Eternity, Perpetuity, and Time in the Cosmologies of Plotinus and Mīr Dāmād – Syed A. H. Zaidi

Abstract:

“The present piece focuses on the influence of Plotinus’ understanding of time and eternity as articulated in Plotinus’ third and fifth Enneads upon Mīr Dāmād’s(d. 1631–2) conception of eternity, perpetuity, and time found in his Book of Blazing Brands(Kitab al-Qabasāt).Although Mīr Dāmād’s conception of eternity, perpetuity, and time resembles that of Plotinus’ cosmologyand ontology, he departs from Plotinus’ hypostases in establishing strict parameters for each domain. Unlike Plotinus, Mīr Dāmād argues that the realm of eternity is reserved for God alone, while the realm of Perpetuity contains the Platonic Forms. For Mīr Dāmād, the realm of time is an effect of the realm of Perpetuity and a tool for human beings to understand how to measure eventsin the temporal world. Unlike many other Shī’ite philosophers, Mīr Dāmād’s articulation of these three cosmological realms incorporates thought found in the works of both prominent Sunni and Shī’ite scholars such as Ibn Sīnā, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghāzālī, Suhrawardī, and Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī. Although his most successful student, Mullā Ṣadrā Shirazī, had ultimately disagreed with his teacher’s cosmological doctrine, he remained influenced by the multitude of sources that his teacher had used”


ISLAMSKA KOSMOLOGIJA – William C. CHITTICK

U islamu su se razvila složena i prefnjena kosmološka učenja kako na osnovu islamskih izvora tako irazličitih domaćih svjetonazora predislamskih društava. Ono što islamsku kosmologiju čini izrazito islamskom jestečinjenica da ishodišno kur’ansko gledište objedinjuje i usklađuje preuzete koncepte. Izraz “islamska kosmologija”se može općenito razumjeti u značenju svjetonazora zabilježenog u Kur’anu i Hadisu te prihvaćenog izričito ilineizričito od strane većine muslimanâ. Užê se odnosi na različite teorije univerzuma koje su postepeno razvilimuslimanski mislioci. Autor u ovom pregledu navodi neke temeljne premise islamskih kosmoloških teorijapokušavajući opisati islamski kosmos onakav kakav su opažali muslimanski kosmolozi. On to čini govoreći o Bogui kosmosu, dva lûka postojanja i ljudskim bićima u kosmosu u smislu njihova namjesništva imajući u vidu da jeosnovni cilj kosmologije pokazati kako se božanska svojstva očituju u makrokosmosu i mikrokosmosu

Islamska_kosmologija

The Wisdom of Animals – William C. Chittick

Abstract:

“More than any other Muslim thinker, Ibn ¡Arabi dedicated his teachings to clarifying the presence of the divine wisdom in all things and the human necessity of conforming to that wisdom. The arguments he offers are at once metaphysical and scrip- tural, cosmological and psychological, scientific and ethical. He addresses every dimension of human and cosmic existence and speaks constantly of the inherent goodness of all of creation and the human duty to respect the rights (huq¬q) of all creatures – not simply the rights of God and the rights of our fellow beings. If there is a single scriptural theme to his writings, after tawh¨d, it is certainly the prophetic saying: “Give to each that has a right”

The Wisdom Of Animals (Chittick)

The Mosque – The Heart of Submission by RUSMIR – MAHMUTCEHAJIC

Abstract:

Man exists in space and time. At any space and time we can turn in
any number of potential directions—but none can bring us fulfillment,
for nothing that happens to us is enough in itself. But all boundedness
in space and time has the potential to direct us toward the Boundless,
that which lies beyond all boundaries. As each place receives us, each
moment leaves us behind: we are travelers in search of an outer world
and an innermost self that constantly eludes our grasp. As long as they
elude us, we are guests, not prisoners, in a world of signs which, near
and far, all point toward the Destination…….

(The Abrahamic Dialogues Series, No. 3) Rusmir Mahmutcehajic - The Mosque_ The Heart Of Submission (Abrahamic Dialogues)-Fordham University Press (2006)

The Epistle of Ya qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi on the Device for Dispelling Sorrows

ABSTRACT

“Although less technical philosophically than many of al-Kind‡¯’s known treatises, this Epistle remains basic for understanding the spirit that underlies his thinking. Socratic, yet very Kindian in spirit, this Epistle displays its author’s tendency to harmonize Greek philosophy and Islam, particularly as this relates to ethics, and his belief in man’s free will and reason. To him, sorrows may be caused either by our own actions or by the actions of others. It is up to us to choose to do or not to do what saddens us. Through reason we can eliminate some of the causes of sorrow when we perceive the intellectual world, and derive from it things desired. Though this Epistle has a significant share of the linguistic and stylistic complexities characteristic of al-Kind”

Al-Kindi, On The Device For Dispelling Sorrows (trans. Jayyusi-Lehn)

Roads to paradise : Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam

Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam offers a multi-disciplinary study of Muslim thinking about paradise, death, apocalypse, and the hereafter. It focuses on eschatological concepts in the Quran and its exegesis, Sunni and Shi‘i traditions, Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism, and other scholarly disciplines reflecting Islamicate pluralism and cosmopolitanism……………..

A Philosopher’s Itinerary For The Afterlife (Roads To Paradise, 2017)

Mulla Rajab, On the Necessary Being and The Fundamental Principle

Abstract:

Translated for this volume by Mohammed Rustom from Mullā Rajab ʿAlī Tabrīzī,
Ithbāt-i wājib in Sayyid Jalāl al-Dīn Āshtiyānī and Henry Corbin, ed., Anthologie des philosophes
iraniens depuis le XVII siècle jusqu’à nos jours (Tehran, 1972–1975),
vol. 1, pp. 220–243.e

Mulla-Rajab-On-the-Necessary-Being-and-The-Fundamental-Principle-APP-5-2015

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF JERUSALEM-THE ISLAMIC VISION*

THE SUBJECT OF JERUSALEM is an extremely significant one for both spiritual and obviously mundane reasons. For men and women of faith, especially those who belong to the world of Abrahamic monotheism, it is of both immediate and ultimate concern……………

Nasr_Article_The Spiritual Significance Of Jerusalem_The Islamic Vision (1999)

The Great Chain of Consciousness :Do All Things Possess Awareness?

Abstract:

In An Essay on Man, the eighteenth-century British poet Alexander Pope offers a succinct formulation of an age-old philosophical doctrine about reality. This doctrine, which Arthur Lovejoy refers to as the “great chain of being,” maintains that existence is hierarchi- cal and organically linked, structured as it is upon the descending degrees of being. Reality begins with and proceeds from God, the Supreme Being, and ends in the most minuscule and discrete kinds of beings. Each thing in the cosmos, including the cosmos itself, forms a vital link with the other parts of this great chain. In Pope’s words..

The Great Chain of Consciousness (Renovatio 1.1, 2017)

Everything Muhammad: The Image of the Prophet in the Writings of ‘Ayn al-Qudat

Abstract

 

It is well‑known that Rumi (d. 1273) was a great lover of the Prophet
Muhammad. This is best typified in such verses as the ones with which
the present article begins. Given our knowledge of the devotion to the
Prophet that we find in Rumi’s writings and in the works of many other
Sufi authors,I would here like to discuss the views of another major
devotee of the Prophet. His name was Abu’l Ma‘ali ‘Abd Allah al‑Miyanji,
and is most commonly known as ‘Ayn al‑Qudat Hamadani. He was born……..

Everything Muhammad