Seyyed Hossein Nasr is an Iranian philosopher,theologian and Islamic scholar. He is University Professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University.
Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī,more commonly known as MullāṢadrā,was a Persian Twelver Shi'i Islamic mystic,philosopher,theologian,and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century. According to Oliver Leaman,Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years.
Transcendent theosophy or al-hikmat al-muta’āliyah,the doctrine and philosophy developed by Persian philosopher Mulla Sadra,is one of two main disciplines of Islamic philosophy that are currently live and active.
Hikmah is an Arabic word that means wisdom,sagacity,philosophy,rationale or underlying reason. The Quran mentions "hikmah" in various places,where it is understood as knowledge and understanding of the Quran,fear of God,and a means of nourishing the spirit or intellect. Hikmah is sometimes associated with prophethood,faith,intelligence ('aql),comprehension (fahm),or the power of rational demonstration. In the Quran,God bestows wisdom upon whomever He chooses,and various individuals including the House of Abraham,David,Joseph,Moses,Jesus,Muhammad and Luqman are said to have received wisdom. The Quran also uses the term hikmah in connection with the Book or the scripture in general. The Quran also refers to itself as the Wise Book,and refers to God as The Wise in several places.
The Isfahan School is a school of Islamic philosophy. It was founded by Mir Damad and reached its fullest development in the work of Mulla Sadra. The name was coined by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Henry Corbin.
Iranian philosophy or Persian philosophy can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and thoughts which originated in ancient Indo-Iranian roots and were considerably influenced by Zarathustra's teachings. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy,the chronology of the subject and science of philosophy starts with the Indo-Iranians,dating this event to 1500 BC. The Oxford dictionary also states,"Zarathustra's philosophy entered to influence Western tradition through Judaism,and therefore on Middle Platonism."
William Clark Chittick is an American philosopher,writer,translator and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi,and has written extensively on the school of Ibn 'Arabi,Islamic philosophy,and Islamic cosmology. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University.
Hadi Sabzavari or Hajj Molla Hadi Sabzavari was an Iranian philosopher,mystic theologian and poet.
Hossein Ziai was a professor of Islamic Philosophy and Iranian Studies at UCLA where he held the inaugural Jahangir and Eleanor Amuzegar Chair in Iranian Studies until his passing. He received his B.S. in Intensive Physics and Mathematics from Yale University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1976. Prior to UCLA,Ziai taught at Tehran University,Sharif University,Harvard University,Brown University,and Oberlin College. As Director of Iranian Studies at UCLA,where he taught since 1988,Ziai established an undergraduate major in Iranian in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures—the first such degree in North America—and developed the strongest and most rigorous Iranian Studies program in the U.S.
Illuminationism,also known as Ishrāqiyyun or simply Ishrāqi is a philosophical and mystical school of thought introduced by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi in the twelfth century,established with his Kitab Hikmat al-Ishraq,a fundamental text finished in 1186. Written with influence from Avicennism,Peripateticism,and Neoplatonism,the philosophy is nevertheless distinct as a novel and holistic addition to the history of Islamic philosophy.
James Winston Morris is an American Islamic theologian,currently a professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College. Before teaching at Boston College,he held the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.
ʿAbd-Al-Razzāq B. ʿAlīB. Al-Hosayn Lāhījī was an Iranian theologian,poet and philosopher. His mentor in philosophy was his father-in-law Mulla Sadra.
The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect,known as Four Journeys,is an extended compendium of Islamic philosophy written by the 17th century Islamic scholar,Mulla Sadra,In which he attempted to reach Sufism and prove the idea of Unity of Existence by offering a new intake and perspective on Peripatetic philosophy that was offered by Alpharabius and Avicenna in the Islamic world. The book explains his philosophy of transcendent theosophy. It was first published in print in 1865 in Tehran in four volumes,where it was accompanied by a commentary on three of the volumes by Hadi Sabzavari (1797–1893). To date,no notable,critical English translation of the book has been made.
Tafasir Al Quran are collections of books as commentaries on the Quran,written by Mulla Sadra.
The Arcs of Descent and Ascent,an ontological circle,are described in Neoplatonism,as well as in Islamic and Sufi cosmology,mainly inspired by the works of Ibn al-Arabi. In the Arc of Descent,from unity to diversity,God creates successively the Intellect,the Universal Soul,Prime Matter,Nature,the Universal Body and the Earth. The Arc of Ascent is the way back to the Presence of God,the process of spiritual perfection.
Mohammed Rustom is Full Professor of Islamic Thought and Global Philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa,Canada and Director of the Carleton Centre for the Study of Islam. His research interests include Arabic and Persian Sufi literature,Islamic philosophy,Qur’anic exegesis,translation theory,and cross-cultural philosophy.
In perennial philosophy,scientia sacra or sacred science is a form of spiritual knowledge that lies at the heart of both divine revelations and traditional sciences,embodying the very essence of every sacred tradition. It recognizes sources of knowledge beyond those accepted by modern epistemology,such as divine revelations and intellectual intuition. Intellectual intuition is believed to allow access to an innate knowledge of God,which is to be reawakened through the use of human intellect. The principles and doctrines of scientia sacra are derived from reason,revelation,and intellectual intuition,with the conviction that these sources of knowledge can be reconciled in a hierarchical order,and applied in the human quest to understand different orders of reality. Its objective is to show how the transmitted,intellectual,and physical sciences are related and unified within the framework of metaphysics,as traditionally defined.
In traditionalist philosophy,resacralization of knowledge is the reverse of the process of secularization of knowledge. The central premise is that knowledge is intimately connected to its perceived divine source—God or the Ultimate Reality—which has been severed in modern times. The process of resacralization of knowledge seeks to reinstate the role of intellect—the divine faculty believed to exist in every human being—above and beyond that of reason,as well as to revive the role of traditional metaphysics in acquiring knowledge—especially knowledge of God—by drawing on sacred traditions and sacred science that uphold divine revelations and the spiritual or gnostic teachings of all revealed religions. It aims to restore the primordial connection between God and humanity,which is believed to have been lost. To accomplish this,it relies on the framework of tawhid,which is developed into a comprehensive metaphysical perspective emphasizing the transcendent unity of all phenomena. Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr elaborated on the process of resacralization of knowledge in his book Knowledge and the Sacred,which was presented as Gifford Lectures in 1981.
Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present:Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy is a book by Seyyed Hossein Nasr,Iranian philosopher and University Professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University,including a comprehensive overview of Islamic philosophy from the 9th century to the present day.
