The Status of Women from Mulla Sadra’s Viewpoint

The main point of this article is Mulla Sadra’s view about women.
Although interpretation of the nature of woman and explaining the mystery of her differences from men has not been an independent problem for Mulla Sadra, the answer to this question can be implied from his ontological and humanistic principles. From Mulla Sadra’s philosophical point of view, humanness, in the famous Peripatetic interpretation, is not the entire reality of human beings and what distinguishes between man and other creatures is not speech in the meaning of “intellection”, rather, it is speech in the meaning of “sacred rational soul”. The entire reality of human beings is determined in light of the intensifying substantial motion of this rational soul toward the highest ranks of existent, in such a way that each one of men and women would turn into a continuous unit that has the capacity for movement from the lowest ranks of being to borders of infinity. The criterion for superiority in this movement is enjoyment of the ranks of knowledge and action. Accordingly, the sexual and gender differences are not in themselves a factor of superiority of either man or woman over another; rather, it is the enjoyment of different ranks of existence in light of actualization of knowledge and action that indicates each human being’s level of felicity and perfection. In the ending part of the article a challenging phrase of Mulla Sadra about women and the justifications brought up for it would also be surveyed.