Philosophy Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2024

Publication Source

Journal of World Philosophies

Abstract

Muḥammad Ghazālī (d. 1111) influenced some of the key metaphysical teachings of Shia Safavid philosophers, most prominently, Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī (d. ca. 1636). In this paper, I argue that Mullā Ṣadrā reads Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) through the lens of Muḥammad Ghazālī’s Sufi Ashʿarism to offer a solution to the problem of freewill in the Islamic context. In his adaptation of causal necessity from Ibn Sīnā, Mullā Ṣadrā argues that “necessity” as a concept is co-extensional with “existence” because in reality all that is the case is necessarily so. On the other hand, all things including voluntary actions and will are only relatively existent since the only independent existence is that of God. I demonstrate that like Ibn Sīnā, Mullā Ṣadrā acknowledges the existence of a causal chain in which all intermediary causes including human freewill have causal power. But, similar to Ghazālī’s account, all human acts including voluntary ones are from God since in Mullā Ṣadrā’s universe freewill is a lower degree of God’s Will. For Mullā Ṣadrā, the acquisition of action by human beings in the case of voluntary actions, a notion that he adopts from Ghazālī, is the same as “acquiring” existence from God’s existence.

ISBN/ISSN

2474-1795

Document Version

Published Version

Comments

Originally published at https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp/article/view/7220

Publisher

Indiana University

Volume

9

Issue

2

Peer Reviewed

yes


Included in

Philosophy Commons

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