1 Mullā Ṣadrā seems to prefer the term ʿālim rabbānī or ʿārif rabbānī or ʿārif muta'allih insofar as philosophy is a practice designed for inhabitation and training in methods of reading the modes in which God discloses himself in reality and through which one attains a likeness to the divine (theosis, tashabbuh bi-l-bāri’); see Shīrāzī, Mullā Ṣadrā, The Elixir of the Gnostics [Iksīr al-ʿārifīn], ed. Yasribī, Sayyid Yaḥyā, tr. Chittick, William (Provo, UH: Brigham Young University Press, 2003), 3.Google Scholar The model for the ʿālim rabbānī is the first Shii Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib; see Shīrāzī, Mullā Ṣadrā, al-Maẓāhir al-ilāhiyya fī asrār al-ʿulūm al-kamālīya, ed. Khāminihī, M. (Tehran: Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute, 1999), 51.Google Scholar The term ʿārif rabbānī approximates, and brings to mind, the “holy” or the “divine” man of late Neoplatonism; see Fowden, Garth, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 289–91Google Scholar; cf. Stroumsa, Guy, “From Master of Wisdom to spiritual master in late Antiquity”, in Brakke, David et al. (eds), Religion and the Self in Antiquity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 183–96.Google Scholar

2 Shīrāzī, Elixir of the Gnostics, 49, 54.

3 This term is extensively instanced in his work; see, for example, Shīrāzī, Mullā Ṣadrā, Īqāẓ al-nā’imīn, ed. Khwānsārī, Muḥammad (Tehran: Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute, 2007), 4–5.Google Scholar

4 For a quick shorthand on various approaches to the study of Mullā Ṣadrā, see Rizvi, Sajjad, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of Being (London: Routledge, 2009), 4–14Google Scholar; for a good survey of what constitutes philosophy in Iran today, see Legenhausen, Muḥammad, “Introduction”, Topoi 26, 2007, 167–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 I shall not pursue my polemic against the use of the term theosophy here, but instead suggest my alternative to ḥikma ilāhīya: onto-theology. I recognize that this term is itself fraught with problems due to its usage by Heideggerians and I do not use it with the assumption of a fundamental division between philosophy and theology in Safavid intellectual history – for a discussion of the term, see Robbins, Jeffrey, “The problem of ontotheology: complicating the divide between philosophy and theology”, The Heythrop Journal 43/2, 2002, 139–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Cf. Shaw, Gregory, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

7 Of course, analytic philosophy is a notoriously fissiparous and disharmonious tradition and cannot be reduced to post-Fregean philosophy of language (as Michael Dummett once famously tried to do). For an excellent discussion of the question, see Glock, Hans-Johann, What Is Analytic Philosophy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Corbin, Henry, Histoire de la philosophie islamique (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 14.Google Scholar

9 Corbin, Histoire de la philosophie islamique, 22–38, 219–20; Jambet, Christian, L'acte d’être: La philosophie de la révélation chez Mollâ Sadrâ (Paris: Fayard, 2002), 10.Google Scholar This notion of prophetic philosophy or a philosophical-theological tradition bestowed by the gods is very much part of the late Neoplatonic reading of its history. For example, Proclus famously wrote:

10 Corbin, Henry, Philosophie iranienne et philosophie comparée (Paris: Buchet, 1985), 22–34.Google Scholar

11 Skinner, Quentin, Visions of Politics I: Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; cf. Pocock, John G. A., Political Thought and History: Essays on Method and Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).Google Scholar

12 For a good introduction to the translation of these works and the encounters with Kantian philosophy in particular, see Mujtahidī, Karīm, Āshnā’ī-yi Īrāniyān ba falsafa-yi jadīd-i gharb (Tehran: Intishārāt-i pazhūhishgāh-i farhang va andīsha-yi islāmī, 1995)Google Scholar; Āgāhī, Sulaymān, “Ḥikāyat-i vurūd-i falsafa-yi jadīd bih Īrān”, Nāma-yi Farhang XIV/51, 2004, 78–81Google Scholar; Paya, Ali and Shahi, Malakeh, “The reception of Kant and his philosophy in Iran”, Journal of Shia Islamic Studies III/1, 2010, 25–40.Google Scholar

13 One thinks of two important collections of essays – Muḥammad Legenhausen (ed.), Substance and Attribute: Western and Islamic Traditions in Dialogue (Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, New Series Volume 5, Frankfurt/New Brunswick: Ontos Verlag, 2007), and Muḥammad Legenahusen (ed.), Special Issue of Topoi volume 26, 2007. Important thinkers in this vein include Muḥammad Javād Lārijānī, whose five (short) volume introduction to analytic philosophy is a useful guide for students and who is the head of the Institute for Research in the Fundamental Sciences in Tehran, and Muḥammad Ḥasan Qārāmalikī who has written extensively on philosophical theology and political theory from his base in Qum.

14 On Ṭabāṭabā’ī and this text, see Algar, Hamid, “ʿAllāma Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabā’ī: philosopher, exegete, Gnostic”, Journal of Islamic Studies 17/3, 2006, 326–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the process of the new philosophical theology (kalām-i jadīd), see Awjabī, ʿAlī, Kalām-i jadīd: mabānī va āmūza-hā (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Asāṭīr, 2008)Google Scholar; Qārāmalikī, Aḥad Farāmarz, Ustād-i Muṭahharī va kalām-i jadīd (Tehran: Pazhūhishgāh-i farhang va andīsha-yi islāmī, 2004)Google Scholar; Jibrā’īlī, Muḥammad, Falsafa-yi dīn va kalām-i jadīd (Tehran: Pazhūhishgāh-i farhang va andīsha-yi islāmī, 2007).Google Scholar

15 See the series edited by her entitled Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue for Springer. E.g., Tymieniecka, Anna-Theresa (ed.), The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Tymieniecka, (ed.), Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Tymieniecka, (ed.), Time and Temporality in Islamic Philosophy and Philosophy of Life (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008).Google Scholar

16 Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, tr. Chase, Michael, ed. with an introduction by Davidson, Arnold I. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995)Google Scholar, a translation of Hadot, Pierre, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (Paris: Institut d’Études augustiniennes, 1993)Google Scholar; I am using the French reprint of 2001 published by Albin Michel.

17 For one discussion of the importance of commentary culture in the world of Islam, see Wisnovksy, Robert, “The nature and scope of Arabic philosophical commentary in post-classical (c. 1100–1900 AD) Islamic intellectual history: some preliminary observations”, in Adamson, Peter et al. (eds), Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries Vol 2 (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2004), 149–91.Google Scholar

18 Hadot, Pierre, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), 270–74.Google Scholar Cf. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 59–61.

19 Hadot, Pierre, La philosophie comme manière de vivre: Entretiens avec Jeanne Carlier et Arnold I. Davidson (Paris: Livre de Poche, 2010), 93–6.Google Scholar

20 Cf. Dillon, John, “Philosophy as a profession in late antiquity”, in Smith, Andrew (ed.), The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Brown (Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2005), 1–17.Google Scholar

21 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 272.

22 Athanassiadi, Polymnia, La lutte pour orthodoxie dans le néoplatonisme tardif (Paris: Les belles lettres, 2006), 31–70.Google Scholar Cf. Carruthers, Mary, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

23 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 41. There is a wonderful philosophical and mystical commentary on this famous maxim by a contemporary sage-philosopher in Iran, Āmulī, Ḥasanzāda, Sarḥ al-ʿuyūn fī sharḥ al-ʿuyūn (third reprint, Qum: Bustān-i kitāb, 2009).Google Scholar

24 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 47; cf. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 93.

25 Cf. Rappe, Sara, Reading Neoplatonism: Non-Discursive Thinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus and Damascius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Hadot, “Présentation au Collège International de Philosophie”, unpublished manuscript, p. 4, as cited in Davidson, “Introduction”, in Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 26.

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29 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 23; cf. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 83.

30 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 291; cf. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 265; Nussbaum, Martha C., The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Sorabji, Richard, Emotion and Peace of Mind: from Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

31 Davidson, “Introduction”, to Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 24.

32 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 343.

33 Hadot, Exercices spirituels, 355–6.

34 Cf. Corbin, Henry, Face de Dieu, face de l'homme: Herméneutique et soufisme (Paris: Entrelacs, 2008).Google Scholar

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38 The concept of theosis in Islamic thought still awaits a serious study. But for some preliminary discussion, see Jolivet, Jean, “L'idée de la sagesse et sa fonction dans la philosophie des 4^e et 5^e siècles”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 1, 1991, 31–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Yaman, Hikmet, Prophetic Niche in the Virtuous City: The Concept of Ḥikmah in Early Islamic Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2010).Google Scholar

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41 Shīrāzī, al-Asfār al-arbaʿa, 1: 13.

42 Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, al-Asfār al-arbaʿa, 9: 108.

43 Shīrāzī, Mullā Ṣadrā, Tafsīr sūrat al-wāqiʿa, ed. Khwājavī, M. (Tehran: Intishārāt-i mawlā, 1984), 132.Google Scholar

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