The Fall: A Ladder to the Infinity of Ascent (The Fall in the Transcendent Philosophy)

There are a variety of interpretations and esoteric commentaries written to commend and condemn Adam’s fall. However, it is necessary to discuss and investigate which interpretation is more compatible with his station of prophethood and vicegerency and is more accurate and well-founded. In this paper, the writers argue that, among the several existing interpretations, those which support and commend his fall are more defensible than those criticizing it. Moreover, they try to provide an answer to the question of whether one can consider a necessity aspect for the fall. In the view of the people of knowledge, particularly Mullā Ṣadrā, several gifts and blessings were realized due to Adam’s fall, including the emergence of multiple hidden borderlines in the natural world; land development; population increase; Man’s perfection in the light of love, gnosis, and act until attaining the unique station of divine vicegerency, and, particularly, the end of the world of being; the rise of the perfect Muhammedan man, the end of all prophets and the People of his House, in the form of human beings; etc. Therefore, Adam’s fall was not only a praiseworthy phenomenon but also a necessary act which must have been necessarily realized relying on God’s pre-eternal and creative will so that it could serve human beings as a ladder to take them from the nadir of descent to the infinity of ascent.