Abstracts Philosophy, Religion, and Theology

EVALUATION OF `AQL IN THE ISLAMIC THEOLOGY BASED ON AN ANALYTIC STUDY OF MULLA ṢADRĀ’S COMMENTARY ON UṢŪL AL-KĀFĪ

by SeyedAmirHossein Asghari

A large and growing body of literature in the last five decades has investigated TranscendentPhilosophy of Mulla Sadrā (d.1640). However, far too little attention has been paid to his works on religious sciences in the contemporary scholarship. A vital aspect of the relationship between philosophy and religion in Sadrā’s system of thought is the concept of `aql. This study tries to examine how Sadrā evaluates the concept of `aql (intellect) both as the first created-being substance and human faculty in addition to their relation to revelation and prophecy. The aim is to determine the definition, cosmogony, ontology and epistemology of intellect according to Sadrā’s commentary on the opening chapter of Uṣūl al-Kāfī, namely kitàb al- ‘aql wa l-jahl. The result of this study indicates that Sadrā has established a balanced philosophical-intellectual and spiritual bridge between `aql and revelation to bring about a system of understanding the Scripture and Narration that is capable of being applied without tangling in the limitations of time and space.