A Manuscript on bada’ Ascribed to Mulla Sadra(A Critical study of Ascription and Correction of the Text)

Some cataloguers have recorded an Arabic manuscript on bada’ ascribed to Mulla Sadra. There are only three copies of this treatise kept in libraries in Iran. Their reliable major evidence come from a context of one of those three. This article goes to study the ascription and thus the evidence from both the text and context show that the ascription is not acceptable. As per the oldest date of the extant copy of the treatise (1261 Islamic L. C.) transcribed from the original one, one can infer that the author should have lived before that time. Nonetheless, the author has not mentioned the name of the most celebrated scholar Allamah Majlesi or his works (such as Bihar-u al-Anwar or Mir’at-u al-‘Uqul); this might suggest the idea that the treatise had been authored before Majlesi’s works. There is another justification, however, that the treatise was intended to be in brief and the author’s approach was merely mystical and philosophical; that is why he merely mentioned the names of Mirdamad and Mulla Sadra. The article has provided for the corrected text, too.