درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The process of self-awareness and awareness of the surrounding world for Muslim scholars has been categorized into divisions such as experiential and acquired awareness. However, the ontology of awareness, meaning the discussion of whether awareness is immaterial or material, as well as the material or immaterial nature of the origin and end of awareness, has been a particularly challenging topic among Muslim theologians. Some Muslim scholars, denying the existence of a factor beyond the human body for his movement and life, considered both awareness and the process of awareness-formation in humans and the factor-shaping awareness in humans to be within the same body. They engaged in critiquing the perspectives and foundations of philosophers, especially Avicenna on this matter and, utilizing specific principles in their philosophical physicalist psychology, regarded awareness as a material entity. In this discussion, after examining the foundations of this group of Muslim theologians regarding the material nature of awareness and their criticisms of considering awareness as immaterial, wewill focus on the philosophical and epistemological consequences arising from the materialistic view of awareness in their thought.

The aim of this paper is to dissociate Metaphysics and Theology. In Metaphysics, I propose a Neutral Monist foundation of the Being of Reality, which is, therefore, not material or ideal, but a cosmic field of possibilities that generates both domains. God is conceived as one possibility embedded in the Being of Reality that may or may not become actual, depending on conditions established by the evolution of the Cosmos.As far as we know, the conditions for the actualization of God are satisfied by human consciousness. The relation between the Being of Reality and its outcomes, as the realization of God in human society, is one of actualization of potentialities, as in Aristotelian philosophy. This approach leads to a Feuerbachian view of God as emergent in social conscious experience, achieving embodied expression in human social practices, from the legitimate symbolic message of prophets, in sacred texts, rituals, images, buildings, and social institutions implemented by religious organizations.

This paper explores the metaphysical concepts of divine “love” (ʿeshq), “attraction” (jadhbe), and “selflessness” (bīkhodī) in the seminal Iranian Shīʿī Muslim thinker Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī’s poetry. It seeks to comprehensively understand these themes in the context of self-transcendence and divine unity. This research emerges from the gap in existing literature, which mainly explores Fayḍ Kāshānī’s philosophical, theological, or ḥadīth works, while the scrutiny of his poetry largely stays within its literary attributes, overlooking the philosophical and mystical themes embedded within. The paper’s thesis posits that according to Fayḍ Kāshānī, the spiritual journey commences with reason, progressing to constant divine contemplation. This combination of philosophy and spirituality nurtures muḥabbat—an initial stage of divine love—which, when discovered, evokes a more intense love: “divine attraction” in the seeker’s heart, leading to selflessness and divine unity. This paper employs the hermeneutic method and analytical examination to scrutinize Fayḍ Kāshānī’s poetry within the context of his treatises. It follows an “intracultural” interpretation to explore Fayḍ Kāshānī’s thought within Persian intellectual tradition and uses an “intercultural” interpretation to contextualize the findings within Islamic, Christian, and ancient Greek metaphysics. The methodology includes a “horizontal interpretation” of Quranic and ḥadīth references in Fayḍ Kāshānī’s works and a “vertical interpretation” of unveiling deeper meanings of Fayḍ Kāshānī’s thoughts within the broader mystical traditions. The research accentuates how Persian metaphysical poetry, like Fayḍ Kāshānī’s, offers an evocative platform to articulate and traverse the mystic’s inner landscapes, contributing to Islamic Studies and Islamic Metaphysics and inviting scholars to explore this fertile domain.