Explanation and Analyzing of the Quiddity in Gheisari and Tabatabaei’s Perspectives

The question of “quiddity” is among the most fundamental and important discussions in Islamic philosophy and Gnosticism; but nowadays, because of an existential perspective, the recognition of the concept of quiddity and the attention paid to it are left aside and became an inferior issue. Moreover, it is undeniable that using of the existent potentialities in Islamic philosophy and mysticism will help them to grow and flourish. The importance of this issue, for example in the philosophical system of Mulla Sadra can be seen. This article tries at first to clarify the concept of quiddity in Qeysari’s works, - one of the most important scholars and commentators of theoretical Sufism- and states that according to him, fixed entities which are in God’s knowledge are the quiddities. Then, this article tends to clarify the precise concept of quiddities in Allameh Tabataba’I’s writings – The founder of Neo-Sadraean philosophical system – and finally, it analyzes the concept of quiddity according to Qeysari and Allameh Tabatabaei’s. The authors believe that the quiddities in Qeysari’s works are defined as the immutable entities in God’s knowledge and that humankind’s knowledge is a shadow of God’s. According to Allameh Tabataba’i the quiddities are the limits of particular objective existences in the subject which are the result of an interaction between the subject and the object and are actualized in humankind’s knowledge as the abstractive existences.