Psychology, eschatology, and imagination in Mulla Sadra Shirazi's commentary on the hadith of awakening.

This article examines the most salient aspects of the commentary upon the well-known 'hadith of awakening' by the famous Safavid philosopher, Mulla Sadra Shirazi. In the context of his commentary upon this tradition, Sadra discusses the nature of imaginal forms and provides a general explanation of how death is a type of awakening. He then goes on to tackle a problem in the history of Islamic philosophy concerning the modality of rewards and punishments in the Afterlife. Here, Sadra challenges some of the eschatological views of Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, while drawing upon both Ibn ''Arabi's teachings on imagination and his own philosophical genius to systematically demonstrate how, in the final analysis, our bodily deaths mark an awakening to the reality of our selves on the plane of imagination.

Keywords: Mulla Sadra; Islamic philosophy; Islamic perspectives on death, sleep, and dreaming; imaginal forms; destiny of souls; perception; awakening.

"People are asleep; when they die, they awaken" (al-nas niyam fa-idhA matu intabahu). This tradition, which will be referred to as the hadith of awakening, suggests an affinity between this worldly life (hayat al-dunya) and the state of sleeping. Since death in the eyes of Muslims is indeed a type of awakening from the sleep of heedlessness which characterizes human existence, the hadith of awakening could not but capture the imagination of Islam's foremost thinkers since it succinctly summarizes the essence of Islamic eschatological teachings. (1) Allusions to this tradition in Islamic mystical literature abound. (2) Yet very few authors have commented upon its significance at great length. A noteworthy exception is Mulla Sadra Shirazi (d. 1050/1641), who wrote an important commentary upon it. (3) Sadra's commentary on this hadith is a unique contribution to Islamic thought because it brings together some of the most important psychological and eschatological ideas in Islamic philosophy and theoretical Sufism from the 4th/10th to the 11th/17th centuries. (4) In the pages which follow I will therefore discuss the most important features of Mulla Sadra's commentary on the hadith of awakening, highlighting how one of Islam's most important philosophers was able to expound his teachings on psychology, eschatology, and imagination within the context of a hadith commentary.

Forms in this World and the Next World

Mulla Sadra begins his commentary on the hadith of awakening by stating that the nature of forms in the Afterlife, while resembling the imaginal forms experienced in our dream state or in mirrors in this life, are not essentially the same: "The existence of things (umur) in the Afterlife, although resembling the existence of forms which people see in sleep or in a mirror in one respect, are not so [in actuality]." (5) This is due to the fact that in the Afterlife, the things people see and experience are imaginal representations of the fruits of their actions in this world. But those forms which appear to us in sleep are not real in the way the images we experience in our waking state are, nor are they real in the way the forms presented to us in the Afterlife will be. Because of these considerations Sadra goes on to say that "the existent form (al-surah al-mawjudah) [which appears] in sleep and in the mirror is an impotent thing whose appearance is pure fancy (al-hikayah al-mahdah)." (6) Dreams imaginally represent to the dreamer the contents of his conscience. The same idea holds true for objects reflected in mirrors. The reflection of an object in a mirror is not the object itself. At the same time, it does capture something of the true nature of the object placed before the mirror. If it were otherwise, people would not, for example, brush their hair in front of mirrors, nor would they rely upon them for any representations of reality. The forms people receive in their dreams and in mirrors are therefore both real and unreal. In the Afterlife, those things which are the imaginalizations of our actions in this world, or, rather, the things which are represented to us as the 'physical' manifestations of our deeds here on earth, also reflect something of the reality with which we were engaged in the previous world. On the other hand, these forms are not simply representations, as are the objects reflected in mirrors or those images produced in dreams. They are more real than either of these, since these forms belong to a different order of reality:

   As for forms (suwar) which exist in the Afterlife, they are
   things potent with existence and intense in effects. Their
   relation to worldly forms is like the relation of sensory forms
   to existent forms in sleep, among which are the remnants
   from the impressions of sense-intuition and the storehouses of
   imagination. (7)

Thus Mulla Sadra begins his commentary by discussing the correlation between the things in the Afterlife and those things which are experienced in a dream state or reflected in mirrors. He then shows how the Afterlife actually deals with real forms whereas the contents of dreams or objects reflected in mirrors do not. Why he frames the discussion in this way is not readily apparent. It is only when he introduces the hadith of awakening that the significance of his opening lines emerges:

   It is just as it has been related in the hadith about his saying
   (God bless him and his family), "People are asleep; when they
   die, they awaken." So it is known from this that existence in
   [this] world is sleep and life therein is a dream. (8)

It therefore becomes clear that what Mulla Sadra was trying to do by juxtaposing the existence of things in the Afterlife with the existence of such things as the objects of our dreams in this life was to provide an analogy of the relative unreality of this world. When we awaken from our dreams in this world, we look back upon them and marvel at how 'real' they seemed while they were taking place. Our dreams seem so real because they capture something of the reality with which we are familiar in our waking state. But the forms in our dreams are nothing but the imaginalized projections of the furniture which makes up 'reality' in our waking state. Likewise, when we die, our present waking state will seem like nothing but a dream in relation to our new form of existence. Just as we awaken to 'reality' in this life from our dream state, so too do we awaken to the reality of the Afterlife from the dream of this life when we die. Yet the things in the Afterlife will convey to us something of the reality with which we were familiar in the previous life, and this is the point that Sadra would like to drive home.

The Soul's Imaginal Potency and its Awakening

As was seen above, Mulla Sadra has in mind the imaginal nature of the contents of our dreams when he calls them 'pure fancy.' Yet he is also aware of the fact that these imaginal representations in our dreams are connected to the individual soul. Such images belong to the contiguous imagination (al-khayal al-muttasil), as opposed to the discontiguous imagination (al-khayal al-munfasil). The former term denotes the fact that there is a subjective element to the imaginal forms presented to us. In other words, the imaginal objects which appear to us are intimately connected to our personality, human experience, and nature. The latter term, on the other hand, denotes the fact that there is an objective element to the imaginal forms presented to us. But those images which come to us from the world of imagination objectively are nonetheless conditioned by the 'field' of our contiguous imagination. It is therefore the contiguous imagination which can produce forms in this world and the next world. When the soul dies, it simply awakens to the reality of imagination itself. It is here that Ibn 'Arabi (d. 638/1240) has immediate relevance. In his works he makes it very clear that the dream state of this world is nothing but a dream within a dream. (10) When people pass from this life to the next, they move on to another dream state. This time, however, the dream in which they partake is seen for what it really is. They will never cease being in a dream state, since existence itself is nothing but God's dream. For Ibn 'Arabi, this dream is what allows for existence to emerge, for if there were no dreaming, there would be no creation.

Souls which depart the world and are still very much drawn to the body will not be able to clearly make their way about the terrain of the Afterlife. Their potency will be weakened by their attachments to those material forms--now non-existent--to which they were attached during their earthly existence. On the other hand, those souls which are able to free themselves from the shackles of materiality during their stay on earth will, once freed from the body, be able to actualize their full potentialities, and will therefore be able to perceive the forms in the next world with utmost clarity. But the clarity of the soul's vision is always colored by one's contiguous imagination, as has been demonstrated above. Yet insofar as the soul remains pinned down by matter, the forms it imaginalizes will be blurred. They will be distorted images of the true nature of things:

   So long as the soul remains attached to this dense, darkish
   body--comprised as it is of contraries--it will not be possible
   for it to bring about the forms and shapes which it desires and
   wills, but will [bring about] impotent and bodily existence
   [which proceeds] from the station of remnants and traces, from
   which the sought after effects do not result. (11)

What Mulla Sadra is saying here appears to be contrary to the influential doctrine of the soul developed by Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037). For Ibn Sina, the soul is not a composite thing (murakkab) but is simple (basit). (12) Because it is simple, it cannot be composed of both form and matter. The soul for Ibn Sina does not consist of matter and is therefore pure form. Since it is pure form, it can only possess actuality (fil), and never potentiality (quwwah). (13) If this is the case, then the function of the soul is purely active. Ibn Sina held that the state of actuality which characterizes the soul obtains even when it is attached to the body (the soul is not 'attached' to the body essentially but rather accidentally). Sadra maintains that insofar as the soul is in some way attached to the body it will remain only potential. The tenebrous matter of the body will not allow the soul to actualize its potentialities because of the nature of the body itself:

   We have alluded to the fact that the descent of something
   from its original disposition (fitrah) (14) [entails] its becoming
   compounded and weakened. These senses, because they are
   compounded, [act] as if they are the existent attributes of the
   soul in its essence, which becomes satiated with one [mode]
   of existence and compounded in the body. Weakness is what
   necessitates compoundedness and division, like the pulse whose
   [speed] multiplies and rapidly pulsates because of [the person's]
   weak state. (15)

In other words, so long as the soul is attached to the body, it is in some way to be understood as compounded and therefore not active but merely potential. It will thus not be able to bring about the true imaginalized forms appropriate to it. But souls free from the body, that is, souls which are not compounded, are active, and can thus produce forms in accordance with their true natures. Such souls will be felicitous in the next world because their knowledge will be active while their sense perception will be potent, this being an inversion of their state while attached to the body on earth: "When the soul returns from this world to its original disposition and essence, its perception of things will become its very potency (qudrah); its knowledge will become active and its sense perception potent." (16)

As the soul rises away from the material realm and intensifies in being (wujud) through the process of substantial motion or change (al-harakah al-jawhariyyah), it partakes in higher degrees of perception (idrak). (17) This is why Sadra also states that some souls can witness the things of the Other World even while still attached to the body. Although Sadra does not speak of 'perception' as such, he does say that such a state is possible for some souls on account of their sublimity and their proximity to God, as well as

   [t]heir shaking off the dust of these sense perceptions from the
   hems of their souls, and their not looking upon the forms of
   this [worldly] abode except with the eye of derision. None of
   the world's affairs occupy them, and no station veils them, nor
   does buying or selling divert them from God's remembrance. They
   are in contemplation of the matters related to the next world,
   which are like the active principles in their essence, attribute
   and action. (18)

Such souls are able to exercise what Sadra refers to as free disposal (tasarruf) over the two configurations (al-nash'atayn). (19) Sadra's usage of the term tasarruf is another way of stating that the unbounded soul will become active. Insofar as the soul is not 'bound' to the body--although still attached to it in this worldly life--it is uncompounded and can, in turn, exercise free disposal over the images it brings about. Such unbounded souls are therefore fully awake and "have the ability to existentiate forms and to bring about entities. This is because the authority of the next world and [the fact of] their being resurrected from these trial-filled graves is manifest upon their hearts." (20) What such souls experience in this world, every other soul will experience in the Afterlife. At death every soul shall indeed awaken:

   It is known that every soul, whether it be felicitous or miserable,
   while it is disengaged from the body and travels to this abode--and
   is taken from being occupied with the company of others,
   returning to its essence and its world--its inner faculties [will]
   become powerful and piercing because of [its] perception of the
   matters related to the next world, as in His Most High's saying,
   [You were in heedlessness concerning this] but We have now
   lifted your covering from you, so today your sight is piercing! (Q.
   50:22). The unseen forms which store the results of the soul's
   actions, its ambitions, the intentions of its disposition and the
   aims and shortcomings of its aspirations, will be witnessed. (21)

The second part of Mulla Sadra's commentary on the hadith of awakening is a kind of polemic against another towering figure of Islamic thought, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi (d. 587/1191). At issue here is Sadra's contention with a notion in Islamic philosophy concerning the soul's attachment to one of the celestial bodies after it departs from its terrestrial body. Sadra already explained how the human soul will awaken after departing the body. But what he has not discussed is the question of the different types of souls and their corresponding states of awareness once they are separated from the body. It is clear that some souls will be more awake than others. Yet, insofar as death is an awakening as such, each soul must go through a process of awakening appropriate to its own nature.

In earlier Islamic philosophy some held the position that non-philosophical or non-intellectual souls would encounter imaginalized forms of rewards and punishments in the Afterlife. Why this was even an issue is the result of the ambiguous nature of the destiny of the souls of non-philosophers exposited by the first Neoplatonic Islamic philosopher, Abu Nasr al-Farabi (d. 339/950). Al-Farabi believed that many of the souls of non-philosophers who were wicked would simply perish after their bodily deaths. (22) Such a position could not characterize the wider perspective of Islamic philosophy's eschatological teachings because Islam places so much emphasis on the fact that all souls will live on after their bodily deaths. It was through the conception of imagination that a solution was offered which would allow for the souls of non-philosophers, whether good or evil, to continue on into the Afterlife, experiencing a posthumous state commensurate to their non-intellectual natures.

The way this problem was resolved was alluded to by Ibn Sina in the section devoted to metaphysics (ilahiyyat) in his monumental Shifa. It was believed that in the Afterlife non-intellectual souls would attach to one of the celestial bodies in order to imaginalize their rewards or punishments. Discussing the views of those scholars who upheld this position, Ibn Sina states:

   The instruments [these scholars go on to explain] by means of
   which [such souls] are enabled to imagine would be something
   that belongs to celestial bodies. They thus experience all that
   they have been told in the [terrestrial] world about the states of
   the grave, the resurrection, and the good in the hereafter. (23)

This is in fact a point to which Ibn Sina gives credence but is not dogmatic about. He does not state whether or not he adheres to it and Sadra notes this in his commentary. (24) But in the case of Suhrawardi, the situation is quite different. As Sadra himself remarks, he is particularly at odds with Suhrawardi since he upheld belief in a version of this position. (25) In his Talwihat Suhrawardi states:

   As for what some of the scholars have said about there being a
   celestial body which acts as a place for the imaginalizations [of
   either rewards or punishments] for groups amongst the blessed
   and the damned--this being so because the intellectual world
   was not comprehended by them and [because] their attachment
   to [terrestrial] bodies was not severed, while still [having] the
   [imaginal] faculty from whose standpoint the soul needs to be
   attached to the body--this is sound. As for the blessed, they
   shall imaginalize wondrous and delightful images and forms
   and shall enjoy them. In this way shall the case be with all that
   is enjoyed [by them], in our opinion. (26)

Suhrawardi, although acknowledging the general truth of this idea, only goes on to explain the state of the blessed and not the damned. Sadra is aware that Suhrawardi in fact disagrees with the view of his predecessors that the damned should attach to the same celestial bodies as the blessed. (27) This is because the celestial bodies to which the blessed attach are themselves noble and luminous and thus cannot allow for the souls of the damned to attach to them. (28) In order to overcome this problem Suhrawardi says that the damned will go to an interstitial world (barzakh) in order to undergo the imaginalizations of their wicked deeds on earth: "Therein shall their evil actions be imaginalized for them [in the form of] images such as fire, biting snakes, stinging scorpions, and the [tree of] Zaqqum [whose fruit] is eaten." (29)

Sadra's Response to Suhrawardi

In his response to Suhrawardi Mulla Sadra says that the only way good non-philosophical souls can be attached to celestial bodies is positionally (wad'i); that is, where the body acts as a type of mirror which reflects the soul's state to itself. (30) Since a soul's state reflects into the mirror of the celestial body, the image which is reflected by it is an imaginalization of the state of the soul. (31) In other words, the celestial bodies are unable to affect the souls attached to them. But the celestial bodies, owing to the fact that they play a purely passive and representational role for that which is placed before them, cannot be said to actually reflect the imaginalizations of the soul. Sadra explains why this is the case:

   Assuming that they [the celestial bodies] are in fact mirror-like
   (mira'i), the forms impressed upon their mirrors would be the
   imaginalizations of the celestial spheres (aflak) and whatever is
   under their control, not the imaginalizations of these souls. So
   how can they state that it is possible for these forms to be that
   which the blessed enjoy or [that] through which the damned
   are punished? (32)

Sadra then says that the soul is the locus of imaginalizations, which means that it need not attach to any type of celestial body. For him, the events which take place during man's posthumous state occur within the human soul itself:

   Rather, the truth is that the forms of enjoyment for the
   blessed and punishment for the damned will be in the second
   configuration (al-nash'ah al-thaniyah) just as the true, Prophetic
   Sacred law has promised. [...] Their loci are the souls of these
   two groups. (33)

After expressing his disagreement with Suhrawardi concerning the destiny of good non-philosophical souls, Sadra draws on the authority of one of the key members of the school of Ibn 'Arabi, Dawud al-Qaysari (d. 750/1350). (34) He quotes al-Qaysari as saying that the bodies to which the souls become attached are nothing but the actual imaginalizations of the acts people performed during their earthly existence. (35) He then ends his discussion by quoting from the sixty-third chapter of Ibn 'Arabi's Futuhat. In this chapter Ibn 'Arabi discusses the nature of the barazkh, likening the entire situation of existence to a horn of light. (36) The things which will be perceived in the Afterlife, Ibn 'Arabi tells us, will appear to us as imaginalized representations of our actions, depending on the degree of the light's intensity which colors them within the horn: "All of the things which man will perceive after death in the barzakh will only be perceived through the very forms in which they are in the horn, and through its light, which is true perception." (37) Souls closer to the tip of the horn will be characterized with more light. The imaginal images which will appear to these souls will be clearer and truer than those imaginal images which appear to souls closer to the wider end of the horn. Sadra then cites Ibn 'Arabi's closing lines of this chapter:

   Every man in the barzakh will be recompensed with what he has
   earned, [being] confined to the forms of his actions until he is
   taken on the Day of Resurrection from these forms to the last
   configuration (al-nash'ah al-Akhirah). And God speaks the truth,
   and He guides the way (Q. 33:4). (38)

Mulla Sadra clearly distances himself from Suhrawardi's position that good non-philosophical souls will attach to one of the celestial bodies in order to experience the imaginalizations of their good deeds. What is interesting to note is that Sadra's general position concerning the imaginalized state of the Afterlife is almost identical to Suhrawardi's position concerning the destiny of wicked non-philosophical souls. Sadra, like Ibn 'Arabi, believed that souls must attach to bodies in order to experience the imaginalizations of their actions. But this occurs for every individual soul, not simply for the non-philosophical ones, let alone the wicked non-philosophical ones. These bodies to which the souls attach in the Afterlife are formed in the barzakh, (39) and are therefore subtle and psychic, not material. (40) The most important point which obtains from Sadra's 'critique' of Suhrawardi is that Sadra holds the position that souls become the very mirrors which reflect the imaginalizations of their actions to themselves. That bodies are still required for the souls' imaginalizations to come about should not be confused with Sadra's disapproval of Suhrawardi's belief in the destiny of good non-philosophical souls becoming attached to celestial bodies. There, as we have seen, the celestial bodies somehow become mirrors which reflect the souls' imaginalizations to themselves. Yet for Sadra, upon dying each individual will awaken to his own reality reflected in the mirror of his soul.

(1.) The hadith of awakening is often ascribed to the Prophet or Imam Ali. It is not to be found in the major Sunni hadith collections. In his Ahadith-i mathnawi (Tehran: Chap-khanah-yi Danishgah, 1956), 181 (# 433), Badi al-Zaman Furuzanfar notes that this tradition is attributed to the Prophet by Ibrahim b. Ali al-Husri (d. 413/1022) in the latter's Zahr al-AdAb, 4 vols. (Cairo: Al-Maktabah al-TijAriyyah al-KubrA, 1953), 1:60. For an attribution of this tradition to Ali in Shii sources, see Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar, 110 vols. (Tehran: JawwAd al-Alawi wa Muhammad Ckhwundi, 1956-1972), 4:43. The hadith of awakening does not appear to be cited in the Nahj al-balAghah.

(2.) See Muhyi al-Din b. al-'Arabi, Al-FutChAt al-makkiyyah, 4 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Sadir, n.d), 1:207, 313; 2:313, 351, 379, 380; 4:19, 404, 434 (cited twice); Idem, Fusus al-hikam, ed. A.A. Afifi (Beirut: DAr al-Kutub al-'Arabi, 1946), 99, 159; Abu Ibrahim Mustamli Bukhari, Sharh-i taarruf (Lucknow, 1910), 3:98; Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, Ihya ulum al-din, 6 vols. (Beirut: DAr al-Wai, 1997), 1:15; 3:381; 4:246, 260; Idem, Al-Munqidh min al-aalAl, ed. A.H. Mahmud (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub, 1968), 79; Ahmad al-Ghazali, RisAlat al-tayr, 6, in Ghazali, Majmuahyi Athar-i farsi-yi Ahmad Ghazali, ed. A. Mujahid, 2nd ed. (Tehran: Mua'assasah-yi Intisharat wa Chap-i Danishgah-i Tihran, 1991), 218; Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani, Tamhidat, 108, in Hamadani, Musannafat, ed. A. Osseiran (Tehran: Chap-khanah-yi Danishgah, 1962); Aziz al-Din Nasafi, Sukhan-i ahl-i wahdat dar bayan-i alam, 271, in Nasafi, Le livre de l'homme parfait, ed. M. Mole (Tehran: Departement d'Iranologie de l'Institut Franco-Iranien, 1962). As noted by Furuzanfar (op. cit.), the hadith of awakening is alluded to by Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 672/1273) in book 3, line 172 of his famous Mathnawi. See Rumi, The Mathnawi of Jalaluddin Rumi, ed. and trans. R.A. Nicholson, 8 vols. (London: Luzac, 1924-1940), 3:99 (Persian), 4:97 (English). Outside Sufi literature, the tradition appears (unattributed) in the Rasaail of the Ikhwan al-Safa' (fl. 4th/10th c.). See Ikhwan al-Safa, Al-Rasa'il, 4 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Sadir, 1957), 2:455.

(3.) Although Mulla Sadra wrote a partial hadith commentary on al-Kulayni's (d. 329/941) Usul al-kafi (available in four volumes as Sharh usCl al-kafi, ed. M. KhwAjawi (Tehran: Mu'assasah-yi Mutala'at wa Tahqiqat-i Farhangi, 1366 A.H. solar)), his commentary on the hadith of awakening is to be found in his Tafsir al-Qur'an al-karim, ed. M. Khwajawi, 7 vols. (Qom: Intisharat-i Bidar, 1987-1990), 5:239-248. The commentary occurs in the context of Sadra's discussion of verse 57 of Surah yasin. According to one of the past century's leading authorities of Islamic philosophy, Allamah Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Sadra's commentary on the hadith of awakening was written as a separate treatise. See Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, "Iadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Shirazi: the renewer of Islamic Philosophy in the 11th/17th Century," trans. S.H. Nasr in Nasr (ed.), Mulla Sadra Commemorative Volume (Tehran: Danishgah-i Tihran, 1961), 33. See also S.H. Nasr, The Transcendent Theosophy of Iadr al-Din Shirazi, 48; 52, n. 27. Sadra cites the hadith elsewhere in his oeuvre, often attributing it to Ali. See, for example, his Al-Hikmat al-muta'aliyah fi al-asfar al-aqliyyah alarba'ah, 9 vols. (Beirut, Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi, 2002, repr. ed.), 7:28; Mafatih al-ghayb, ed. M. Khwajawi (Beirut, Mua'assasah al-Tarikh al-'Arabi, 2002, repr. ed.), 81; Tafsir, 2:5, 6:202. In his Al-Mabdaa wa al-ma'ad, ed. Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1976), 427, Sadra seems to attribute this tradition to the Prophet. He also cites it at least one other time in this work, namely on p. 409, this time without attributing it to anyone. See Sayyid Sadruddin Taheri, "A Critical Study of Resurrection in the Qur'anic Commentary and Philosophical Ideas of Sadr al-Muta'allihin (sic.)." Islam-West Philosophical Dialogue: The Papers Presented at the World Congress on Mulla Sadra (May, 1999, Tehran), vol. 10 (Eschatology, Exegesis, Hadith) (Tehran: Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute, 2005), 59. In the context of his treatment of Sadra's views on resurrection, Taheri discusses a few passages from Sadra's commentary on the hadith of awakening. See Taheri, op. cit., 50, 66-67.

(4.) For a survey of the nature and development of theoretical or doctrinal Sufism, see S. H. Nasr, "Theoretical Gnosis and Doctrinal Sufism and their Significance Today" in Transcendent Philosophy 6 (2005): 1-36.

(5.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:23 . Unless otherwise stated, translations are my own.

(6.) Ibid.

(7.) Ibid.

(8.) Ibid.

(9.) See Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1 7), 219-224; William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-'Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 116-117. For Mulla Sadra's teachings on imagination, see Henry Corbin, En islam iranien, vol. 4 (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), 106-122; Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra, trans. Jeff Fort (Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2006), 283-345.

(10.) See Ibn 'Arabi, Fusus, -100; Toshihiko Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 7-22.

(11.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:240.

(12.) Abu Ali b. Sina, Avicenna's De Anima, ed. F. Rahman (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 231. In his Avicenna's Psychology (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 109, Rahman rightly observes that Ibn Sina's doctrine of the soul is, in the final analysis, a combination of Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian notions of the soul.

(13.) Ibn Sina, Avicenna's De Anima, 231.

(14.) For the soul's 'second fitrah' in Sadra's eschatology, see Maria Massi-Dakake, "The Soul as Barzakh: Substantial Motion and Mulla Sadra's Theory of Human Becoming" in Muslim World 94 (2004), 124.

(15.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:241. See also William Chittick, "Eschatology" in Islamic Spirituality: Foundations, ed. S.H. Nasr (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 389-391.

(16.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:241.

(17.) For perception in Sadra, see S.G. Safavi (ed.), Perception According to Mulla Sadra (London: Salman Azadeh, 2002).

(18.) Ibid. The words in italics allude to Q. 24:37.

(19.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:241. Tasarruf becomes a key technical term in later Islamic thought, largely due to Ibn 'Arabi's influence. For tasarruf in Ibn 'Arabi's writings, see Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, , 114. By 'the two configurations' (al-nash'atayn), Sadra has in mind the configuration of this world, or 'the first configuration' (al-nash'ah alula, referred to in Q. 56:62) and the configuration of the next world, or 'the last configuration' (al-nash'ah al-ukhra, referred to in Q. 29:20, 53:47). See Sadra, The Elixir of the Gnostics, trans. William Chittick (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2003), 98, n. 31; Idem, The Wisdom of the Throne, trans. James Morris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 250, n. 302. For Sadra's discussion of 'the three configurations' (the intellect, the soul, and sense perception/nature) and their correspondence to this world, the next world, and the world of the Command respectively, see The Elixir of the Gnostics, 11.

(20.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:241.

(21.) Ibid., 5:242.

(22.) Majid Fakhry, Al-Farabi: Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism: His Life, Works and Influence (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002), 11 .

(23.) Ibn Sina, The Metaphysics of the Healing, trans. M.E. Marmura (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), 356.

(24.) Sadra ascribes this same view to Ghazali (d. 505/1111) at Tafsir, 5:243. In order to refute Ibn Sina's position on the non-resurrection of the body, Ghazali hypothetically argued in his Tahafut al-falasifah that a 'replica' of the human body would be reproduced for the soul to attach to it at the time of resurrection. See M.E. Marmura, "Al-Ghazali on Bodily Resurrection and Causality in the Tahafut and the Iqtisad" in Aligarh Journal of Islamic Thought 2 (1989), 46-75, reprinted in M.E. Marmura, Probing in Islamic Philosophy (New York: Global Academic Publishing, 2005), 273-299.

(25.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:243.

(26.) Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, Oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques, eds. H. Corbin (vols. 1-2) and S.H. Nasr (vol. 3) (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1976-1977, repr. ed.), 1:89-90. Sadra cites most of the passage in question at Tafsir, 5:242-243.

(27.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:243.

(28.) Suhrawardi, op. cit., 1:90, cited by Sadra at Tafsir, 5:243.

(29.) Suhrawardi, op. cit., 1:90-91, cited by Sadra at Tafsir, 5:243. The last part of the sentence literally translates as follows: "and [the tree] of Zaqqum which is drunk." The tree of Zaqqum is indirectly referred to in Q. 17:60 and explicitly mentioned in Q. 37:62-66, Q. 44:43-46, and Q. 56:52-53.

(30.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:243-244.

(31.) Ibid., 5:244-245.

(32.) Ibid., 5:244.

(33.) Ibid., 5:246. 'The second configuration' is a synonym for 'the last configuration.' See n. 1 above.

(34.) For the life and thought of Qaysari, see Mehmet Bayrakdar, La Philosophie Mystique chez Dawud de Kayseri (Ankara: Editions Ministere de la Culture, 1990).

(35.) Sadra, Tafsir, 5:247. Khwajawi notes that Sadra attributes this statement to Ibn 'Arabi in two of his other works (Al-Asfar and Al-Mabda wa al-ma'ad). Khwajawi traces the statement back to al-Qaysari's famous introduction to his commentary on Ibn 'Arabi's Fusus. See Tafsir, 5:247, n. 1.

(36.) A diagram of the horn of light can be found in Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, 16. The section where Ibn 'Arabi discusses the horn of light in this chapter is translated in Chittick, op. cit., 122-123.

(37.) Ibn 'Arabi, Futuhat, 1:307. Sadra cites this passage, worded slightly differently, at Tafsir, 5:248. Cf. Corbin, En islam iranien, vol. 4, 107 ff.

(38.) Ibn 'Arabi, Futuhat, 1:307. This entire passage, minus the Qur'anic verse, is cited by Sadra at Tafsir, 5:248.

(39.) See Chittick, "Eschatology", 389-391.

(40.) See Massi-Dakake, op. cit., 124-127.

Mohammed Rustom is a doctoral candidate in Islamic thought at the University of Toronto. He wishes to thank Michael Marmura, Sebastian Guenther, Sajjad Rizvi, Bobby Bakhtiarynia, Gyongi Hegedus, and Harry Fox for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. Email: [e-mail]