Ma`rifat Falsafi

The term, “ja‘l” (creation) has a number of meanings, but it is consensual among Muslim philosophers that its object is reality itself. But what exactly is reality itself? Is it existence, or quiddity, or becoming which is created? This article examines three major theories in this regard: those of Peripatetics, Ishrāqis, and the Transcendental Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. There is a dispute about the exact ideas of the Peripatetic and the Ishraqi schools; some ascribe to them the idea of the creation of quiddity, while others interpret their theories in a way that the creation of becoming could be understood, and still others believe that they meant existence was the object of creation. Mulla Sadra’s final theory in analyzing the cause-effect relation comes to the point that there is only one real and self-subsistence existence, and it is God’s essence, and others are His self-disclosures. On this basis, there will remain no room for createdness, because God’s existence is real which is beyond creation, and others have no real existence and stop short of creation.