A Comparative Study of the Whatness of Time and the Temporal Origination of the World in Fakhr al-Din Razi and Mulla Sadra

One of the most important issues which should be addressed before examining the arguments on the originatedness or temporal pre-eternity of the world is what mutikallimun and philosophers mean by originatedness and temporal eternity. This question by itself is based on another question as to what they mean by time. Owing to his mastery of kalami and philosophical views and following a critical approach, Fakhr al-Din Razi analyzes and compares the views of mutikallimun and philosophers about the originatedness and temporal pre-eternity of the world and their arguments in this regard and critically reviews the roots and the conceptual and assertoric principles of the two sides with respect to this issue. He believes that mutikallimun’s interpretation of time and temporal origination is absurd. Moreover, he rejects philosophers’ definition of time as to the amount of motion and a continuous quantity and, unlike the common belief, maintains that time is a disjunctive quantity. In contrast to other mutikallimun, he doubts the temporal originatedness of the world of intellects and immaterial entities. Nevertheless, by criticizing the ideas of early mutikallimun and philosophers, Mulla Sadra tries to bring the views of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers and followers of other religions in unison with his own ideas, while his interpretation of temporal origination and his fundamental philosophical principles are not consistent with such a unison. This is because the concept of Sadrian temporal originatedness is based on the principiality of existence and trans-substantial motion, which were discussed neither in Greek philosophy nor tackled by Islamic mutikallimun. This paper does not intend to evaluate the arguments on origination or pre-eternity; rather, it explores the whatness of origination or temporal pre-eternity in Mulla Sadra and Fakhr al-Din Razi. The authors believe that their shared objection to mutikallimun and Peripatetic philosophers concerns their interpretation of time and temporal origination. However, the difference between these two thinkers arises from their own conceptions of the whatness of time and temporal origination.