
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
Copyright
JWP is an open access journal, using a Creative Commons license. Authors submitting an article for publication to JWP agree on the following terms: The Author grants and assigns to the Press the full and exclusive rights during the term of copyright to publish or cause others to publish the said Contribution in all forms, in all media, and in all languages throughout the world. In consideration of the rights granted above, the Press grants all users, without charge, the right to republish the contribution in revised or unrevised form, in any language, and that it carries the appropriate copyright notice and standard form of scholarly acknowledgement as applicable under the CC-BY license. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publisher
Indiana University
Volume
9
Issue
2
Peer Reviewed
yes
eCommons Citation
Meisami, S. (2025). Ghazālī’s Influence on Mullā Ṣadrā’s View of Causal Necessity and Freewill. Journal of World Philosophies, 9(2).
Comments
Originally published at https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp/article/view/7220