بهزاد مرتضایی

Many mystics have known reason as an obstacle against mystical intuition; particularly they make a distinction between knowledge and intuition, the former being concerned with an awareness of God and His manifestations perceived by heart and the latter by reasoning. Ibn Arabi views reason as being of two positions: one is the position of understanding and the other of acceptance. For him, reason is unable to intuit Divine Essence and some of Divine modes and manifestations; while he views reason absolutely able to perceive the True in the position of acceptance. In this paper, the place of reason with regard to its two positions has been justified at first and, then, its failures in knowing God has been demonstrated.

In the history of Islamic Philosophy, since Farabi's time to the present, the faculty of imagination and imaginary forms have been among so important issues that some scholars have claimed that this is one of the distinct featuresof the Islamic philosophy. Farabi has explained his theory of prophecy based on the imaginal world. Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Mulla Sadra, and their followers succeeded to reconcile religion and philosophy, intuition and argumentation, transmitted sciences and reason based on the idea of imaginal world. The main issue discussed in the present article is states of the soul in the station of imagination; and the most important issue discussed here is arguments posed to prove immateriality of the soul which is of paramount importance in "knowledge of the soul" and is regarded as an important development in philosophical "knowledge of the soul". When immateriality of the soul in the station of imagination is somehow proved, it will be proved that, in spite of views posed by the Peripatetics and Illuminationists, man is not a two-dimensional being (consisted of body and reason); but rather, he enjoys three dimensions and three existential modes: material and corporal mode, formal and purgatorial mode, and rational mode. For the latter, Mulla Sadra has posed many arguments and, as he stipulates, he is the first one in the history of philosophy who has proved some immateriality and independence from body for the faculty of imagination. These arguments are studied and discussed in the present article.

A great number of Mulla Sadra’s innovations in the Transcendent Philosophy, such as the “principiality of existence”, “gradation of existence”, “oneness of being”, “principle of causality”, “the trans-substantial motion”, “createdness and eternity of the world”, and “corporeal and spiritual resurrection” have the taste of gnostic unveilings. A study of each of these important problems clearly reveals the influence of Ibn Arabi’s gnostic unveilings on Mulla Sadra’s philosophical thoughts. In several places of Mulla Sadra’s works, reference has been made to Ibn Arabi’s words as proof.The most important change in Mulla Sadra’s philosophical thoughts was his rejection of the theory of the principiality of quiddity and demonstrating the principiality of existence. This turn of thought and his interest in the principiality of existence were based on several factors a great part of which returned to the various aspects of gnosis and ideas of great gnostics such as Ibn Arabi.Regarding the problem of the oneness of being and non-existential nature of possible things, Mulla Sadra’s philosophical and dhawqi (related to intellectual intuition) ideas are very close to Ibn Arabi’s unveilings.It is important to know that the demonstration of grades and levels for multiple existents in instructional settings where we have considered them to be multiple is truly and essentially no different from what we will discuss concerning the demonstration of the unity of being and existents, as is confirmed by the great gnostics and favorites of God advocating unveiling and intuition.Regarding the problem of mental existence we should say that Mulla Sadra believes in it and, in order to demonstrate it, resorts to Ibn Arabi’s words. With respect to the problem of the trans-substantial motion, initially, he provides some arguments against his opponents and then refers to Qur’anic verses. Later, he quotes from Aristotle and, finally, refers to Ibn Arabi to prove his point.The above cases are examples of Ibn Arabi’s influence on Mulla Sadra’s philosophical-gnostic thought, as examined in this paper.

The main issue in mystical attitude of Mulla Sadra and theoretical mysticism of Ibn Arabi is to know Divine Names, attributes and actions of God Almighty. In this attitude Mulla Sadra like a real Gnostic attempts to find the way of knowing Truth. He believes that as there is no creature without God Almighty, no knowledge without knowing God Almighty is possible for creatures. So, intuition of truth and perception of intellectual universals are requisite to loss of egoism.Mulla Sadra in his most Gnostic works and writings has followed the Gnostic way and method of Ibn Arabi and believes that there is a limit and a boundary for the reason in knowing Truth and his Names and Attributes that who is seeking truth must know this limit.

Of important epistemological problems is the relation of soul with cognitive forms which is the matter of severe dispute among philosophers. The formulation Mulla Sadra offered on soul and its relation with cognitive forms is new and proper solution for the problem.In giving new definition and analysis of the soul and its faculties in transcendent philosophy Mulla Sadra was influenced by mystical view of Ibn Arabi on similarity of human soul and its acts with manifestations of God in His creation. Allah created human soul as an image of His Essence, Attributes and Acts.

Reason as a tool of human cognition and knowledge has acquired a high status among philosophers. But in mysticism, a lot of Sufis consider wisdom as the veil of cognition. The major theme of Ibne Arabi’s theoretical mysticism and Mulla Sadra’s mystical attitude is understanding the names, attributes and actions of God Almighty. Ibne Arabi, in spite of his high respect for the place wisdom, considers it as incapable of acquiring knowledge of God Almighty. He believes that wisdom in the recognition of God has two positions: one is the position of understanding and perceiving, and the other is the position of accepting. In his view, wisdom is incapable of understanding God and some of His manifestations and determinations while in the position of accepting it is capable of understanding God and there is no limit for it in this respect. Mulla Sadra also proposes limitations for wisdom in knowing and understanding God and Its names and attributes. He believes that the true knowledge of God can only be acquired through intuition. The point of similarity between Mulla Sadra and Ibne Arabi is that both consider sensory and intellectual methods flawed in understanding all aspects of reality, though both think these ways of acquiring cognition are God’s manifestations and one should be aware of their limitations and do not take them as the criterion for ultimate judgments about the unknowns. The present article first introduces the views of Iben Arabi and Mulla Sadra and then accounts their similarities and differences.

This study surveys and compares moral conduct indexes in championship domain from athletes, coaches, sports managers and teachers’ viewpoints. To describe the present status, a two-dimension questionnaire made by the investigator was used. The research method was descriptive comparative and statistical population was 570 subjects and statistical sample 373 subjects. To gather data, descriptive statistics, Levins, Kolmogrov Smirnov, Factor Analysis, ANOVA, and Tukey were used. Results showed that moral conduct of the present status was at the “average” level and the research groups agreed to a great extent with the presented methods to reach the desired status. Also, there was a significant desired status between subjects’ viewpoints on cognitive (P<0.01), emotional (P=0.03) and behavioral (P<0.000) domains of the present status and emotional domain (P<0.01) of desired status. But the results in cognitive (P<0.714) and behavioral (P<0.01) domains of the desired status were not significant.