Mullā Ṣadrā’s Strategies for Reducing Death Anxiety and its Philosophical Principles

The present study investigates Mullā Ṣadrā’s strategies for treating death anxiety and its philosophical foundations. It also aims to suggest some philosophical and ontological strategies to decrease modern Man’s anxiety when thinking about death based on some of Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophical principles, such as the principiality of existence, the union of the intellect with intelligible, the trans-substantial motion, theism, religiosity, and believing in the Hereafter. According to Sadrian philosophy, Man’s life is meaningful and purposeful, and being has been created based on divine emanation. The human soul is corporeally-originated; however, its essence changes because of its union with the intelligible and its own trans-substantial motion and attains higher levels of being though going through different existential grades. This developmental move continues until reaching the origin of being and does not end with death. It also grants meaning to Man’s life and decreases their death anxiety. Mullā Ṣadrā is an existential philosopher who advocates a supernaturalist, theistic, and procedural approach to death. The reality of death in Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy is a part of Man’s process of existential development. Some of the strategies that can be inferred from his philosophy to reduce death anxiety include following a teleological approach to the world, being’s view of God as pure connection, believing in the Hereafter and Man’s resurrection after corporeal death, advocating ontological evolution, and having a developmental view of death.