A New Reading of Ṣadrā’s Al-asfār Al-arbaʿa Based on the Hero’s Journey Narrative Archetype

Mullā Ṣadrā introduces philosophy as a knowledge for the perfection of all human souls and does not limit to a certain group; the complexity of philosophical issues and the difficulty of understanding them due to their abstract nature, however, is not hidden. Nevertheless, according to Mullā Ṣadrā, the power of imagination and speech are two divine gifts that make it possible for different audiences to understand and convey such complex issues. The power of imagination, by analyzing and combining forms and meanings, is constantly creating new forms and meanings, and language, with a wide range of mental creativity, through continuous changes in form and content, is a tool at the service of the speaker’s mind to convey meanings to the audience. Story is a format which is distinguished from other texts by the two elements of imagination and speech. In this article, the elements of story are explained from the perspective of Ṣadrā’s philosophy in a descriptive-analytical way, and its narrative capacities are examined. The existence of allegories in Ṣadrā’s philosophy and its presentation in the form of four journeys makes it possible to have a narrative reading of it using the old narrative archetype of “hero’s journey”.