (al-‘ayân al-tâbita) which do not remove theperfume of existence in any way»41.

His philosophical conversion was a result ofdivine illumination and not a consequence of mere

40 He refers to the primary reality of essences and to theconceptual aspect, of mere mental reality, of existence. Cf. S. H.Nasr: Sadr al-Dîn Shîrâzî and his Trascendent Theosophy. Background, Life andWorks, Teherán, 1997, pp. 110-111.

41 Kitâb al-Maâir, p. 35.3-9; transl. p. 152.

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rational activity, which is a very poor guide being itsend very much limited. This conversion demanded theaffirmation of the fundamental, primary and maincharacter of existence, opposite to the eternalessences, in an expression which Ibn ‘Arabî had alreadyused; essences which shall no have thus such a primacy.They are no more than purely formal, logical aspects,without real and ontological consistency.

Hence, being is for Mullâ Sadrâ theexistential reality which involves and implieseverything within itself. For this reason, it isirreducible to the logical categories and to anydivision of reason that it could define it, since thereis nothing outside of it that could thereof define it.

«All existential reality (haqîqa wuûdiyya) has onlya single realization way. Existence (wuûd) doesnot have a mental existence (wuûd dihnî). And whatdoes not have a mental existence, is not universalnor particular, neither general nor proper»42.

All of Mullâ Sadrâ is discourse on beingtries to show that Being, whose nature is superior tothe nature of any reality, both universal orparticular, finds its primary and primordial expressionin the indefinite and limitless Absolute Being, beingit the reason of the existence of all things, and thuswhat confers reality to everything and without whichall the world would cease to exist. The primacy ofBeing is manifested, then, in God, the Unique and onlyone who has being in a necessary way, opposite to the

42 Ibídem, 7.6-8; trad. p. 101.

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contingency which characterizes the other beings. He isa limitless Being; for that reason, and since theessence is what determines and limits, God does nothave an essence, being the essence accidental. If Hehad one, His Being would imply a composition of essenceand existence. On the other hand, Absolute Being orSupreme Existence is unmixed and simple. In short, Heis Absolute Unity expressed, however, throughoutmultiplicity, i.e., through different degrees in whichBeing prevails steady, without ceasing to be One forthat reason.

Therefore, Sadrâ al-Dîn Shîrâzî transformedthe philosophical thought within the Islamic culture.He used the Ibn Sînâ’s same philosophical language, andhe elaborated a Theosophy, a wisdom in which Being,understood as existence, became the key of explanationof ontological reality. Opposite the essentialisticcharacter of previous metaphysics, even the avicennianone, Mullâ Sadrâ maintained and defended the primacy ofexistence. By means of this metaphysics, he could givea perfect account of the fundamental doctrine of Islam,namely the Unicity of Being, contained in variousverses of the Koran. Thereby, the divinely inspiredwisdom explained by Mullâ Sadrâ is to be regarded as areligious exposition of Islam using the philosophicallanguage of Ibn Sînâ. Shortly it could be said that,through its language of Being, he sought to carry out ametaphysical defense of Islam as a religion whichincludes and dominates both the absolute and the

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relative, the general and the particular by virtue of atranscendent unique principle.

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