Mulla Sadra: The complete and realized man
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The complete and realized man is the one who possesses a truly seeing eye, one in which the two lights [of material and incorporeal being] are conjoined, so that he never keeps his inner vision from perceiving the two states of being: then he will truly know the secret of the two worlds.
(Mulla Sadra)
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Photo: Turkish Professor and his students. A photograph taken by Sébah & Joaillier, photographers of the Sultan. (Konstantinopel / Istanbul)
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Recommended Reading:
The Elixir of the Gnostics
By Mulla Sadra (Author) and William Chittick (Author)
To Purchase:
Description:
Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi (1572-1640), more commonly called Mulla Sadra was one of the grand scholars of later-period Islamic philosophy and has grown to become one of the best-known Muslim philosophers. "Iksir al-Arifin" or "Elixir of the Gnostics", is unique among Sadra's writings in that it reworks and amplifies an earlier Persian work, the "Jawidan-nama" ("Book of the Everlasting") by Afdal al-Din Kashani, or Baba Afdal. The underlying theme of Sadra's amplification is emblematic of Muslim philosophy: the importance of self-knowledge is an individual's journey of "Origin and Return", the soul's origins with God and its eventual return to Him. Everything, Sadra says, is on such a path, gradually disengaging from the material world and returning to a transdencent essence - all leading to a final fruition in which everything in the universe returns to God and finds permanent happiness. Philosophy, Sadra argues, is the most direct means to self-knowledge - and thus the best tool for navigating this journey.
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