Abu al-Hassan Tabatabaei (Jelveh) and Aqa Ali Modarres on The Theory of "Personal Unity of Existence

Personal unity of existence is one of the most important mystical beliefs that has brought about numerous challenges in the field of philosophical thought and has been both criticized and defended by the philosophers. Aqa Ali Modarres Tehrani and Abu al-Hassan Jelveh are among the philosophers who have criticized the mystical doctrine of personal unity of existence and refuted. Aqa Ali Modarres, due to his graded notion of existence and based on this principle, has challenged the theory of personal unity of existence while the fundamental difference between the theosopher and philosopher is undeniable. Jelveh has critiqued the theory of mystics for the same reason and using a mixture of some philosophical and mystical terms. In fact, none of the philosophers has succeeded to put himself in the shoes of a mystic and explain this theory. In the current essay, after analysis and comparison of these two philosophers’ ideas, the authors conclude that these thinkers have denied the doctrine of personal unity of existence because Aqa Ali Modarres has accepted a special notion of the primacy of existence, and Jelveh has been a proponent of essentialism. Moreover, it has become clear that the difference of the methodology of these two philosophers lies in the way that they have extracted the themes and discussed the sources, in the sense that there is a type of diversity of sources and references to mystics and philosophers in the treatises of Jelveh while Aqa Ali Modarres has systematized the themes based on a Sadraean point of view, and for this reason, his works are of a particular order.