Ontology and Theology

An explication and translation of Mullā Ṣadrā’s Kitāb al-Mashāʿir, by Sayyid Amjad H. Shah Naqavi

A key work by Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, better known today as Mullā Ṣadrā, Kitāb al-Mashāʿir is a central text in the oeuvre of the most influential Islamic philosopher, mystic, and theologian of modern times. Born in Persia in 1571, Ṣadrā’s life spanned the reigns of Shāh ʿAbbās I (r.1587–1629) and Shāh Ṣafī (r. 1629–42), his distinguished career was instrumental in the intellectual and spiritual flourishing of the Safavid golden age, and he remains a towering figure in the study of philosophy across the Middle East and around the world. Kitāb al-Mashāʿir demonstrates Mullā Ṣadrā’s argument for the primacy of existence (aṣālat al-wujūd) over the primacy of essence or quiddity (aṣālat al-māhiyyah), an idea which revolutionised Islamic philosophical enquiry, especially in theology, ontology, and metaphysics. It is thus essential reading for those who wish to understand Ṣadrā’s key formulation of the gradation of existence (tashkīk al-wujūd) and his school of al-ḥikmah al-mutaʿāliyyah (transcendent philosophy), as well as Ṣadrā’s unique approach to philosophy, which combines discursive and rational argumentation and abstract reasoning with spiritual wayfaring (sulūk), through the philosopher’s mystical and esoteric seeking of truth.

In Ontology and Theology, the Dean of The Shīʿah Institute, Dr Sayyid Amjad H. Shah Naqavi, presents an authoritative and accurate translation and explication of Kitāb al-Mashāʿir. Based on a lifetime of interdisciplinary research into Islamic philosophy, theology, and mysticism, and Arabic language, literature and philology, as well as the theory and practice of translation, Dr Shah Naqavi’s work is unique in presenting Mullā Ṣadrā’s complex thought and writing with exceptional clarity and erudite insight. With precise attention to Mullā Ṣadrā’s arguments, philosophical register, idiosyncratic mode of expression, and grammatical and syntactical style, alongside a profound knowledge of Arabic etymology and lexicography, Ontology and Theology brings English-speaking readers an unprecedented explication that makes Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy available and accessible to a global audience.