HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SEE GHOULS ( غول ) IN THE DESERT?

HOW is it POSSIBLE to SEE GHOULS (Ghûl) in the DESERT?

Cécile Bonmariage, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium

ABSTRACT

How is it possible to see ghouls in the desert? Mullâ Sadrâ’s answer to this question in his Sharh Usûl al‐ Kâfî (vol. II, pp. 440 ss.) gives us an opportunity to learn more about what it is for him to see something. The chapter in Asfâr (vol. VIII, 178‐200) about the faculty of vision is specially centered on the vision of external things of this world. Mullâ Sadrâ presents and discusses there the positions of earlier philosophers (naturalists, mathematicians, ishrâqiyyûn) and develops his own.
The text of Usûl al‐Kâfî (vol. II, pp. 435‐444) gives us a broader interpretation of what it is to see. While explaining a hadîth about the difference between the messenger and the prophet, Mullâ Sadrâ explains what it is to have visions (divinely inspired or not).
He shows us how it is possible to understand our dreams or the vision we can have when awake, vision of things existing in another world as it is the case in revelation or inspiration, or vision of things existing only in our imagination.
After a close consideration of what is written in the Asfâr, our paper will concentrate on the text of Usûl al‐Kâfî to show what it can learn us about the process of seeing, and the part estimation (wahm) and imagination is playing in it.

HOW is it POSSIBLE to SEE GHOULS ( غول )(Ghûl)(👻) in the DESERT? [X]

The Arabs believed all kinds of fabulous creatures to inhabit the desert. Among these are the ghouls (ghûl, pl. aghwâl or ghîlân) which, assuming different shapes, lead travellers astray to attack and eat them.1 How is it possible that travellers see and hear those fabulous beings? Mullâ Sadrâ’s answer to this question in his Sharh Usûl al‐Kâfî 2 provides us with a broader statement of what it means for him to see beyond the mere account of seeing the things that our eyes meet in this material world. For to consider the possibility of seeing ghouls in the desert is for Mullâ Sadrâ to ask in a poetical manner how it is possible to see what has no reality in the outside world, to perceive and be affected by fictional beings.3

Where do these images come from and which one of our faculties does perceive them? The second question is easily answered. It is the sensus communis (al‐hiss al‐mushtarak) [common sense] that perceives them. They cannot have any direct effect on the external senses since otherwise every one would see them. They can only be perceived by one of our internal senses and this proves to be the sensus communis.4

As a matter of fact, even sensory perception of things of this world is of a psychic nature [psychic intelligence*], something that happens inside the soul. Perception takes place due to the presence of the form of what is perceived to the perceiving faculty. What I see is not the form that is in the material thing outside in front of me but as Mullâ Sadrâ says: « The form that the soul sees with the eye of the sensus communis ».5

What is needed for perception to be completed is the psychic perception and not the fact that a bodily sensory organ is affected by something as is the case in our perceiving of the things of this material world.6 The fact that a sensory organ is stimulated by something is only the occasion for a perceptible image corresponding to that thing to arise within the soul, image that is what is actually perceived.

Perceptible images don’t necessarily emerge because or following the fact that an external sensory organ is stimulated by something. They can also be provided by some other sources, one of them being the compositive imagination (al‐mutakhayyila) whose nature is to imitate things through their likeness and contraries. This faculty is ceaselessly active in creating new forms. If they reach the sensus communis these forms are perceived just as the forms arising due to an external stimulus.

In every day life, this does usually not happen. Why? First: because the sensus communis is too busy perceiving the forms coming from the external senses. Second: because the intellect refuses to assent to the reality of these forms created by the compositive imagination and denounces their illusive character.7 It is not completely impossible however for fictional forms created by the compositive imagination to reach the sensus communis and be perceived. This can happen when the imaginative faculty is particularly strong and the judgmental activity of the intellect diminished for some reason, disease or fear for instance.

This is exactly what happens to those who see ghouls in the desert. Their fear makes them see what frightens them. Ghouls are forms created by their compositive imagination and perceived by their sensus communis just like any other sensible form. The different shapes they assume are depending on the individual character of the person who sees them. The intellect, paralysed by fear, doesn’t reject the existence of these forms. And so these purely fictional images are perceived and do affect their creator.

To see ghouls in the desert, or more generally to see things with no real counterpart in the outside world is not an every day experience. But to see illusive images when asleep is much more common. The external senses being at rest it is much easier for a strong imagination to impose its images on the sensus communis. When the sleeper wakes up, his intellect judges this dream to be delusive.

To see fictional forms in dreams or when awake is an experience proper to weak souls dominated by the overpowering influence of the compositive imagination (al‐mutakhayyila) uncontrolled by intellect.8 But this is only a peculiar aspect of seeing things that are not in this material world. Beside these dreams that have no ground there are other dreams that tell us something about what is real and beside these delusive visions there are other visions that are means to know something of a higher reality. In dreams and even when awake, we can see things that have no counterpart in the outside material world but that are not however without ground. Even if sometimes the compositive imagination has something to do with these experiences, what is seen is no more a pure creation of this faculty but has some real counterpart in another higher level of reality. These visions are no more a token of weakness but of perfection of the soul. They are a way to gain knowledge of the Realm of the Unseen (‘âlam al‐ghayb).

Usually our souls are busy managing the affairs of this world, ceaselessly preoccupied by the stimuli of the external senses. But when the soul is not completely imperfect and there is an opportunity for it to escape these occupations, it is prepared to join another higher world, a world of spiritual entities (jawâhir rûhâniyya). The soul becomes then a mirror where the forms of this world are reflected in a more or less perfect manner depending on the perfection of the soul.

This happens mostly in dreams when the external senses are at rest. But the soul is not always able to join a higher world, and all our dreams are not telling something about the truth. If the activity of the compositive imagination is predominant, the images created by this faculty can bother the soul and impede any junction with a higher level of reality just as the images arising when an external sense is stimulated do when awake.9 These are the dreams with no real ground, the confused dreams that are the counterpart of illusive visions when awake.

If junction takes place the dream is said to be sincere. But even then the compositive imagination can interfere, if it is strong or the soul’s perception of the form weak. In this case the compositive imagination does what it is its nature to do, that is to create imitative forms of what has been seen, obscuring and veiling the primary vision. The dream then needs interpretation, which is difficult and highly doubtful. It can also happen that particularly strong souls have dreams without any interference from the compositive imagination. These are true visions of the higher realm.

When awake it is much more unusual to have such visions of a higher level of reality but it is not totally impossible. Some persons are able to connect when awake with the world of spiritual substances, either because of the perfection of their souls or for some other reason, such as a peculiar temperament (mizâj) dominated by dryness and heat. The people who have such temperament seem to be unaware of the world around them even with the eyes wide open. It is not completely excluded for these people to see something from the Realm of the Unseen, as might happen to madmen and diviners. But only perfect souls can reach the higher levels of the Realm of the Unseen. If their compositive imagination is not to strong, it is pure revelation (wahî), witnessed by the eye of imagination (khayâl). If it is strong, it will give an imitative representation of what has been seen in a sensible form, that will be perceived by the eye of the sensus communis, and this vision will need interpretation (ta’wîl).

What we have learned from what Mullâ Sadrâ says in these pages of his Sharh Usûl al‐Kâfî is that there is a possibility to see something else than the things belonging to this material world. What we see then, be it in dreams or when awake, can be something illusive, a pure creation of our imaginative faculty. It can also be something pertaining to another higher level of reality. The fact that some travellers see ghouls in the desert and perceive them as something real makes it clear that sensible perception is not necessarily dependent on the bodily organs, that perception takes place within the soul, so much so that it is possible to have sensible experiences that are wholly internal without any external ground. If sensible perception can do without the external sensory organs, it is possible to understand how we can see things that are real but that do not belong to this material world and can thus not touch one of our sensory organs. This is very important for Mullâ Sadrâ because for him this kind of perception that we experience sometimes in this world, mostly in our dreams and even so in an unperfected manner, is what will prevail in the afterlife, « dreaming being the first level of afterlife, followed by death and perfected by resurrection10 ».11

APPENDIX: Translation of Mullâ Sadrâ’s Sharh Usûl al‐Kâfî, vol. ii, p. 434 ‐440

[434] BOOK OF PROOF. Chapter III: On the distinction between the Messenger (rasûl), the Prophet (nabî) and the one endowed with narration (muhaddath)12

It contains four hadîths.

FIRST hadîth (436th [hadîth of the Kitâb Usûl al‐Kâfî])

« A number of our companions, from Ahmad b. Muhammad, from Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Abî Nasr, from Tha‘laba [435] b. Maymûn from Zarâra. He said: I asked Abû Ja‘far, – Peace be with him –, about the saying of God Almighty: “He is a messenger [and] a prophet” (19:51; 19:54), “what is a messenger and what is a prophet?” He said: “The prophet is the one who sees in his dreams and hears the voice but doesn’t see the angel with his own eyes (‘âyana), and the messenger is the one who hears the voice, sees in his dreams and sees the angel.” I said: “And what is the status of the imâm?” He said: “He hears the voice but doesn’t see nor witnesses the angel.” And then he recited this verse: “We did not send before you any messenger or prophet” (22: 52) or someone endowed with narration (muhaddath) ».

COMMENTARY

Know that this world is the world of witness (or evidence: ‘âlam al‐shahâda) and possession (or power, mulk), and the hereafter is the world of the unseen (ghayb) and the dominion (malakût). Man is composed of two parts, one belonging to this world, that is his elemental body (badan ‘unsûrî) that is vanishing, that comes to be and decays, — this being the status of this world and of all that is in it: it is vanishing, coming to be and decaying at every moment. The other belongs to the world to come, and it is his spirit (rûh) that is constant (thâbit) and permanent, — and in the same manner all that is in this world is permanent, everlasting, never passes away.

There are many degrees in the hereafter each surpassing the other in worth, as He says – May He be exhalted: « And certainly the hereafter is much superior in respect of degrees and much superior in respect of excellence » (17: 21). The first degree of the hereafter is the state of dream (manâm), then the state of death and its completion is through Raising (ba‘th). Sleep is thus a part of the movement towards the return to the hereafter. The Prophet (nabî), as Prophet, is like the raised (mab‘ûth) on the Day of Resurrection (yawm al‐qiyâma). He sees forms, realities and states that people don’t see, as the Prophet says, –May God’s blessing be with him and his family: « I do see what you don’t (see) ». He is then talking about what he sees and hears in that world [the hereafter] and then tells to the people of this world — who are to tell the truth like sleepers, as he says, – May God’s blessing be with him: « People are asleep » — with the dress of words (alfâz) and by giving examples (amthâl), as He says, – May He be exhalted: « These examples We set them forth for the people, and none understand them but those who know » (29: 43).

[I. Dream‐visions]

If you want a clarification on this point and an explanation of what is the meaning of prophethood, messengerhood and narrationhood, know first that dream‐vision (ru’yâ) is caused (sabab) by the reflection (in‘ikâs) from the outer to the inner of the animal pneuma (or spirit, rûh hayawânî) that is the seat of the higher pneuma. This pneuma means a subtle body (jism la†îf) generated in the cavity of the heart by the vapor of the humors. Its mount (markab) is pure blood and it is a mount for the psychic and animal faculties. By this, life spreads in the whole body (badan) and the faculties of perception and motion join their tools and the organs of sensation and motion.

Therefore if [436] there is an obstruction in its canals that is the nerves that lead to sense perception, sense perception is neutralized and epilepsy and apoplexy take place. And in the same way if a man’s hand is constricted tightly, [this man] will feel an insensibility in the extremity of the hand, and his sense perception will immediately be neutralized until [what compresses his hand] is cut, and it comes back after a while.

By means of the arteries, this pneuma spreads to the exterior (manifest side, Zâhir) of the body and sometimes it is held in the interior (non-manifest side, bâ†in) for reasons like the search for rest after a lot of movement – therefore sleep overcomes when the stomach is full –, or like the fact that the pneuma is scarce and decreased, and does thus not suffice for the exterior and the interior altogether – there are medical reasons for its decrease and increase; exhaustion means that the pneuma has decreased by dissolution due to movement –, or like the humidity and moisture that gain ground in it due to the fact that the pneuma that sustains the faculty of sensation is held back, or the weight that subdues it and hinders its speed of movement, as is predominant in the hammam and after coming out of it and after taking drinks moistening (and soothing) the brain.

[1. Junction with a higher realm]

When the senses are at rest due to some of these reasons, the soul remains free from the preoccupation of the senses. [Usually] it never ceases to be busy reflecting on what the senses bring to it. But when there is an opportunity to escape and all that could be an obstacle is eliminated from it, it is prepared to join (ittisâl) the noble intellectual spiritual substances in which are all the frames of all existents (mawjûdât), – and this is what is called in the language of the Law (shar‘) the Preserved Table (al‐lawh al‐mahfûdh) –, I mean [to join] the forms (suwar) of the things that are in these intellectual substances, especially that which is in accordance with what is desired by the soul and what matters to it.

The imprint of this form from these [intellectual substances] in the soul when junction takes place is like the imprint of the form of a mirror in another mirror which faces the first one when the veil between them is lifted. Everything that is in one of the mirror appears in the other in proportion to it.

[1 a. No interference from the compositive imagination]

If this form is particular it falls in the soul in the faculty of imagination (khayâl) and the retentive faculty (al‐hâfiza) keeps it [437] like it is, in its own shape, and the faculty of compositive imagination (mutakhayyila), that imitates things through something similar to them, doesn’t operate in it. This vision is thus sincere and doesn’t need interpretation.

 [1 b. Interference from the compositive imagination]

If the compositive imagination (mutakhayyila) is dominant or if the soul’s perception of the form is weak, the compositive imagination begins, following its nature, to replace what the soul has seen by something similar. It replaces the man by a tree, and the enemy by a snake or it replaces it by what is similar to it or corresponds to it in some way. It can also be by something opposite, like when someone sees that he will beget a boy and it’s a girl who comes into the world and vice versa.

These visions need interpretation. The transpositions of the imaginations may not be precisely kept in a determined manner. The modes of interpretation ramify and are varying depending on persons, states, professions, seasons of the year, health of the sleeper or his being ill. The one who interprets them only reach [their meaning] by a kind of intuition. There are many mistakes in this and ambiguity prevails in it.

[2. Confused dreams]

As for confused dreams, these are the dreams for which there is no ground. Their source is the movement of the faculty of compositive imagination (mutakhayyila) and its agitation. In most of the states, this [faculty] does not let up imitating and transforming [things], and it doesn’t let up either during sleep or in most of the states. When the soul is weak and remains preoccupied by the imitations of the [compositive imagination], just like it is preoccupied by the senses when awake, and thus not prepared to join the spiritual substances, if the compositive imagination with its agitation is strong for some reason it is ceaselessly active in imitating and creating forms that do not have existence. These [forms] stay in the retentive faculty until [this man] wakes up and remembers what he saw in his dream.

There are also reasons due to the states of the body and its constitution (mizâj) for its imitations. If the bile dominates its constitution, it will imitate it by yellow things. And if there is heat in it, [438] the [compositive imagination] will imitate it by fire or by a hot bath, and if moistness dominates it, it will imitate it by snow or rain, and if it’s melancholy (black bile) that dominates its [constitution], it will imitate it by black things and dreadful things.

The form of fire for instance occurs in the compositive imagination in case of domination of the heat only because the heat that is in a place spreads to its neighbourhood, like the light of the sun spreads to the bodies (ajsâm), meaning that it is a reason for its occurring, since things were created existent by an existence that pours forth what is like it on others. The faculty of compositive imagination being imprinted in or attached to the hot body, it is affected by it in a way that befits its nature and its world, since it is not a body so that it could receive the heat as such. It receives thus from the heat what it is in its nature to receive from it, and that is its form and its likeness.

This is the way the soul is affected by the body and the body by the soul, since every one of them is affected by its companion by the kind of existence which befits it. Don’t you see that if anger, which is a psychic disposition, dominates the soul, the body is affected by it by reddening and becoming warm and [other] bodily dispositions? And in the same way, the acts of the body and its characteristics affect the soul with psychic dispositions that befit it.

[II. Visions when awake]

As for the reason for the knowledge of the Unseen (ma‘rifat al‐ghayb) and the vision of what has no existence in the external [world] when awake (fî l‐yaqza), it is what I will say [now].

[1. Junction with a higher realm]

The reason for the need of sleep and its occurrence is one of the things that prevail due to the weakness of the soul and the fact that the senses are preoccupying it, so that if the senses are at rest, [the soul] joins the intellectual substances and is prepared to receive from them. It is possible that this occurs to some souls when awake for two reasons.

[1a. Strength of the soul]

The first one is that the soul is so strong that it is not preoccupied by the senses so as to be completely absorbed by them and impeded [to do anything else]. On the contrary, its strength encompasses the grasp of both sides and the care for both aspects, the upper aspect and the lower aspect, altogether. One concern does not preoccupy it so as to distract it from another, just like some souls are strong enough to join in one and the same time writing, speaking, hearing and seeing. It is possible that the preoccupation of the senses slackens for such souls in some states, and that they ascend to the World of the Unseen and so some things from this [World] may appear to them, this being a part of prophethood (nubuwwa).

Then if the compositive imagination is weak and the eye of the internal sense is strong, what has been disclosed to it from the Unseen remains in its memory, and this is pure revelation (wahî). And if the compositive imagination is strong and is engaged in imitating [things], [as is its] nature [to do], this revelation [439] will need exegesis (ta’wîl), just as dream‐vision needs interpretation.

[1b. Constitution (mizâj)]

The second reason is that dryness and heat dominate the constitution so much so that the soul is distracted from what the senses supply due to the domination of melancholy. With eyes wide open [the man with such a constitution] is like someone perplexed, absent, inattentive to what he sees and hears, this being due to the weakness of the exit of the pneuma to the outward (Zâhir). This man also, it is not impossible that something from the Unseen among things that befit him should be disclosed to his soul. He relates it and this flows on his tongue, but even then, he seems to be unaware of what he is saying.

This exists for madmen and epileptics and some diviners among Indians and Arabs: they tell what is in accordance with what will be. This is a kind of deficiency and what one sees from the Unseen is something particular that is in some lower intermediate world (barzakh). But the first reason is a kind of perfection and what is seen may be from the forms of the higher Malakût.

[2. Illusive visions]

As for the reason why man sees when awake things that do not have existence in reality, [you have] first to know that to see (ibsâr), and in the same way all sensations and perceptions, doesn’t mean in reality to witness (shuhûd) the form itself that is in the external matter. This latter form is not perceived (mahsûs) nor is it occurring to the perceptive soul. What is essentially perceived (mahsûs) is the forms that the soul sees with the eye of the sensus communis. As for the [forms] that are outside they are a reason for a form that resembles it to be manifest to the sensus communis. What is perceived in reality is this representative form and the external [form] is called perceived in another sense.

[You have also to know that] for the representative form to occur before the sensus communis it makes no difference if it occurs from outside and rises to it by using the tools of the senses to perceive what is outside or if it occurs from inside, and moves down to it by using the compositive imagination to make present what is in the treasury [of the soul] among the objects of perception (mudrakât), be it intellectual or other: everything that occurs to the sensus communis is witnessed (mushâhad).

[440] This being stated, we say: the soul sometimes perceives something from the Unseen (ghayb) and that which it perceived stays in the memory as it is. But sometimes it is received in a weak way, so that the compositive imagination seizes command of it and gives an imitative representation of it in a sensible form. If this form strengthens in the compositive imagination the eye of the sensus communis regards it as true and [this form] is represented to it, so that the soul sees and witnesses [this form] with the eye of sense, even if the eyelids are closed and even if it is in complete darkness.

What man imagines (takhayyala) when awake is [usually] not seen by the eye of the sensus communis so as to be witnessed only because generally the sensus communis is preoccupied by what the external senses are bringing to it, and because the intellect breaks into pieces the forgeries of the compositive imagination and refutes them, and [these forms] are not strong enough to be represented when awake. But as soon as the intellect becomes too weak to deny and refute [the forgeries of the compositive imagination], due to some disease or a violent fear, it is not impossible for them to be imprinted in the sensus communis, as is the common doctrine, or to be present to it, as we say, so that the sick person sees images that have no existence. And in the same way if fear achieves supremacy and the estimative faculty (wahm) is strong and the refuting intellect is weak, the form of what is feared will be represented to the sense so that it witnesses (shâhada) it and sees with his eye (basara) what he fears. Therefore sometimes the frightened coward sees dreadful forms for which there is no existence. This is the reason for the ghoul that can be seen and whose voice can be heard in the deserts. And sometimes the desire (shahwa) of this sick person becomes more intense due to some weakness, so that he sees what he desires. He extends his hand to it and moves [it] back as if he were eating and seeing people and things for which there is no existence.

.

NOTES

1‐ On the ghûl in the Arabic and Islamic traditions, see Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, s. v.
2‐ Mullâ Sadrâ, Sharh Usûl al‐Kâfî, vol. ii, p. 434 sq., Bâb al‐farq bayna l‐rasûl wa l‐nabî wa l‐muhaddath. This text is primarily concerned with the explanation of the prophetic visions. To do so, Mullâ Sadrâ explains the possibility of dreams, illusive or sincere, and of visions when awake. There are other texts where these different aspects of vision are considered. See al‐Asfâr al‐arba‘a fî l‐hikmat al‐muta‘âliyya (henceforth abbr. Asfâr), vol. viii, p. 209‐210, where the inner nature of sensation, and specially vision, is stressed, and Tafsîr sûrat al‐Baqara, vol. i, p. 295‐302, on the vision of the Angel by the Prophet. Mullâ Sadrâ is not the first philosopher in the Islamic tradition to consider this matter. See the chapter on al‐ mutakhayyila (compositive imagination, representation) in Fârâbî’s Mabâdî’ ârâ’ ahl al‐madînat al‐fâzila (Al‐Farabi on the perfect state. A revised text with introduction, translation, and commentary by Richard Walzer. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985, ch. 14, p. 211‐227) and Ibn Sînâ on the same subject in his De Anima, M. IV, f. 2 (Avicenna’s De Anima. Being the psychological part of Kitâb al‐Shifâ’. Edited by F. Rahman, London, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 169‐182). The way Mullâ Sadrâ is dealing with the matter is not particularly innovative but his exposition reveals the peculiarities of his doctrine on sensation and on the human soul.
3‐ Note that ghouls are not considered by every one in the Islamic tradition to be fictional. See the references to the classical authors like Mas‘ûdî and Jâhiå in the article referred to in note 1.
4‐ See Mullâ Sadrâ, Asfâr, vol. viii, p. 209‐210. The very fact that we see fictional images is used by Mullâ Sadrâ in this text to prove that there is such a faculty as sensus communis.
5‐ Sharh Usûl al‐Kâfî, vol. ii, p. 439. See also several passages of the Asfâr, for instance Asfâr, vol. viii, p. 203 : « What is perceived essentially is the form that is present to the soul, not the external thing corresponding to it ». See also ‘Arshiyya, p. 248 ; English translation by J. W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 159.
6‐ See Asfâr, vol. viii, p. 234 : « In sensation (ihsâs), two things happen : stimulation (ta’aththur) of the sensory [organ] and perception (idrâk) by the soul, [...] that is the fact that the form is there (Husûl al‐ sûra) ».
7‐ A chapter of the Asfâr is entitled « That the senses do not know if there is an existence to what is sensed, this being the concern of the intellect » (Asfâr, vol. iii, p. 498 sq.). The madman and the sleeper are given as example: they can believe in the existence of what their sensus communis perceives, even if it is fictional, because the intellect is not there to judge. See Asfâr, vol. iii, p. 499.
8‐ It is the intellectually weaks (zu‘afâ’ al‐‘uqûl) who are readily influenced by their fear. See Asfâr, vol. viii, p. 210.
9‐ See ‘Arshiyya, p. 238. English translation by J. W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne (1981), p. 138 : « It is not true [...] that these forms are mere phantom images without the regular effects of real being, as is the case in most dreams. For in sleep too, the soul is usually preoccupied with the body ».
10‐ Or by Raising (bi‐l‐ba‘th).
11‐ Sharh Usûl al‐Kâfî, vol. ii, p. 435. See also ‘Arshiyya, p. 238. English translation by J. W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne (1981), p. 138: « The complete manifestation of these forms and the perfection of the power of their being occurs only after death. [...] Then the Unseen becomes directly visible, and knowledge becomes immediate vision. In this is the secret of the "Return" and the resurrection of the body ».
12‐ On these muhaddathûn, see Mullâ Sadrâ, Tafsîr Sûrat al‐Baqara, vol. i, p. 302: « [...] the muhadaththûn, with "a" on the doubled dâl are those who discard the World of witness (‘âlam al‐ shahâda) [i. e. this world] and ascend to the World of the Unseen (‘âlam al‐ghayb). They may hear a voice from inside when awake but they do not see (‘âyana) an individual person ».
13‐ That is, composed of the four elements.
14‐ See Mullâ Sadrâ, ‘Arshiyya, p. 234. English translation by J. W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne, p. 128: « [...] this world is a realm of extinction, transience, and passing away, while the other world is a realm of stability ».
15‐  bi‐l‐ba‘th : bi‐l‐‘abth
16‐ This saying , usually followed by this phrase : « When they die, they awaken » is frequently cited. Mullâ Sadrâ usually attributes it to Imâm ‘Alî (as in Mullâ Sadrâ, ‘Arshiyya, p. 238. English translation by J. W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne (1981), p. 138).
17‐ kamâ : kamâl
18‐ On this animal pneuma or spirit and its differenciation from the natural and the psychic pneumata or spirits, see Mullâ Sadrâ, Tafsîr âyat al‐nûr, vol. iv, p. 368 sq. See also Ibn Sînâ, De Anima, M. v, f. 8 (Edited by F. Rahman (1959), p. 263‐264) and al‐Mabdâ’ wa l‐ma‘âd, Edition ‘A. Nûrânî, Tehran, 1363/1984, p. 95.
19‐ We translate here ad sensum. The fact that obstruction in the canals of transmission impede sensation is taken as a proof for the existence of a subtle body between the body (badan) and the faculties by Avicenna. See Ibn Sînâ, De Anima, M. v, f. 8 (Edited by F. Rahman (1959), p. 263 and al‐ Mabdâ’ wa l‐ma‘âd, Edition ‘A. Nûrânî (1363/1984), p. 95.
20‐ fa‐lâ yakfî : fa‐lâ yafî
21‐ bi‐sabab : bi‐sbt
22‐ The anger and its effects is also used in the ‘Arshiyya to prove that the dispositions of the soul can cause external effects. See ‘Arshiyya, p. 249. English translation by J. W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne (1981), p. 160.
23‐ The Highest Kingdom, the highest Realm of reality.
24‐ nafs al‐sûra : nafs sûra
25‐ See the passages referred to in n. 5, and Tafsîr sûrat al‐Baqara, vol. i, p. 298 (in a text on the vision of the Angel of revelation by the Prophet): « What is needed for sensible vision and hearing in man is the existence of the visible form, – like the colors, the shapes, etc. –, and of the auditive form, – like the sounds, the letters and the words –, for the soul through its internal faculty that perceives the particular forms, and their representation before the internal sense that unites all the external senses. What is seen in reality and what is heard in reality from the thing that represents itself to the external sense is its form that is present within the rational soul and its realm (malakût). As for the existence of the form in its external reality and its spatial matter, it is only perceived by accident and secondarily ».
26‐ We have said already that Mullâ Sadrâ’s approach to the question of visions is not without some relations with the approach of other philosophers, especially Ibn Sînâ. Here even the expression is near that of Avicenna in his Najât (Ilâhiyyât, Fasl fî ma‘âd al‐anfus al‐insâniyya, Ed. M. Fakhry, Beyrouth, Dâr al‐Âfâq al‐jadîda, 1405/1985, p. 333). Note Mullâ Sadrâ’s use of huzûr instead of Avicenna’s irtisâm.

_._
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[*psychic intelligence, my (M's) way of thinking about it, besides rational and emotional intelligence]
[Q19_51] [Q19_54]
[Q22_52] We did not send any apostle or prophet before you but that when he recited [the scripture] Satan interjected [something] in his recitation. Thereat Allah nullifies whatever Satan has interjected, and then Allah confirms His signs, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise .
[Q17_21] [Q29:43]
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THE END .

HOW is it POSSIBLE to SEE GHOULS (Ghûl)(👻) in the DESERT? [X]

coming up next [will be]::::: UNIFICATION of INTELLIGENT and INTELLIGIBLE .

THE NATURE AND STAGES OF PERCEPTION IN MULLĀ ṢADRĀ'S PHILOSOPHY

The NATURE and STAGES of PERCEPTION in MULLĀ ṢADRĀ'S PHILOSOPHY

M. Araki, Islamic Centre England, UK

ABSTRACT

Cognition and perception as philosophical themes are of extreme importance and between them take up a major part of issues investigated within Islamic Philosophy in general, and particularly in Sadrian school of Philosophy.
In this paper, we intend to briefly examine the nature of perception and its stages from Malla Sadra’s view point.
To do this we need to have a cursory look at the history of cognition in Islamic Philosophy and develop our discussion within the following sections:
⑴ . Mulla Sadr’s innovative approach to the philosophy of cognition.
⑵ . The essence of perception within the philosophy of Mulla Sadra.
⑶ . Perception and its relevant stages in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy.

INTRODUCTION:

“The theme of cognition and its historical development within Islamic philosophy”.

The pre‐Islamic philosophy in general (Greek’s, Alexandrian, and new platonic etc.) contained very little on the theme of cognition.

Oswald Kulpe points to this fact in his book (Einleitung in die philosophie).

“The early philosophers never dealt with knowledge or cognition as a distinct issue. Even Plato discusses cognition within an overall section that he calls “Dialectic”. Aristotle also analysis the same theme under “Metaphysics”. Non of these philosophers have made a clear distinction between cognition and what are purely metaphysical or logical issues.

Examining correctness and the general veracity of cognition were the most important issues that ancient philosophers dealt with. Their discussion is devoid of almost all of the contemporary themes, like the relation between the objectives and the subjective factors in cognition, the role that the perceived and the perceiver play in perception, the limit of the human cognition and the definition of the nature and the reality of pure experiments.

Other issues such as evolvement of and the bases for the verity of cognitions, simplicity of Nafs (soul) and the classification of its powers into perception and others, division of mental knowledge into minor and general and the general knowledge into initiative and speculative types, make up the most important part of philosophical concepts about cognition that were extremely brief and unclean in the pre‐Islamic era of philosophical history.

The pre‐Mulla Sadra (1571‐1640) Muslim philosophers undertook an in‐depth study of the above issues. Not only they clarified major ambiguities that were remaining within this field; they manage to present a vast amount of new ideas on the issue of cognition.

For example Mohammad bin Mohammad bin Tarkhan al‐Faraabi’s (872‐950) division of cognition into imaginative and affirmative types lead to a great transformation for the first time within the philosophy of cognition as well as logic. Among the new concepts presented for the first time in the context of cognition was “mental existence”. Fakhrod‐din‐Razi (1149‐1209) has a chapter under this title in his book "al‐Mabahith al‐Shariqieh" (eastern discourses).

Khajeh Nasired‐Din expanded this concept even further and consequently developed a new definition for knowledge and perception. Before Nasirod‐Din Tusi, philosophers used to believe that knowledge and perception of the perceived was due to the pictorial form or impression of the thing within the intellect (howa as‐sura al‐hasilah min al‐sha’i ladal ‘Aql).

Although grand philosophers like Farabi and Abu Ali Sina as well as others have made use of this definition in their books, this definition was inherited from the pre‐Islamic philosophy.

From Nasirod‐Din Tusi onwards, knowledge and perception were re‐defined as “the existence of the reality and the essence of the known with the knower”.

This definition radically changed the concept of knowledge and turned it into a form of existence of the known within the knower.

The significance of the concept of “mental existence” is not only due to the fact that it provided new definition for knowledge and perception, but its significance is mainly due to the linkage between mental and reality or between the knower and the known that became the foundation for the modern understanding of cognition.

The topic of mental existence completely transformed the concept of cognition within Islamic philosophy and presented a new dimension for this context. This topic also influenced the analysis of existence, essence and nafs (soul). Discussing the development and the mode of influence of these ideas will be beyond the scope of present discussion.

Division of knowledge into empirical and intuitive introduced a major new idea in Islamic philosophy. In the empirical knowledge, the knower attains through mental existence a form of that to be known however this mental existence is different from the external existence of the known.

In intuitive knowledge the known in its external reality appears before the knower. In other word in intuitive knowledge a unity is achieved between the knower and the known.

Separation of knowledge into empirical and intuitive paved the way for a very important Sadrian philosophical concept, which is the unity of intelligent, intelligible and the intelligence.

There is no clear historical record indicating clearly when this division took place, however, the earlier Muslim Philosophers like Abu Ali Sina, within the self knowledge of Nafs (soul), do discuss the notion of unity of intelligent and the intelligible.

Fakhrod‐Din Razi in his book al‐Mabahith al‐sharqieh (the eastern discourses) also discusses this concept and states that “fin anna ta’aqol al‐shy’ li‐dhatih howa nafse dhatih wa anna dhalika haadhiron abada”.

(The understanding of the knower of itself is like itself and is permanently present), and uses the phrase hodhoor (intuitive) . [ حضور ]

It appears that Abu Ali Sina does make the distinction between intuitive and empirical knowledge, in his philosophy, however a transparent and precise definition for these phrases became available only within Sadrian philosophy.

The above has been a brief history of the most important concepts within the philosophical analysis of cognition before Mulla Sadra. These concepts have been used extensively in the Sadrian Philosophy and played a major role in his innovative interpretation of the philosophy of cognition.

Let us look at a few important concepts relating to cognition and perception within Mullah Sadra’s philosophy.

Brief accounts of Mullah Sadra’s innovative approach to cognition and perception.

PRIMORDIALITY OF EXISTENCE (Isalatol Wojood)

The theory of Primordiality of Existence forms the backbone to the Sadrian Philosophy. It clarifies all the ambiguities and difficulties that were faced in the pre‐Sadrian theory of “mental existence”.

One of the major difficulties faced by the theory of “mental existence” was how to explain the transmission of external characteristics of a known to the domain of mental existence?

Let us elaborate this further. We know that the supporters of mental existence believed that cognition in reality was that the essence of the known takes a mental reality and without this cognition would not be possible. Here, a question might be presented:

If the reality of the known exists in the mental domain, then it is natural to expect that its external characteristics must also be present. For fire to be perceived, the heat and burning characteristic must also be present in the mind. Perceiving snow must imply that the coldness and its freezing characteristics must also be present. For the mind to perceive fire and snow would imply in an instance the mind is cold and hot, and since they are intrinsically mutually exclusive this can not be possible.

Mulla Sadra’s reply to this question is based on the theory of the primacy of existence. He stipulated his reply in the following manner:

The presented objection rests on confusing of real existence that makes up the bases for the external reality with Mahiyat (essence) of things. What have the external characteristics in fire and snow is the external existence and not their mental existence.

A further theory presented within Sadrian philosophy is the theory of transcendental motion (harekate jawharieh). Mulla Sadra affirms that there is an intrinsic motion within all physical realities. Human nafs (nature) is a purely material being. However, it constantly moves through transcendental motion towards purity and abstract nature. Cognition and perception mark the beginning of that abstract form and are both associated with this state.

He claims “It is a fact that the human essence at the moment of creation was purely material but its existence and perception is abstract and spiritual”. Since other philosophers were unaware of this concept (transcendental motion), they were unable to provide a solution to a number of issues like contingency and permanence as well as attachment and abstraction of human nature (nafs).

It is clear from the above statement that Mulla Sadra considers human nature to be non‐material and abstract. He also concludes that,

The essence of man was created after its material body as a consequence of transcendental motion.

Man’s essence is devoid of any cognition and perception and neither has the potential for it.

Due to the abstract and simplicity of this reality, it posses a pure singularity of nature.

Human cognition begins with the sense perceptible. Once the mind has acquired enough information through the senses. It begins to develop and deal with intuitive forms of cognition and then evolves further. Expansion of human knowledge in reality takes place through the various forms of conceptual and judgmental divisions of intuitive cognition.

The following is ‘Allameh Shaheed Motahari’s abridged version of Mulla Sadra’s comments:

“The multiplicity of effects could be attributed to diversity of causes, variation in spaces within which the effects materialize, multiplicity of means or to the linearity of the effects in relation to each other.

As for human nature (Nafs), and its various forms of cognitions it can not be due to the multiplicity of ‘nafs’ itself, as it is abstract and simple. Even if it were complex, its complexity would not be sufficient to become the cause for these variations. The only possible explanation would be the multiplicity of means.

The combination of these means in addition to the simple sensual perceptions that are accumulated over the years would lay the ground for human intellect to comprehend conceptual and judgmental forms of cognition and by following this process as well as inductive forms of analysis, cognition can be expanded limitlessly.

The concept of unity of intelligence, intelligent and the intelligible is a further philosophical innovation that created a new outlook within the process of cognition.

THE REALITY OF PERCEPTION IN SADRIAN PHILOSOPHY

Mulla Sadra views perception as “the existence of the perceived within the perceiver but not in the immanent form”.

For knowledge he asserts that: “knowledge is an abstract existence that forms within the nature of the knower”. Once the soul due to the simplicity and transparency of its nature reflects images of sensual, imagining and intellectual world similar to the images that are reflected on mirrors, but with a fundamental difference between the two reflections. In mirror images, mirror has a passive role, but in human soul or nature, the soul plays a very active role in the process of creating these images.

Accordingly knowledge and perception are a kind of evolution and elevation for nafs (soul), and with every perception, soul gains a new reality.

Although every intellectual existence is a distinct reality for itself, it is also a reality for the soul of the knower and these two realities are in essence but one. Based on his theory of unity of intelligence, intelligible and the intelligent, Mulla Sadra claims that within perception, the power that perceives, the perceived and the perceiver are not three separate entities. In every perceptive act, a reality is created by the soul (nafs) for the perceived, but it also is a reality for the perceiver and these actions are not independent and separate from each other.

In his book “Al‐Asfar” in a chapter titled “Clarification that intelligence is in essence the unity between the intelligible and the intelligent”, he writes: “The issue relating to the way human beings' the forms of external intelligible is one of the most profound philosophical subjects that has not been clarified for the philosophers yet”. He then begins to shed light on this matter in a way that we have summed up in the following way: “Impressions are to be divided in two categories: ‐ First: The Gestalt, which is based on the material, its place and situation. This material element is not conceivable. It is not possible to perceive this through sense, only in an indirect way. What is then conceivable is the abstract of the concrete material existence. ‐ Second: Impressions that are not based on the material, place and situation. It is rather an abstraction which is either complete that should be classified as an actual processed knowledge, or incomplete that should be classified as an actual perception or pretension” ‐ he continues: “If something is conceivable this could be accepted under the condition that there is unity between knowledge and mind, otherwise it will not be possible”. Thus the essence of this subject is that if the unity between knowledge and mind is rejected, knowledge itself will be impossible, because if knowledge has a separated existence compared to mind it will never exist.

In Asfar, in a chapter titled “To explain that discernment is the concord or unity between the essence of intelligent and the intelligible”, Mulla Sadra asserts: “the way in which soul understands the form of the intelligible, is one of the most difficult philosophical issues that as yet our grand scholars have not been able to fully comprehend”. (Asfar vol. 3. Page 312).

The following is an extract of what he proposes as an ex‐position for this issue: “things, have two different types of forms:

First ‐ the physical form that is based on shape, situations and space etc.

The forms of external objects, immersed as they are in matter and material concomitants, can not move into the mind and become known, since mental forms and material forms are different in several essential respects. This particular form in its physical condition can not be perceived or understood, it neither can be felt, unless in a contingent way.

In other word, what can be sensed or felt, is its abstract form. The physical form is sensed only in a secondary way.

Second is a form that is free from shape and situation. If this abstractness (immateriality) is exhaustive and absolute, then the form will have a tangible or actual perception, and if this immateriality (Tajarrod) is partial and incomplete the form will be physically senses”. (Asfar vol.3. p313).

Mulla Sadra adds: “for something to become intelligible, requires an intelligent being to comprehend it. If intelligent and the intelligible are at variance then the intelligible on its own can not become the object of knowledge. If the intelligible posses a complete existence distinct from the intelligent it can not be perceived”. (Asfar vol.3. P315).

He continues: “we have already indicated in the previous chapters that two admixture must have equal existence and of equal status. If one has a primary existence the other will also have an existence of the same nature, and if one has potentiality for existence, the other will have similar statues.

As we divided the intelligible into potential and actually perceptible. The above relationship applies to both types of the perceptible too. There is a fusion between a perceiver and the perceived in actuality or potential. One should not misunderstand or falsely assume that our senses, in the process of perceiving, extract the forms of the perceptible from their essences and preserve their characteristics that in turn are further refined by our imagination. This is due to the fact that the forms of external objects, immersed in matter and material concomitance can not move into the mind, since mental forms and material forms are different in several essential respects”. (Asfar, Vol.3, p 315‐316).

He then adds: “Things that have material forms can never be conceptually known by the mind, perceiving them takes place through the illuminated perception that we are granted by the Almighty Allah. This illuminated power gives actuality to perception as well as the perceived. Before such illuminated power everything remains in the Potentiality State. The forms that appear in our materialistic/physical senses, simply pave the way for receiving that illuminative power that becomes instantly the perceived, perceiver and perception, in the same way that we explained the intelligible, intelligent and the intelligence”. (Asfar vol.3, P317).

According to Mulla Sadra, perceptions in its three stages of “sense, imagination and intellection” are nothing but new beings for human nature, similar to the other realities of the world granted by the Almighty Allah (s.w.t). Human essence posses variety of means and lives in number of unique conditions for these means to develop, (like coming into contact with perceptive material).

Through these special characteristics, it arrives at the inception stage. This spiritual inception that materializes through the divine mercy, become the source of genesis that gives the soul the capability to unite with the perceived and the perception.

In other words, Mulla Sadra believes that “every perception is a new stage in the process of existence that is created for soul through divine mercy.

These divine illuminations generate the same images that are used for the creation of images by our imagination. Our imaginative faculty is in unity with our soul.

After the imagination stage, the soul begins its activity in the intellection stage, which is yet a further form of reality. Through the divine assistance, it creates the intellection forms that in itself is a further stage in the existence of soul. In this stage the intellected images will be in unity with intellect and the intellectable”.

THE PHASE AND STAGES OF PERCEPTION IN MULLA SADRA'S PHILOSOPHY

Under the chapter “types of perception” in Asfar, Mulla Sadra divides perception into four types, “sensory, imaginary, estimation and intellection”, and then redefines these classifications into three types according to the three modes of beings: (sensory nature, the world of images and the intelligible realities.

Sensory perception is physically based and the perceiver senses the physical realities with their characteristics of time, space, quality, quantity and conditions.

However, what is present before the perceiver is the image of the perceived and not the physical reality. The kind of image that is produced before the perceiver must be equal in the status of being with the perceived. If this is not achieved then perception will not be attained.

The images created for sensory perception are incomplete abstraction of physical characteristics.

After sensory stage, comes the imaginary stage of perception, which in effect is similar to the images that were produced in the previous stage.

In the tawahom (estimation) stage, the object of the perception is the incensed intellectable and not general concepts.

In the intellection stage, perception is based on the reality and essence of things without due consideration to the specific conditions associated with that reality. This makes the perception general and more inclusive.

According to Mulla Sadra, every stage of perception requires a degree or form of abstraction;

In sensory perceptions three conditions must be fulfilled:

① ‐ The material presence of the perceived before the means of perception.

② ‐ The perceived must be accompanied with its characteristics.

③ ‐ The perceived must be particular and not general.

The imaginary stage, does not require the first condition and tawahom (estimation), is free from fulfilling the second condition, while in the intellection stage, non of the above conditions need to be satisfied.

The difference between perception in its estimation and intellection stage is not due to the intrinsic nature of these perception; it lay in the external factors, like attachment to and adjoining with particular/partial issues or lack of such characteristics.

Accordingly, tawahom (estimation), is a lower level of intellections, and this in practice reduces perception into three major types. (Asfar vol.3 – P360‐362)

We conclude from the above that:

There are four primary stages for perception.

① ‐ The sensory stage, where perception is due to the actual or physical contact between the perceiver with the perceived and such perception comes to an end, by the termination of this direct contact.

In the imaginary stage, human mind preserves an image from the perceived from the direct contact. This image will remain even after the termination of this contact. Such images posses all the characteristic of the perceived, a part from its physical essence. In the tawahom (estimation) stage, the mind denudes all the characteristics from the image without totally severing the linkage between the abstract image and the physical reality. The image created by the mind at such stage can not be related to anything else but that individual or particular reality that was perceived. This image is similar to the image that is created in our mind, when an object is seen from far away without a clear understanding of its nature, (animal or human), colour, shape and size etc.

Such an image, although devoid of all the relative characteristic, can be related to a particular object and not to others. This particularity of the object is sheared with the perception in the 3rd stage. In such a stage, although the perceived is denuded of all sensory characteristics, however the image remains singular and individual and can never be applied to others.

In the intellection stage, the mind denudes all the relevant features even its singularity and turns the image into a general concept that can be applied not only to the perceived that is actually sensed, but to other examples that share with the perceived the general hallmarks. This is the stage for absolute and total abstraction of perceived images.

② ‐ The difference between the sensory, imaginative and intellection perceptions are fundamental and intrinsic. Each of these stages represents a stage within the being of the soul that is different in other stages. While the difference between the estimation and intellection stage is the perceived, that is to say, that perception in the former is particular while in the latter is general, and this is not an intrinsic difference. The above account focuses the stages of perception into three:

“Sensory, imaginative and intellection”.

This classification closely matches the division of the world into three distinct kinds.

The world of coarse matter and material bodies (nasoot); the world of images (‘Alam al‐Mithal or Malakoot) and the spiritual world of intellection and pure ideas. (Jabaroot).

According to Mulla Sadra’s doctrine, the ontological structure of reality comprises three worlds. The material bodies associated with sensory perception, like, man, animal, white, black etc., this is called the first intelligible (ma’ghoolate Aw‐walieh), that lies at the lowest rung in the order of ascension, they constitute the basic order/stage with human intellection.

Then comes the world of pure images and figures that are associated with logical concepts, e.g. generality, singularity, differentia and accident that are used primarily in logic as distinctive hallmarks and referred to as logical intellection or secondary intelligible (ma’ghoolate thanieh).

The mind attains such intellection after acquiring the first intelligible. It then creates new concepts that can not be applied but to a very limited contexts. This stage lies at the middle rung of the ascension order.

Finally, the secondary philosophical intellection. (ma’ghoolate thaanieh phalsaphy). These are general philosophical concepts like, existence, nonexistence, unity, diversity, contingency etc.. that are similar to the secondary logical images, in that they do not have an external reality, however they can be applied to external examples, like EXTERNAL MAN that is contingent in its nature but not general in its application.

These constitute the most widespread and general intellectual concepts that the mind can have and unlike the first intellections have the widest of all coverage. These intellectual entities rung on the top of the ontological structure. (Asfar, Vol. 1 P 332, fi an‐nal wujood ‘Ala ay‐ye wajhwn yoghal in‐naho minal ma’ghoolat al‐thanieh)

 

 

[X] Imam `Ali [a] . I will tell you about myself and about Fatima. She was with me, and she was the most beloved of his family to him (the Prophet). She drew up so much water that the rope marked her chest. She grounded with the mill so much that her hands formed calluses. She swept the house so much that her clothes have become dusty. She lit so many fires beneath pots that her clothes smelled like smoke…

PERCEPTION AND KNOWLEDGE BY PRESENCE

Mulla Sadra, Perception and Knowledge by Presence

Oliver Leaman, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

ABSTRACT
In Asfar III, 3, Mulla Sadra argues that there is no possible knowledge claim which can contain a representation of the self. This is because any such claim would already imply the existence of the self. This view has been developed by Mehdi Ha'iri Yazdi to argue that there is a radically different approach to epistemology in the ishraqi tradition as compared with the European philosophical tradition which stems from Descartes. The Persian school of philosophy is taken to be more empirical in the sense of valuing experience as compared with the Cartesian school, since the former bases its understanding of the nature of the self on the particular character of the experiences which we have when investigating the nature and role of the self.

What underpins the theory of the self in Mulla Sadra's account is the idea of there being a basic knowledge of the self, so basic that it cannot be doubted. Of course, this fits in nicely with the idea of light as the concept which replaces the traditional subject/object ontology of Cartesian philosophy. It is the "lighting up" of the basic self which makes possible the assumption of this self in our everyday activities, and in this way justifies the claim that ishraqi thought is more empirically orientated than Catesian thought. The arguments which have been produced for this notion of knowledge by presence as found in the thought of Mulla Sadra and developed by Ha'iri Yazdi will be considered and related to modern developments in Western philosophy.

According to many ishraqi thinkers, there is a type of knowledge which is so self‐evident that it cannot be doubted. Of course, many philosophers have sought such a kind of knowledge, since if they could base their arguments on such incorrigible knowledge, those arguments would be soundly based indeed. We are familiar with Cartesian strategies which argue from a proposition which cannot be doubted, and even the opponents of the idealists, the empiricists, sought a level of knowledge which was certain on which they could construct different kinds of belief of varying degrees of reliability. What counts as self‐ evident knowledge for the ishraqi thinkers is that level of knowledge which is so intimately tied in with our perception of ourselves that in doubting it we would doubt ourselves, which is to imply doubting that with which the doubting is possible in the first place. The conclusion is taken to be that such doubt is impossible. The truth which is presupposed by any perception is that the subject of perception exists, It is perhaps Suhrawardi who explores this notion of immediate knowledge, `ilm al‐huduri, most precisely, and he argues that it is so immediate and incontrovertible that it is known in far more than an intellectual sense. That is, there are propositions which we know through reason and which we know perfectly, in the sense that we grasp all aspects of them and can hold them in our minds all at once perfectly. We cannot doubt these propositions, but these are propositions, and they are only attainable through reason. The sorts of knowledge which are called `ilm al‐huduri are not only indubitable, but we experience their indubitability. The light of knowledge which shines on them makes evident to us in more than merely an intellectual sense what truth they possess. Of course, another advantage which perception of the self has over discursive knowledge is that the assumption is made that the self is basically a simple thing, so the use of our intelligence implies the activity of a simple self, a self which is characterizable in terms its pure agency.

But surely, it will be said, there is far more to the self than merely a simple substance. Are not selves highly complex? Indeed they are, but what is being argued here is that the key to the self is merely its capacity to represent our existence, and as such it is simple. As Mulla Sadra points out, in knowing anything we know ourselves, and that self‐knowledge is primitive epistemologically.1 He goes even further and suggests that we cannot even formulate that basic form of knowledge in propositional form, since it is so direct that we cannot construct a proposition around it, describing it as though from outside, as it were. We cannot do this because the knowledge is so much part and parcel of thought itself that expressing it propositionally would be to make complex that which is paradigmatically simple, and introduce issues of truth and falsity where they have no place.

This theory fits in nicely with Suhrawardi's suspicion concerning propositions which are complex, the basis of his critique of the notion of definition. Suhrawardi argues that the Aristotelian technique of basing the syllogism on a definition, which is supposed to be a sound basis for such an argument, is fatally flawed, for the parts of the definition which are supposed to be the logical properties which characterize the notion themselves require a proof before they are accepted as parts of the meaning, and so on ad infinitum.2 Suspicion of the complex is quite plausible, since how can one be sure that in one grasp of apprehension, as it were, all the characteristics of a thing have been captured? At this point we need to distinguish between two kinds of knowledge in Mulla Sadra, knowledge which is huduri and directly present to us, and knowledge which is husuli and which is acquired from without. There is nothing wrong with such knowledge, on the contrary, it represents our role in the world of constant movement in which we seek to perfect our understanding by aligning our consciousness so that it matches better the plurality of existence which describes reality.

What is perception for Mulla Sadra? We have to recall here his antipathy to essences, as evidenced by his adherence to an ontology in which existence is more basic than essence. 3 We also need to acknowledge the significance of change in his view of reality, so that we should not regard the perceiver as someone who seeks to come into contact with stable and pre‐existing essences, which themselves in some way reflects divine reality. It is certainly true that when we know we come into contact with the divine creation, and we do this by moving from being able to know to knowing in actuality. Mulla Sadra is rather suspicious of the traditional mashsha'i understanding of knowledge as grasping the abstract forms which lie within things, since this is to reify essences in objectionable ways. He does adhere to the traditional idea of there being a variety of realms of understanding, ranging from the ordinary perceptual level to the higher intelligible, separated by the barzakh of the imaginative, but we certainly should not see this as a progress towards ever‐increasing levels of abstraction. On the contrary, as we perfect ourselves we come closer to ever more basic forms of existence, and in this way come closer to the deity.

Now, there is an interesting aspect of light which makes it a popular concept in talking about knowledge, and that is the way in which it reveals that which exists, and yet which is literally invisible until it is affected by light. And light itself, of course, is also invisible, so that which is itself invisible brings to our attention what would otherwise be invisible. Light plays a large part in a large number of philosophies from different cultural traditions, and is certainly not limited to Islamic philosophy. For example, within Buddhism there is a traditional way of conceptualizing the mind as like a mirror reflecting the light of (potential) enlightenment which is ever‐present in the universe. All we need to do is to blow the dust off the mirror, and then the pure light will be accessible to us! Some Buddhists like Huineng go ever further and claim that the light is always present within us, and the idea that anything could really impede it is mistaken.4 It is this idea that when something is illuminated then one cannot be mistaken about it, one cannot not notice it, as it were, which is such a crucial aspect of Mulla Sadra's notion of perception. For at theroot of our perception of everything outside us is our perception of what is within us, and the nature of the subject which is doing the perceiving must be known to us if anything is, since it is ever‐ present in the action of perceiving. There are many things which we can doubt, but as Descartes argued, the fact that we can doubt itself relies on certain facts which we cannot doubt, and those facts present themselves to us (they are huduri) in ways in which more dubitable forms of experience do not.

Many objections have been made to the attempt at identifying such incorrigible experiences, and these objections are soundly based. They basically suggest that even if there are such incorrigible experiences, they do not actually provide us with anything which is really information. For example, the knowledge that my experiences are the experiences of a subject does not reveal anything about the nature of that subject, apart from the fact that it is a subject, and anything we want to know about the subject has to be discovered in the normal sort of way. So the idea, which is quite evidently there in Suhrawardi, of a series of fixed and final objects of knowledge, facts which we cannot doubt and which ground further claims to knowledge, rests on a shaky philosophical foundation. But this should not worry Mulla Sadra too much, given the very different ontology which he constructs based on the notion of tashkik al‐ wujud. Although there is no doubt that Mulla Sadra also adheres to a doctrine of wahdat al‐wujud, of the unity of existence, it is what he does with this idea of unity which is so interesting. The very same concept, the concept of light, which brings everything together also serves as its grounds for differentiation, since it is the degree of light which determines the level of reality of each individual thing in existence. As we increase our knowledge, we reach ever higher levels of perfection, we come into contact with more abstract and significant existences which are brighter and closer to the source of being itself, the deity.

Is this knowledge part and parcel of mysticism? It is difficult to know what to say about such a claim. Much of the technical language which Mulla Sadra uses comes from ibn al‐`Arabi, and we know that he was interested in exploring a range of mystical approaches to knowledge. There is certainly a good deal in Mulla Sadra which acknowledges the significance of hikma, by contrast with other forms of rational thought, and which prioritizes the sorts of understanding of reality which come about through the personal contact between the individual and his or her creator. I have argued previously that we can understand Mulla Sadra's notion of the priority of existence over essence without bringing in any particular notion of mysticism, and that is true also of his use of the idea of the imaginal realm (al‐`alam al‐khayali).5 All these concepts have profound mystical implications, yet there is no need to draw these implications in order to understand them. This is hardly surprising, since most ideas have two sides, the zahir (open) and the batin (hidden), and we can understand them on each level without necessarily having to explore both levels. And it is fortunate that this is the case, since if it was the case that one could only understand ideas which are used mystically from a mystical point of view, it would not be possible to understand those ideas at all unless one were a mystic, and as we know on most accounts of Islamic mysticism this is a difficult and protracted process. I would not want to argue that the mystical aspects of Mulla Sadra's views on knowledge are not important, but in the spirit of the School of Isfahan we should accept that the mystical and the rational levels of discourse are capable of operating independently of each other,6 and it is within that spirit that the concept of knowledge will be explored here.

One of the most interesting defenses of the notion of `ilm al‐huduri is that provided by Mehdi Ha'iri Yazdi, and he concentrates on the description of this kind of knowledge as specified by al‐Suhrawardi, but it is essentially the same as that used by Mulla Sadra.7 The basic argument is that at some level knowledge of ourselves is not to be classified as prepositional knowledge, consisting of statements which could be true or false. If this knowledge was capable of being true or false then it would have to be assessable, yet any such assessment already presupposes the self which is doing the assessing. To take an example, there is much about which I could be mistaken, but I could not be mistaken that there is a self writing these pages. I could even get the name of the self wrong, but that there is a self acting here is incontrovertible. There are a variety of ways of expressing this idea. One is to say, as Wittgenstein does, that nothing could be evidence for the absence of such a self, since nothing could give us more grounds for disbelieving in such a self than in believing in it. That is, a world which turned out to justify the denial of such a self would be such a different world from that with which we are familiar that we would not know how to go on. In that case there is no more reason to deny the self than to assert it.

Another way of expressing this supposedly incontrovertible truth is to say that experience of the self is so perfect that it is undeniable. This is to take up a Cartesian strategy of taking some beliefs to be so clear and distinct that we can see everything that there is to see about them all at once, and are unable to deny them. The metaphor of light here is important, since once something is lit up, it is there in front of us and we are aware of it. But could we not be mistaken about its nature? We could be, we might for example imagine that we see something, that something is lit up, but really do not. We may be dreaming or merely having a powerful image before us to which nothing objective corresponds.

Actually, this sort of objection will not work when brought up against ishraqi thought, since imagination and dreaming are here regarded as just as capable of yielding objective and significant experience as our everyday experience. In fact one might go further and suggest that dreaming and imagination is more capable of expressing reality than our ordinary experience, since it is while we are using our imagination that we are better able to represent to ourselves what is really important, as compared with what seems to be important.

The main problem with describing a particular type of experience which cannot be challenged is that to be persuasive the example has to yield very little detail. For example. it may be that as I am writing this I am having an experience of an I' doing the writing which I cannot challenge. I then say that this is an example of `ilm al‐huduri because the experience of the self is so direct that it cannot be separated from the experience itself except as yet another example of the same experience. That is, if I consider the status of my experience of the self, then I am doing it through yet another experience of the self. But what does this actually show? It shows very little if anything about the nature of the self in question, merely that someone is having experience. It does not even show that it is the same subject which is having the experience of writing this paragraph that wrote the earlier paragraph, or is going to write the next one. Perhaps we need the mysticism after all to establish this sort of knowledge, and through such knowledge we can establish links between the different manifestations of the I'. If that is the case then it would be disappointing, since it is very much the direction of the argument that it will lead us to incorrigible propositions through the use of reason alone, and without making any specific religious commitments. After all, if to paper over the gaps in the argument we can use principles from mysticism then there seems little point to trying to establish the argument in the first place.

Fortunately we can say that such a strategy of using mysticism as philosophical glue would go entiragainst the principles of the School of Isfahan of which Mulla Sadra is such a distinguished representative. There is no doubt that according to the School of Isfahan the level of `irfan is the most superior form of knowledge, but it does not follow that there is no scope for using arguments appropriate to other kinds of knowledge within their own universes of discourse. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues, the main issue confronting the School of Isfahan is the reconciliation of shari`a, `aql and tasawwuf/`irfan.8 Different thinkers had different lines on how to accomplish this, but what is important here is to appreciate that no one type of explanation should be seen as precluding another type. For example, within the area of law the appropriate mode of argument is legal, and although it is doubtless true that the issues in law have other aspects, both rational and mystical, it would not be appropriate to resolve problems in law by referring to these different ways of working theoretically. We can use this argument to suggest that the criticisms which have been made of `ilm al‐huduri cannot be resolved by importing concepts from a different logical level of discourse.

Must we conclude, then, that there is nothing of value in this concept of presential knowledge? What it seems to prove, if it proves anything at all, is that we can have a sort of knowledge which is beyond doubt, but that that sort of knowledge is literally content less, and as such is of no use to us. It certainly will not serve as the foundation of higher sorts of knowledge, nor will it transfer its incorrigibility to any of these other candidates for knowledge. But perhaps we are asking the wrong question here. We seem to be asking the question What sort of propositions are we unable to doubt?'. This is certainly the question which Ha'iri Yazdi raises and he seeks to link it both with ishraqi thought and with the sorts of claims which modern thinkers like Russell make about knowledge. Yet are they asking the same sort of question? I do not think they are. What we need to notice here is the very different ontology constructed within ishraqi thought as compared with the subject/object ontology of modern Western philosophy, the sort of philosophy in which the sceptical issues of how we know when we know or otherwise arise. Descartes and his successors tend to take the line on essence and existence that the former precedes the latter, so that we have all sorts of ideas and then wonder how or whether those ideas are instantiated. Of course, that ontology leads automatically to the sceptical question as to whether our ideas are anything more than ideas, i.e. do they have any existence connected with them? Now, Mulla Sadra's ontology works in the other direction. What we are confronted with primarily are different forms of existence, and the ideas we form of this are relatively unimportant. Why are they unimportant? After all, we cannot form ideas of existence without ideas, and these essences must be for us the route to understanding that existence. Here we have to recall the doctrine of transubstantial movement. There are no stable essences which reflect existence, since existence itself is forever changing and altering, and so there is little point in concentrating on essences as a guide to the character of existence. Just as one had grasped an essence the reality on which it is based would be changing, and so there is little point on looking to essences if we are interested in understanding the way things really are.

This suggests that raising the sorts of questions about the reliability of our knowledge claims is to miss the point. Mulla Sadra is not asking the question What can we know?' but rather What exists?'. Once we have decided what exists, it then remains to us to explain how we have access to that existence, It is at this stage that we can distinguish between two different kinds of knowledge, knowledge which is huduri and knowledge which is husuli. But it is all knowledge, and the latter kind of knowledge also provides us with a secure route to the truth. This is where we have to remember the significance of light as the main principle of definition here. There is a tendency to think of knowledge which is huduri as being more brightly illuminated than other kinds of knowledge, but this is misleading. My knowledge of myself is no more real than is my knowledge of scientific facts about the external world. What explains gradations of light is what explains gradations of reality, and as we grasp increasingly significant levels of knowledge we come into contact with different and higher levels of light. It is important when looking at the ontology here to realise that there is far more to existence than just facts. After all, what has come to be known as the imaginal realm (al‐`alam al‐khayali) is even more real than the world of generation and corruption, yet it appears to consist of nothing more than ideas. Similarly, there is a long tradition in ishraqi thought of meetings with imaginary people, yet these meetings are far from illusory. They represent very real meetings between different ways of thinking, and they result in an advance in understanding. Here the metaphor of light is helpful. An imaginary event may well be far more important to someone than a so‐called real' event. The imaginary event may bring to light a previously unconsidered hypothetical possibility which changes our lives, because it shows us for the first time what it would be like for the world to be very different. There is a lot of empirical evidence that unless an individual is able to contemplate a particular situation, then he or she will be a lot less likely to be able to attain it, or avoid it. So the contemplation of a possibility, the possibility of an event which has not yet happened and which may never happen, may be of a far deeper significance for us than a boring empirical fact. This brings out nicely what is wrong in putting essences before existence. An essence, an idea or concept, may seem in itself insubstantial and far less real than a different concept, perhaps of something far more solid and present to us in the everyday world. Yet the former may be far more important to us than the latter, it may be far more vivid and real. In short, it may represent far more presciently what is real, what exists, and as such the question as to whether it is true rather misses the point.

Let us compare this way of arguing with a much more recent form of argument, that provided by Wittgenstein in On Certainty.9 Wittgenstein argues that there are some propositions which could in themselves be false, and yet which are so crucial to entire ways in which we do things that we cannot doubt them, at least not while we carry on with those familiar activities.10 In addition, even though those propositions could be false, it is not possible to doubt them, since there is no alternative proposition which could be any more certain than they are. Wittgenstein has often been accused here of being an idealist, since it seems that he is far more concerned with the ways in which our concepts relate to each other than he is in the question as to whether they actually correspond to something in the real world. This is a relevant question to ask him since after all he is contending with the traditional puzzles provided by the sceptic, whether what we take to be knowledge is really knowledge, whether the propositions which we take to be true are in fact true. And precisely the same questions may be put to Mulla Sadra, it may be asked whether we can ever really know anything by examining our concepts, given that the underlying reality is constantly changing and that existence is far more significant than essence. We could look for some transcendental guarantee, of course, by claiming a basis in divine reality, but this would be to go against the principles of the School of Isfahan, as we have already suggested. But what makes the question seem perplexing is not because it is difficult to answer, but because it is the wrong sort of question. We have to get away from the traditional subject/object, concept/object, language/reality dichotomies of modern philosophy. which Wittgenstein was also trying to transcend. He argued that the link between our language and extra‐mental reality is a complex one. As he says, it is not that the former is dependent on the latter, but it is also not the case that there is no link between them. After all, if the world were a very different place, then different concepts would make sense, and he spends a great deal of his philosophical work examining alternative ways of going on conceptually, to explore the nature of the relationship between how things actually are and how that frames for us a particular range of possible ways of talking about that reality.

For Mulla Sadra also the act of perception is not essentially an act in which the agent tries to emerge from his private self to gain access to an external and public world. It is an attempt at understanding an aspect of a changing world, and any claim to truth will have to be limited by a certain reference to time, since everything is changing all the time. What is changing is not the world outside us, though, but we are part and parcel of that world, we change with it, as do our ideas about it. Our ideas and the world which those ideas describe are all parts of the same world, and they are all capable of being just as real as each other. This comes out nicely in his account of knowledge, which often leads to perplexity. It is a familiar thesis in Islamic philosophy that in knowledge there is an identity between the knower, the object of knowledge and the process of knowing itself. This is what happens in the highest form of knowledge, where the object of knowledge is actually something created by the knower (ultimately, God) and where the knowledge itself is part of the essential activity of the knower and not just a casual event. Of course, for us, given the constant change of things themselves, there is in perception a move from potentiality to actuality which is only capable of grasping the truth as it stands at a particular time. In the case of perfect knowledge the constant changing of the substances does not matter, since what is known is more the pattern of change than the particular changing events themselves. One of the problems with such a view of knowledge as unifying knower, known object and process of knowing is that these all seem to be different. That is, I am different from what I am now observing, and the way in which I am observing it is something I might well not be doing, and so it seems strange to see it as part of me. Yet these distinctions only make sense if we adhere to the traditional subject/object ontology of modern philosophy. In Mulla Sadra's ontology there is no essential difference between the changing substance of which I am a part and its states (like perception), and the objects of my perception, since these are all ultimately reflections of higher principles and the activity of the deity. We draw distinctions between them, of course, but at a philosophical level we should appreciate the unity which brings all these different features of reality together. After all, it is just one principle, that of light, which serves as the key criterion both of identity and of differentiation, and any subjects and objects which we then construct out of this one principle is entirely the reflection of a way of thinking appropriate to a relatively low theoretical level of thought. That is how light operates, of course, it illuminates what seem to be a variety of different things which exist independently of it, but once we appreciate the unity of reality we come to appreciate that this variety (tashkik) is very much an apparent variety of an essential unity, the unity of existence (wahdat al‐wujud).

It is this insistence upon interpreting reality as basically a unity which distinguishes Mulla Sadra's approach to knowledge as compared with most modern philosophers. Interestingly, as I have suggested, it could be argued that Wittgenstein also declines to adopt the view of reality shared by modern philosophy of the Cartesian variety. We have not shown here that this sort of approach is better than its alternatives, but we have tried to do is explain why it seems unsatisfactory from the perspective of the Cartesian theory. According to the latter, the main problem of philosophy is to explain what links there are between our ideas and what those ideas purport to describe. According to Mulla Sadra, this is not an important question, since our ideas and what they seem to describe are part of the same reality, and asking how they are linked is akin to asking how one side of a coin is linked to the other side. Many admirers of Mulla Sadra will feel that this account of his work is carried on at far too limited a level of understanding, and that it does not do justice to him as a master of esoteric knowledge, but the argument here is that he was in his work following the hermeneutics of the School of Isfahan. This implies arguing from the existence of our world to the existence of ever higher levels of existence, and from the higher to the lower, and for the significance of keeping these two means of argument separate from each other. Then it can be seen that the arguments from hikmah and the arguments from `irfan are really just two versions of the same argument, as one would expect given the basic unity which runs through the whole of reality.

NOTES
1 . Mulla Sadra (1965) Al‐hikmat al‐muta`aliyya fi'l‐asfar al‐arba`a al‐`aqliyya, Qum: Intisharat‐i Mustafavi, I,3,part 3

2 . For more detail on this argument see Leaman, O. (2000) Islamic philosophy and the attack on logic', Topoi, 1—8

3 . Leaman, O. (1999) Ontology' Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Oxford: Polity, 89—107

4 . Huineng, Leaman, O. (1999) Enlightenment', Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy, London: Routledge, 105‐‐110

5 . Mulla Sadra and Mysticism', ibid. Leaman (1999) , 96—100

6 . Corbin, H. (1972) En Islam iranien: aspects spirituels et philosophiques, Paris Gallimard

7 . Ha'iri Yazdi, Mehdi (1992) The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by Presence, Albany: State University of New York Press

8 . Nasr, S.H. (1996) The School of Isfahan', Amin Razavi, M. (ed) The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia, Richmond: Curzon, 239‐‐70, The Place of the School of Isfahan i in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism, Lewisohn, L. & Morgan, D.(eds) The Heritage of SufismL Late Classical Persianate Sufism III, Oxford: Oneworld, 3‐‐15

9 . Wittgenstein, L. (1969) On Certainty, ed. G. Ansxombe & G. von Wright, trans. D. Paul & G. Anscombe Oxford: Blackwell

10 . Wittgenstein, L.(1953) Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. Anscombe, Oxford: Blackwell, 230