Immediate Knowledge and Unification Structure The Bases and Views of Sadr al-Mutiallihīn about the Essence of Mystical Knowledge

Considering the principality of being and the gradation of being, the mystical particular unity, 'motion in substance of and the intensifying motion of the soul, return of all sciences to immediate knowledge and [finally] the necessity of the unity of intellect, intellectual and the intelligible, Sadr al-Mutiallihīn believes that human being gradually and through a gradual graded process and the 'motion in the category of substance' becomes intensified, being promoted in the degrees of practical reason and by increasing his/her knowledge and becoming united with them; he/she becomes united with the external referents of his/her real knowledge and thus achieves the first degrees of mystical knowledge which is fulfilled with the partial unification of human with some existential aspects of the active intellect (or some of the existing forms of the active intellect) and continues this path until he/she gradually becomes completely united with all the existent forms and aspects of the active intellect; at the same time besides profiting the two existences (soul and the active intellect) from their own [independent] self in-itself, they become united with each other and will profit from the same degree of being due to the communicational aspect of the soul with active intellect. Along with the complete annihilation of the initial individualization of the mystic, in the annihilation positions, and the intuition of the mystical personal unity in that position, mystical knowledge will imply the complete unity of the mystic with his/her subject of mysticism (personal unity) and will have a single-aspect structure (consisted of only the knowledge or only the known). This perspective of Sadrā is in contrast with the background of this discussion in Islamic philosophy and he is affected by Ibn-Arabī and his followers in this regard.