Ma`rifat Falsafi

Those philosophers who are adherents of Mulla Sadra believe in gradation in orders of existence; in other words, they believe in unity of existence and at the same time in plurality of existence. On the contrary, mystics and Islamic sufis believe in personal unity of existence; that is, they regard existence as a personal unit which is the very existence of God Almighty and consider beings other than God as having a metaphorical and figurative existence, not a real existence. On the other hand, the philosophers believe in the plurality of existence and at the same time its unity. In correspondences between the late Sayyid Ahmad Karbalaie and Haj Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Isfahani (known as ‘Company’) in this regard, the former defended the mystics’ view while the latter defended the philosophers’ view. Allama Tabatabaie wrote annotations on those correspondences and, finally, supported the mystics’ view. He maintained that the philosophers’ argument on gradation of existence leads, in effect, to the mystics’ view. Indeed, the very argument of gradation leads us to personal unity of existence and negation of real plurality. Ayatollah Jawadi also believed that mysticism is based on personal unity of existence and philosophy is based on negation of real plurality of existence. In mysticism, the pure existence is the existence of One Being, and there is no other being along with it or in higher or lower order independently, and that the restricted or limited beings that are assumed are the signs and manifestations of the Necessary Being. In this article, we investigate and review the views of those two scholars and, finally, we prove the rightness of the philosophers’ view.