فصلنامه اندیشه دینی
پیاپی 23 (تابستان 1386)

Although Ibn Sina is known, as a great philosopher, some of his works imply some significant mystical and theosophical elements. In this article, Ibn Sina's viewpoints concerning the theory of "Essentialism" have been examined. Based on the mystic's reports, the Essentialists claim that despite of their differences in time occurrence and place and also the differences in the religious and cultural traditions, mystical experiences have some similarities. It seems evidently that Ibn Sina can be classified as an Essentialist, but at least he is different from them in the following two main cases: 1) Methodologically, Ibn Sina has a philosophical and aprior approach, but Essentialists, especially Stace, have a posteriori one. 2) Ibn Sina has not mentioned anything about the "paradoxicality", while Essentialists have. These significant differences result from the fact that Ibn Sina is a really noble philosopher and paradox can not have a position in a philosophical system. According to Ibn Sina, mystical experience is a kind of "immediate knowledge" in which the mystic extract the universally intellectual realities from the "Active Intellect". Because of the theoretical and practical perfection, the mystic achieves a degree which is called "Blessing Intellect" ("Aqle-Mostafad"). Afterward, it is connected to the active intellect, and because of this connection he can observe the universal realities. The mystical experience in Ibn Sina's opinion, is at most an objective experience in all parts of which the mystic can observe God. In other words, the mystic in his observations and experiences, can reach the "Unity of Intution", but not "Pantheism".

This paper is firstly concerned with schleiermacher's scientific biography in brief. Then by reviewing his most important book On Religion, his view about religion and being religious will be discussed in detail. It will also be discussed that by the term religion he means feeling of dependence to the Infinite and by the term religions he intends the individualized forms of the Religion. So, these two terms will be central for this paper. At the end we will have some criticism about his views concerning religion.

This article attempts to explain Mulla Sadra`s viewpoint concerning the philosophical principle: "Simple reality must be the whole things" and tries to show its effect in different chapters of Transcendent Philosophy.The necessary data for this essay is mostly collected from Mulla Sadra`s books. The author first tries to clarify Sadra's expressions and subject matters of this principle and then to analyze and justify it by other Sadra's principles. And finally we will discuss the results of this principle in Sadra's philosophical system and in understanding some mystical viewpoints and some teachings of the sacred texts concerning unity or multiplicity of the world, God's attributes and unity of being.

In this paper, two apparently different views of Mulla Sadra concerning the knowledge of corporeal beings will be discussed. Sometimes he states that material beings are a kind of darkness which is neither the subject and nor the object of knowledge. But in other cases he states that "being" and "knowledge" are simultaneous, so corporeal beings possess a degree of knowledge because they possess a degree of being. But considering the principles of his philosophy, we can discuss that these two views do not contradict each other.

Most Islamic thinking agree that the main aims of the prophet hood and sending of the prophets by God are giving people the knowledge concerning God, next world, monotheism, and moral facts, and leading human beings to felicity by self purification. But about the aims of the prophets concerning this world, there is not an agreement. There are two different viewpoints which will be discussed in this paper. The first is that the prophets aim to improve social, political and economic aspects of the society as well as the abovementioned goals. The other viewpoint limits their aims to the mentioned ones concerning the individuals.

The infallibility of the Prophet Muhammad has been accepted by almost all of the Muslim theologians. But the first ten verses of surat al-'Abas seem to be contrary to their attitudes. This paper will discuss firstly various comments of different interpretators of Quran in this relation, then criticizes them and finally gives a new interpretation of these ten verses which is consistent with the infallibility of the prophet Muhammad.