Theosophia Islamica

With a rational reflection on possible beings, Farabi presents an analysis of the relationship between existence and essence, which requires a new philosophical system distinct from Greek philosophy. In his view, all possible beings are composed of two metaphysical aspects, i.e. existence and essence. By distinguishing constituents (muqawwamāt) from accidental things (‘araḍiyyāt) and using terms such as ‘āriḍ and lāzim, Farabi explores the structure of possible beings. In possible beings, existence is not the same or a part of essence; rather, it is an accident of essence, and since any accidental thing is subject to causality (mu‘allal), thus the possible things require something out of themselves for their existence. The main point is that the container of this distinction is not merely the world of the mind or the objective world; rather, it is the product of rational analysis. In other words, the distinction of existence and essence is neither a mental distinction nor a physical one; rather, it is a rational distinction which is called, in today’s metaphysics, metaphysical distinction. In metaphysical distinction, the existence and essence of the possible beings are two ontological principles and two metaphysical modes of the being that compose its identity. The metaphysical distinction designs the foundation of the non-Greek philosophical system based on which one can explain, from the theological viewpoint, proving the existence of the Necessary Being, the evolution of the ultimate causality, natural agency with the agentive causality and divine agency; from the cosmological viewpoint, proving the essential contingency of the universe and the philosophical explanation of the creation; from the ontological viewpoint, dividing beings into necessary and possible, and explaining the structure of possible beings; and from the epistemological viewpoint, evolution in dividing knowledge. This article is an applied study that attempts, by relying on the descriptive-analytical method with an exploration of the metaphysical distinction between existence and essence, to deal with applying that distinction in Farabi’s philosophical system and its products and results.

Continuing the path of Neo-Platonic philosophers and Farabi, while accepting the framework of the Greek thought in reaching the truth of the beings in the universe through the rational knowledge in the framework of Aristotelian logics, Avicenna has attempted to present a certain interpretation of some fundamental concepts of the Greek thought and offer a metaphysics with quite rational and argumentative results as well as a rational interpretation for some of the principal concepts of the Quranic thought in the Islamic world, a metaphysics that can be called the essential Greek-Islamic rational system. The present article attempts to use an analytical-explanatory method to prove that, firstly, Avicenna accepts the Greek rational thinking method in reaching the truth of the beings, calling it the certitude wisdom and knowledge. And – in line with Aristotle – he introduces the man’s sensory faculty as the starting point for the path of acquiring certitude knowledge, through which he reaches the rational knowledge of the beings. Secondly, it states the most important axes of Avicenna’s philosophy in his legal reasoning reading of principles of Aristotelian thought.

Today, ‘system-generation’ in the sphere of religious sciences and teachings as well as other basic affairs is among the important and critical issues now seriously considered by the elite. In regard with religious sciences and knowledge, one can achieve perfection, comprehensiveness, and good epistemic logical structure (moving from generalities and foundations to specifics and results) when the findings of those spheres are formulated in the form of an ‘intellectual system’ or ‘behavioral system’ like a general system with specified goals, enjoying coherent constituents and interactive and related components. One of the philosophical and religious sciences of great importance with a basic role in other religious sciences and an accumulated background in the works and texts of earlier, later and contemporary Muslim philosophers is ‘(Islamic) epistemology’. The present study claims that it can offer a systemic image of Islamic epistemology. Thus, it has tried to offer a schema for ‘the System of Islamic epistemology’ and explain its nature, components and features in short, based on the process of Islamic system-generation. According to the present study, the theoretical framework and the main axes of the discussions on formulating an Islamic epistemological system can be suggested to be as follows: concepts and definitions, features and characteristics, status and importance, goals and ends, foundations and presuppositions, components and constituents, method and sources, usage and efficiency. In addition, for instance, the authors of the present article consider the usage of the System of Islamic epistemology in the ‘Islamic methodology’. The research method in this study is substantially a rational one, and it has used library sources in data collection.

Christianity and Shiite Islam share the religious nature of marriage as compliance with a divine precept and of the family as a sharing and continuation of the divine will preordained for the creation and multiplication of human beings on the face of the earth. I will not dwell on the institution of marriage itself and I will omit to expound its principles, canons and ethics proper to it. I therefore proceed to immediately lay out the essential outlines that characterize the existential philosophy and the role to which parents are called within the family cell. Of this cell they are not the only protagonists, and it must also be said that the cell itself is not an end in itself: the parents are one with the children and the family is one with the society, civil and religious, in which and with which it evolves, lives its religiosity and ethics, and realizes divine wills. The subject of people who make up the family nucleus in the strict sense and the people who gravitate with different duties and in different capacities around it, such as fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, relatives and servants, is vast and complex in its articulations. This is true both as regards their interpersonal relations and their relations with the community environment in the midst of which they stand as elements of edification and support. Indeed, an exhaustive treatment of the personal roles of individuals constituting the family would in itself require extremely detailed and laborious research. Perhaps in no other field has legalism indulged so much as in the treatment and determination of the rights and duties inherent to the members of the family unit. Not only because of their natural belonging to a tribe, clan and family, but also because of their religious identity as subjects of a revealed law, over whom the dominion of faith prevails, or ends up prevailing, over every other instance of ethical, associative and community order. We therefore propose to outline, below, just a few of the complex religious and human implications of the interpersonal relations that regulate and govern the family institution as it articulates itself and becomes the core of the so-called Islamic community.

The question of the probability of life after death has been of the highest importance throughout the ages for great numbers of people. The denial of its possibility is frequently based on a conception of a person as a completely material (or physical) being by appealing to both empirical evidence and philosophical argument. In this study, based on Lund’s view, we will present and defend a mind-body dualism in which the immaterial self does not consist in, and might not depend for its existence upon, the existence of the body and so might continue to exist after bodily death. The close association of these two distinct entities is due to a causal connection — a connection that fails to establish that the physical brings the mental into existence and is compatible with theories that the source of consciousness is not in the brain (e.g., the transceiver theory). In view of this, the continued existence of the self beyond the death of its body would be not only metaphysically possible but might be in accord with the laws of nature (i.e., naturally possible) as well. Arguments will be advanced in support of this form of dualism. They may be classified as follows: 1. the nature of the self (as known through acquaintance or phenomenology) and what it is to be a person, 2. Interactionist dualism and “transceiver” theory, 3. The self as an ontologically basic particular that experiences the world. 

The present article investigates the signification of miracle to the prophet’s prophethood from the rational and logical viewpoints in the context of Islamic theology. After proving the necessity of the prophethood with the help of the ‘Rule of Grace’, most of the Islamic theologians consider miracle as the main reason for affirming the claim of someone who claims God has called him to prophethood. Most of theologians maintain that miracle is enough evidence for affirming such a claim, but a few of them criticize this idea. That the miracle rationally signifies the prophethood, and being called by God as a messenger can be stated in two ways. One is that the mere issuing of a miracle by the claimant to prophethood can rationally and logically affirm his prophethood. The other is that by adding some introductory items to the miracle and compiling an authentic logical deduction, one can affirm someone’s claim to prophethood. It seems that both explanations are defective. The deficiency of the first explanation is that the miracle in itself has no logical signification to prophethood and affirmation of the claimant. At most, it shows the agent’s power to perform extraordinary actions, not more. The second explanation is faced with numerous critiques such as vicious circle in argument, deficiency in attributing miracle to God, simultaneous fallacy, deficiency in being miracle as a sign of prophethood, non-homogeneity of reason and claim, the drawback of miracle’s being extraordinary, criticizing the premises of the argument, and the prophethood’s no need for miracle. Finally, the result of the present study is that miracle has no rational signification for prophethood, and prophethood and guiding the human beings do not necessarily require miracle.