aThe Origin of Man in Pre-Eternity

and His Origination in Time:

Mulla Sadra and the Imami Shiite Tradition
Maria Dakake
Mulla Sadras philosophy of being is really one of seamless becoming. It poisits a
seamless transformation between various states of being and between the various orders
of the soul - vegetative, animal, rational and beyond - through the medium of an
individual human beings substance (jawhar). The paramount challenge for such an
ontology is to explain the way in which a particular human reality can move from the
timeless realm of pre-eternity, through incarnation in time during its earthly life, back to
the timelessness of post-eternity without undergoing some ontological disjuncture
between its existence in the world of permanence and its existence in the world of
temporality and change. It is the problem of the mabda and the maad, or the
origination and the return. In this paper, our discussion will be concerned primarily
with Mulla Sadras understanding of the first stage of this process namely, that of the
nature of the pre-eternal reality of human beings and their transfer from the world of preeternity to that of earthly life, or the question of the mabda specifically. In particular, we
will examine Mulla Sadras beliefs regarding the mabda in connection with some Imami
Shiite views of this same issue. Mulla Sadra, of course, was a devout Imami Shiite, and
we hope to demonstrate that on this issue, his thinking is clearly consistent with some
major Imami doctrinal interpretations.
Now, from one point of view, Mulla Sadra was a philosopher and operated within that
discipline (falsafah), while the Imami thought to which we will be referring would rather
be placed in the discipline of theology, or kalam. However, both the philosophy of Mulla
Sadra and the strain of Shiite kalam with which we will concern ourselves, transcend the
limitations of their own specific disciplines. Mulla Sadra would not classify his writings
as mere philosophy, but also as wisdom or theosophy (ikma, irfan).[1] Imami Shiite
adith tradition likewise contains a prominent gnostic or irfani strain. It is in this
transcendent realm that the two formulations meet.
We should begin with a brief statement of Mulla Sadras view of the origin of man in
pre-eternity and the way in which individual men then come to exist in the world of
temporality. According to Mulla Sadra, all individuals who exist in the earthly realm
simultaneously have an existence in the timeless realm of the spirit.
That is, prior to - and throughout - their origination in time, all men exist as a kind of
spiritual reality or as an immaterial soul. It is only when this spiritual reality comes to
be embodied in base matter, and so receives a body and a material individuation, that
the soul, properly speaking, comes into being. The soul is, in effect, the boundary or
barzakh between the divine and the base, or the spiritual and the material in man.[2] This
barzakh is not fixed during the course of an individuals lifetime; on the contrary, it is
constantly shifting through the process of substantial motion. Now, the substance of
man is precisely the mixture of spirit and matter of which he is constituted; and it is this
very substance - and not the accidents which subsist therein - which is altered and
transmuted as an individual passes from potentiality to actuality in the development of

this physical, psychic and spiritual faculties. All movements from potentiality to actuality
(and movement can only take place in this direction)[3] represent an intensification of the
being (wujd) through the process of trans-substantial motion of all contingent,
ternporally existentiated creatures.[4] The being or wujd of these contingent realities
derives from the Being of the One, Necessary Being, which is God, Himself; and the
Being of God is extended into that of contingent realities through the principle of
abia, or nature, which acts like a principle of energy, analogous to the force which
causes the rays of the sun to extend from the sun, while at the same time remaining
necessarily connected to it.[5] Thus even as an individual soul moves from potentiality to
actuality, as parts of its body grow while others fall away, even as its very substance is
transmuted, it remains a continuous essential reality subsisting through its own atemporal
spiritual reality, and on the highest level, through the unity of Being, itself.[6]
In this paper, we will compare Sadrian and Imami Shiite thought on the issue of the preeternal origin and earthly incarnation of man with regard to two aspects in particular.
First, we will examine their respective conceptions of the distinction between the various
aspects of man: his spiritual reality, his material reality (or his body) and the soul which
lies between them. We will be particularly concerned to elaborate upon the relationship
between spirit and soul in the nature of human origins and the process of human
becoming. Secondly, we will examine the implications this relationship has for the issue
of divine compulsion and human free will as determinants of the spiritual destiny of
individual men.
The three aspects of man: spirit, soul and body
It is clear that Mulla Sadra is concerned to refute any suggestion of an ontological
disjuncture in an individuals passage from one state of being to another. He is
particularly concerned to refute any and all notions which involve the false doctrine of
reincarnation or more specifically the transmigration of souls (tanasukh). This doctrine
has been ascribed, he notes, to many earlier thinkers, including Plato (although he argues
that this attribution is false and arises from a misreading of Platos own intentions).[7]
Mulla Sadra further notes that the doctrine of tanasukh is also present in the Indian
traditions (which he subsumes under the general heading of teachings of the Buddha),
as well as in the doctrines of some Islamic thinkers, namely the Brethren of Purity
(Ikhwan al-safa) and, unwittingly, in the dogma of certain literalist thinkers in
mainstream Islamic thought.[8] Reincarnation, or the transmigration of souls (tanasukh),
as Mulla Sadra explains, posits the transfer of an individual human soul from one
material body to another within the sensible world. He clearly distinguishes this from the
transformations implied in the mabda and the maad, by noting that these refer to
transfers between the sensible and supra-sensible worlds, not between different material
forms within the sensible world.[9]
One of the mistaken assumptions which leads many to inadvertently confirm the false
doctrine of reincarnation or tanasukh, according to Mulla Sadra, is that of the preexistence of the individuated human soul.[10] According to Mulla Sadra, there is a kind of
individuated human existence in the realm of pre-eternity, but this is not a material in this
spiritual realm, they are not differentiated with respect to matter. [11] It is precisely such
a differentiation with respect to matter that characterizes the nature of human existence in
the earthly realm, or in time, and which gives it its existence as soul or individuated
soul. From this perspective, it is imperative to distinguish between Mulla Sadras

conception of spirit (r) and that of soul (nafs). It is the spirit which has pre-eternal
existence, while the soul is engendered or originated precisely by the meeting of spirit
and matter.
The spirit (r)
At the highest level, the Spirit (r), for Mulla Sadra, is none other than the First or
Active Intellect, and is therefore the most direct emanation from God, emanating from
Him as do the rays of the sun from the sun. To the extent that the Spirit is with God, it is
uncreated, and it constitutes, in fact, the creative principle itself. That is, the Spirit or
Intellect (in its highest level) is not created by the divine command Be! (kun!), but is
itself the divine command Be![12] Thus, if the Spirit is created, it is at least not created
in time, for it is itself the command through which all other beings arc originated in
time. If the Spirit and the Intellect are one and the same, at their highest levels, they
become differentiated at lower levels.
As the Spirit becomes more and more remote from its source, and consequently
weakened, it comes to represent correspondingly lower levels of intellect, and finally the
various human and subhuman levels of the soul. The connection between the various
levels of Spirit and Mulla Sadras particular view of the various levels of intellect and
soul is rather clearly illustrated in a commentary he offers in Kitab al-mashair. This
commentary is particularly relevant for our purposes in that it is, in fact, a commentary
on a certain passage found in the Imami Shiite theologian Ibn Babawayhs standard
work of Shiite theology: Kitab al-itiqad. It thus offers us our first and rather direct point
of comparison with Imami Shiite doctrine. Let us begin by summarizing Ibn Babawayhs
exposition of the various levels of spirit. According to Ibn Babawayh, there are
altogether five spirits - the Holy Spirit (r al-quddus), the spirit of faith (r al-iman),
the spirit of potency (r al-quwwa), the spirit of appetite (r al-shahwa), and the spirit
of growth (r al-madraj). Ibn Babawayh further tells us that it is only the messengers of
God (rusl), the prophets (anbiya) and the Imams who can be said to possess all five to
these spirits. The believers, for their part, possess four of the spirits, those of faith,
potency, appetite and growth; while the unbelievers and animals possess only the three
lowest spirits of potency, appetite and growth, lacking both the Holy Spirit and the spirit
of faith.[13] In Kitab al-mashair, Mulla Sadra offers a lengthy gloss the Shiite
theologians exposition by relating the levels of spirit to those of intellect and soul,
clearly explaining the capabilities or faculties present at each level. On the highest level,
the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit (r al-quddus), is none other than the primordial and
original spirit which is with God, and which remains with Him. This, he says,
corresponds to the philosophical concept of the active intellect (al-aql al-faal). The
spirit of faith, on the other hand corresponds, from the philosophical point of view, to
the acquired intellect (al-aql al- mustafad). That is, it represents the intellect which
becomes actualized in man after having been potential. Thus it represents a level only
attained in full by those realized souls who have passed completely from potentiality to
actuality during the course of their earthly lives. The spirit of potency (quwwa),
according to Mulla Sadra, is none other than the level of the rational soul (al-nafs alnaiqa) which likewise corresponds to the material intellect (al-aql al-haylani), or the
purely potential intellect before it becomes actualized in certain human beings. The
remaining two spirits, those of appetite and growth, do not represent levels of intellect
at all, but rather correspond to the animal and vegetative souls respectively.[14]

As for assigning the different levels of spirit to the various orders of creation, Mulla
Sadras view generally agrees with that offered by Ibn Babawayh himself, although there
are some minor differences implied. Firstly, Ibn Babawayh places unbelievers and beasts
together in the category of those possessing the three spirits of potency, appetite and
growth.[15] Mulla Sadra, however, would deny the spirit of potency, which he identifies
with the rational soul, to any but human animals or human unbelievers. It is true that,
according to the Sadrian perspective, unbelievers may be reduced in the next world to the
subhuman forms of beasts (something which we will discuss below), by virtue of their
misuse of the material or practical intellect, but they nonetheless remain in
possession of the faculty to achieve this realization throughout the course of their earthly
lives. A second distinction is implied by the fact that Mulla Sadra restricts the fourth
spirit, the spirit of faith, to only the true believers - that is, the gnostics (urafa)[16] a
category which represents and extreme minority of individuals. Now Ibn Babawayh, like
Mulla Sadra, ascribes this level to the true believers, but in Shiite thought, the
category of true believers is not limited to that of the gnostics (urafa), but in principle
includes all orthodox Imami Shiites - a category somewhat broader and more inclusive
than Mulla Sadra classification would suggest. However, it should be noted that there are
plenty of Shiite traditions which speak about the extremely small number of true
believers.[17] If Ibn Babawayhs category of true believers is taken to suggest a rather
small elite within the Shiite community itself, rather than the Shiite minority within the
larger Islamic umma, it may in fact coincide with Mulla Sadras own restrictions for this
level. Thirdly, Mulla Sadra claims that the fifth level - that of the Holy Spirit or the
Active Intellect - is one which is restricted to the awliya. The term awliya, of course,
includes the prophets and the Imams, to whom Ibn Babawayh likewise assigns this
highest of levels. However, the term awliya is a bit more ambiguous or open-ended
than that, and may include certain ultimately realized individuals in addition to the
prophets and the Imams; however, as Mulla Sadra does not elaborate on this point, it
cannot be said for sure that this is the case.
Finally, a general but important issue raised by Mulla Sadra but not addressed by Ibn
Babawayh is the manner in which these various spirits come to be located in different
human souls. Mulla Sadra explains the actualization of these levels in various earthly
creatures with reference to his all-encompassing doctrine of the flow of wujd or Being.
He comments: These five spirits arc lights which differ in the intensity or weakness of
their illumination; all of them exist through the one Being (wujd) whose gradated levels
have been gradually acquired in those in whom they are found.[18] The emanation of the
Spirit can therefore also be equated with the emanation of wujd, or Being, which
flows in various intensities throughout human incarnation in earthly matter, and thus
corresponds to the various levels of the intellect.
The soul (nafs)
If the spirit can be taken to represent the flow of Being in differing intensities in
various material human incarnations, then the soul must be considered the very divider
(barzakh) between the two scas of spirit and matter,[19] and it owes its individual
existence to the meeting of the two. This point is made most clearly in the formula often
repeated by Mulla Sadra: al-nafs jismaniyyat al-udth wa raniyyat al-baqa (the soul
is bodily in its origination in time and spiritual in its timeless existence). [20] The concept
of a soul existing in time thus implies or, more accurately, requires material existence -

it is originated in matter and, within the earthly realm, is inseparable from it. It is this
understanding of the relationship of soul to matter which allows Mulla Sadra to
decisively refute the doctrine of tanasukh, since it is the false presumption of the souls
possible separation from matter or from a particular material form in this world which
permits the idea of the souls transfer from that material form to another.
There are thus three realms to be considered in human existence: that of the spirit (r),
that of matter or the body (jism) and that of the soul (nafs); and these three realms can
also be understood through analysis according to the concepts of form and matter,
which in human existence, correspond to soul and body, respectively.[21] In relation to
the world of matter, the soul is perfect form, for it is in the human body that matter
achieves its perfection.[22] According to this analogy, soul and body cannot be separated
in this world any more than form and matter can be separated - we cannot, in this world,
know matter without form, nor form without matter. This is not to say that the body has
an eternal existence, as does the soul or spirit, or that it does not pass away. On the
contrary the body is always passing away and being regenerated, but again, without
disjuncture; this passing away and regeneration is executed through a transmutation of
the substance of the individual (constituted of its form and its matter), and not of its
essence.[23] Every substance subsists through its form and not through its matter, thus
although from one point of view the body passes away and regenerates, from another
point of view, it remains essentially the same body through the subsistence of the soul.
Mulla Sadra explains:
The decisive point in the bodys remaining this particular body (despite the constant
transformation of its material constituents) is only the unity of the soul. As long as Zayds
soul remains this soul, his body is also this body, since the soul of a thing is the
perfection of its reality and individual substance. This is why it is said that this child is
the one who will grow old, or that this old man was a child, even though with age he has
lost all the (particular material) parts and organs that he had as a child. Indeed, one can
rightly say that the old mans finger is the (same) finger that he possessed in childhood,
although in itself the childhood finger has disappeared with respect to both its form and
its matter, so that nothing remains of it as a particular body; it only remains the finger of
this man because of the persistence of his soul.[24]
In the world of matter, the soul is perfect form, but in the world of spirit, the soul is itself
pure matter (hayla). It is only the inner nature and habits of a particular human being as
exhibited during the course of his earthly life in the material world which determines his
form in the next world.[25] Thus the soul exists in actuality in this world - representing
the perfect form or actualization of matter in the human body - but simultaneously exists
as pure potentiality in the next world, or world of the Spirit or lntellect. [26] The human
soul is originated in this world with a kind of primordial perfection (fira) - a perfection
shared by all members of the human species - but in the next world it will be originated
according to a second fira whose nature or form or species will be determined by
its good or evil actions and habits in this world.[27] Thus, in the next world, the form
imposed upon the soul as matter may be perfect or imperfect, it may be that of any
number of species which fall into four general categories, according to Mulla Sadra:
that of angel, devil, brute beast or predatory animal.[28] Even in the case of perfect
realization - something which is reached only by a tiny minority of individuals, according
to Mulla Sadra - the soul does not separate from the body in this world, nor does the

spirit separate from the soul; rather the soul is transmuted as to its very substance. The
soul, which is spirit or intellect in potentiality, now becomes spirit or intellect in
actuality, through the process of transubstantiation which, most importantly, does not
admit of any essential separation of being between the three realms of body, soul and
spirit, at least not in this world.
Having presented a very brief review of some important points in Mulla Sadras
perspective regarding the three aspects of man: spirit, body and soul, the question is: how
does this relate to some representative Imami Shiite views on the same subject? In
Imami Shiite literature, the doctrines and theories which pertain to the nature of human
pre-existence and the origination of the human soul constitute an important part of the
Imami Shiite understanding of the nature of their own religious community and is
cosmological role in the universe. This is because Imami doctrine is very much concerned
with what could be interpreted as ontological distinctions between various levels of
creation: angels, prophets, imams, believers and unbelievers; and the traditions regarding
human origination in pre-eternity figure prominently in their thinking on this issue. Mulla
Sadra, himself, testifies to the importance of this issue in Shiite thought when he says,
after relating a handful of Imami traditions on the subject: The traditions handed down
on this subject by our fellow (Shiites) are so innumerable that it is as though the
existence of the spirits prior to (their) bodies were one of the essential premises of the
Imamite school...[29] Moreover, in his own discussion of the issue of human cosmogony
and ontology, Mulla Sadra relies to a significant extent on the material contained in these
traditional Imami sources.[30] For this reason, the cosmological and especially the
cosmogonic theory found in Shiite tradition bears comparative analysis with Mulla
Sadras own continuous and holistic view of human origination.
The Imami Shiite view on this issue is most clearly contained in certain adith
collections: in the book of Faith and Unbelief in the canonical fourth century
collection of Kulaynis Usl al-kafi, as well as in two other non-canonical collections,
that of al-Barqis Kitab al-maasin and al-Saffar al-Qummis Basair al-darajat. In our
discussion of this issue in Shiite thought, we will concentrate mainly on the Imami
traditions found in Kulaynis Usl al-kafi, the earliest of the Imami Shiite canonical
collections. Mulla Sadra, himself, has written a partial commentary on the Usl al-kafi,
but the commentary unfortunately does not reach to the book of Faith and Unbelief, in
which the majority of these traditions are located. In comparing these sacred Shiite
traditions with Mulla Sadras own philosophical perspective, of course, we hardly
presume know what Sadras own commentary on these traditions would have been.
Rather, we seek to offer our own humble suggestions as to the way in which the two
perspectives can be seen as largely consistent with one another.
The first three chapters in the book of Faith and Unbelief in the Usl al-kafi present
numerous versions and adaptations of a central rendering of pre-eternal events which is
structured around a few basic ideas. Most of the traditions center around the process
through which God created the clay (tina) from which the substance of all human
individuals is derived. He, in fact, mixes two types of clay. In most instances, both types
begin with a handful (qaba) of earthly soil (adim), part of which God mixes with
sweet water and the other part with salty, brackish water. The traditions generally
relate that the clay made with the sweet water is the substance from which God created
both the hearts and the bodies of the prophets, the Imams and the pure souls. The

traditions then consistently tell us that God also made the hearts of the believers and/or
the Shiites of the good clay, but that He made their bodies of the lesser clay. As for the
unbelievers or the enemies of the Shiites, God has created both their hearts and their
bodies of the impure clay made of the salty, brackish water. The simplest version of this
tradition comes from the fourth Imam, Ali Zayn al-Abidin: Verily God (azza wa jall)
created the prophets from the superior clay (tina): both their hearts and their bodies. And
He created the hearts of the believers from this superior clay, while He created their
bodies from other than this. And He created the unbelievers from the inferior clay, both
their hearts and their bodies. Then He mixed the two kinds of clay. This is why the
believer may give birth to the unbeliever and the unbeliever may give birth to the
believer. This is also why an evil action may be committed by a believer and a good
action may be committed by an unbeliever. (The hearts of the believers yearn for that of
which they were created and the hearts of the unbelievers yearn for that of which they
were created.)[31] If we understand the clay, in either its superior or inferior form, to refer
to the very substance of man, then it should make perfect sense, from a Sadrian
perspective, that the hearts and the bodies of the prophet (and in other traditions, of the
Imams and the pure souls) should be made of the superior clay. These individuals
represent the perfect man (al-insan al-kamil), or the man whose soul has been
integrated into the pure substance of the world of the spirit, even from the perspective of
its attachment to matter, or of its material individuation in this world. For this reason it is
said that both the hearts and the bodies of these individuals are formed of the pure or
superior clay. The believers, on the other hand, should represent those individuals who,
although on the path to realization, do not possess the spiritual perfection of the prophets
and the Imams. Their souls are still composed of the opposing elements of spirit
(symbolized by their hearts made of the superior clay) and of base matter (symbolized by
their bodies made of the inferior clay). Nonetheless, the hearts of the believers yearn for
that of which they were created, namely the perfect substance of the spirit, and it is
precisely this yearning, we might suggest, which leads them down the path of spiritual
purification and realization. In Sadrian terms, it leads them to acquire the habits of
contemplation and purity which thus lead the soul to return to its spiritual perfection, or
more precisely, to the spiritual perfection of the perfect man. The unbelievers, on the
other hand, having even their hearts composed of the impure or inferior clay, yearn
toward this inferior clay of which they were created, which, it is implied, leads them
down their own path toward spiritual destruction.
It is important to note that in these Shiite traditions, the human souls are precisely
originated in matter and there is no indication of the existence of these individuated souls
prior to their origination in matter, which is consistent with a key element of Mulla
Sadras own cosmogonic belief, as stated above. There is no intimation of the descent
of a pre-existing soul into bodily matter, a concept which Mulla Sadra regards as
completely false, and for which he criticizes numerous Islamic and non-Islamic thinkers
before him. He argues: It seems that the partisans of this doctrine esteem that the
substance of the rational soul, prior to its having achieved the bodily organism and
having thereby achieved the structure of man, exists previously and already in actuality
in the world of the Intellect [=the world of the Spirit] according to its first, primordial
perfection. It then descends into the body in order to realize the second perfection which
that implies. Now, that is false, since you can understand according to the above premises

that it involves an ontological anteriority or that it involves a chronological anteriority. It

is impossible to countenance the idea that that which exists in the world of the Intellect
would separate itself from that beautiful and noble world, or that it would be constrained
and thus descend into the abyss of rampant beasts, in the mine of all evils and ignorance.
[32]

According to Mulla Sadra, then the movement of the soul is not from initial perfection, to
a state of bodily imperfection, and back to a second perfection. [33] Rather, the
individuated soul originates through the mixture of a pre-existent spiritual reality and
base matter (which may be signified by the clay as a mixture of water and earth,
respectively, although the analogy is not perfect.) Its movement, therefore is from its state
of an originally mixed and spiritually imperfect substance, toward a state of purified
substance; and it is precisely the pure or spiritual element within the mixed substance of
the human soul which alone leads it down the road to perfection. As the Shiite tradition
claims, it yearns for that of which it was made; it is the spirit in man which longs for
the spirit, or in other words, it is only that which comes from God that returns to Him.
There can be no yearning of base matter, or even of the body considered in its purely
material aspect) for the sublime spirit or the spiritual realm, for Mulla Sadra tells us,
neither in the body nor in the faculties of the body is there the perception of the
immaterial substance, the reigning Light, such that one could speak of [the body]s
desiring it.[34]
Divine predestination and human free will of course, the implication that ones spiritual
destination is determined by the very substance of which one is created raises the issue of
divine predestination or compulsion. Are some human beings compelled by their very
substance to move toward their own spiritual destruction? While the believers, in the
Shiite tradition, whose hearts are made of the superior clay and whose bodies are made
of the inferior clay have the opportunity to work with their hearts and against their bodies
in the direction of spiritual perfection, it would seem that the unbelievers whose hearts
and bodies are made of inferior clay do not even have the faculties to attempt to move in
this direction.
There is also a second element in these traditions which likewise seems to suggest a kind
of divine compulsion of human spiritual destiny. According to many Shiite cosmogonic
traditions, not only are there two types of clay - made with sweet and salty water,
respectively - but these two kinds of clay are then mixed together by the hands of God.
After having mixed the two, God then separates the clay into two parts, one taken with
His right hand and one taken with His left. This further dichotomy which is thus
established between the souls on the right and those on the left seems to have an
implication for the spiritual destiny of those two sets of individual souls. This is
demonstrated when God commands those souls derived from the clay in His right hand to
enter the fire. They do this with perfect obedience; and as a reward for this obcdience,
God makes the fire cool and harmless for them. He then commands those souls derived
from the clay in His left hand to enter the fire, but they fear for their own safety, and thus
disobey God by refusing to enter (in some cases after having been given two
opportunities to do so by God.)[35] The traditions then explain that it was in this way that
human obedience and disobedience were established.[36]
This particular element in the Shiite version of the events of pre-eternity is often
presented as part of a commentary upon Quranic verse, 7:172, regarding Gods taking of

a solemn oath from all of the children of Adam (a. s.) for their recognition of His
Lordship. The verse reads: And when your Lord brought forth from the Children of
Adam, from their loins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I
not your Lord? They said: Yea, surely. We testify...
Now, this particular verse is often discussed in connection with the fira, or primordial
perfection of man, and the awareness of tawid, or the oneness of God and His
Lordship, into which all human beings are born. However, in both Shiite and Sunni
tafsir traditions,[37] this verse is also connected with the tradition of the divine command
to enter the Fire, and the obedience and disobedience of the people of Gods right hand
and left hand, respectively - a tradition which seems to suggest that the obedience or
disobedience of individual human souls in their earthly lifetimes is already determined
(albeit by their own actions and not divine compulsion) in pre-eternity. Such an idea
apparently conflicts with Sadras own view that it is only the habits and behaviors
repeated and thus ontologically acquired during the course of an individuals earthly life
that determines his spiritual destiny, not choices made in the timeless realm of preeternity.
It is possible that the descriptions of these apparently determinative pre-eternal events as
found in Shiite adith sources and the seemingly contradictory Sadrian principle that a
souls spiritual destiny depends upon its own willful actions in this life[38] can be
reconciled by establishing a distinction between Gods foreknowledge of human destiny
and His compulsion of that destiny. In Sadrian terms, the principle that the spiritual
destiny of a given man is determined by his habits and actions committed in this world is
explained as the last, and not always achieved, movement of the highest element of a
mans soul from potentiality (quwwa) to actuality (fil). From the Sadrian perspective,
whether a development should take place within the physical, psychic or spiritual aspect
of a man, it always represents a trans-substantial movement from potentiality to actuality.
Thus, according to Mulla Sadra, while the child is still in the womb, it possesses in
actuality only the vegetative soul - that which is nourished and which grows and all
other levels of soul are only possessed in potentiality. When the embryo develops into an
infant and is born, the animal soul - that which senses and imagines -is actualized; and
when the child reaches the age of reason (sometimes equated with the age of
speaking) the rational soul (al-nafs al-naiqa) is actualized. Once the human soul has
reached this level, it possesses the practical intellect, the faculty through which it may
come to realize its intellectual perfection, or in other words, the faculty through which the
intellective or immaterial soul may be actualized, after having only existed in potentiality.
This final move only occurs in a small minority of individual souls; but short of having
realized this final perfection, individual souls may pass from this world while in a state of
moving either upward toward this post-rational perfection, or downward, toward a
reduction of the uniquely human rational perfection. For this reason, according to Mulla
Sadra, some souls (namely, those who reach intellective perfection) are transmuted into
an angelic form in the next world; while the souls moving toward this, but dying short of
it, are raised in the next life in the sensible paradise of the soul. Those who died while
moving away from the direction of perfection, are thus transferred in the next life to the
sensible hell,[39] and transmuted, as noted above, either into form of a devil, or into the
subhuman forms of a brute beast or predatory animal - in accordance with their true inner
nature[40] - hidden in this world, but obvious and apparent in the next.

Now all of this motion and transition from potentiality to actuality belongs precisely to
beings created in time. Time, itself, is the measure of this constant motion of the world,
the elements and human souls from potentiality to actuality, which is itself an illusion
engendered by existence in the temporal world. But what can this have to do with God,
with His immutable Essence, or with His quality of knowledge? God and the essential
quality of His knowledge exist in pure actuality. Thus, from the point of view of Gods
knowledge, all things exist in their actuality, while from the perspective of individual
souls created in time, existence is experienced as the movement from potentiality to
actuality. In a sense, then, what these spiritual or immaterial souls will become through
their own actions and habits in the world of temporality, they already are in Gods
knowledge and in the timeless state of pre-eternity.[41] Proof of this might be given by the
very nature in which the oath or mithaq is taken by God from the Children of Adam
(a.s.). From one point of view, this event is ontologically prior to the existence of these
souls in the material world, that is, before the spirits connection with matter and their
passage through the various states of the soul. These individuals are brought forth as
particles (dhurriyya), which suggests that they were existing in a state which precedes
their full material individuation. Yet, they are asked a question by God (Am I not your
Lord?) and they are able to answer. As viewed from the perspective of human becoming,
this capability seems to imply the possession of at least the rational soul (al-nafs alnaiqa). However, after giving their answer and having accepted the mithaq or
primordial pact with God, they are then once more returned to the loins of Adam (a.s.)
It is indeed as if these individuals are, for this one instant, brought directly from a state
of potentiality to a state of actuality and then returned to state of potentiality; but Mulla
Sadra has made it clear that it is impossible for a soul to return to a state of potentiality
after having been in a state of actuality.[42] This event, thus, must be understood as taking
place within, or from the perspective of, Gods knowledge, and not from the perspective
of human becoming.
Some of these themes relating to the meaning of the primordial pact (mithaq) which God
takes for mankind, and the relative role of Gods creative will and human effort in the
spiritual differentiation of mankind after their common origination in primordial
perfection (fira), are brought out in a lengthy tradition from the fifth Imam, Moammed
al-Baqir. The tradition relates a conversation between Adam (a.s.) and God in connection
with the taking of the Quranic mithaq:
Adam (a.s.) said: O. Lord, why do I see that some of the particles [taken from my loins]
are greater than others and some of them have much light and some of them have little
light and some of them have no light? God (azza wa jall) said: Thus I have created them,
in order to test them in every situation. Adam (a.s.) said: O. Lord, permit me speech that I
might speak. God (azza wa jall) said: Speak, for verily your spirit (r) is from My
Spirit and your nature (abia) is from other than My Kaynuna. Adam said: O. Lord, had
You created them according to a single archetype (mithal) and a single rank, and a single
nature (abia) and a single disposition (jibla) and a single coloring and a single life span
and a single [set of] endowments, they would not transgress one against the other, and
there would not be envy between them, nor hatred or differences over anything. God
(azza wa jall) Said: O Adam, you speak (literally, spoke, naaqta) through My Spirit,
and through the weakness of your [own] nature (abia) you make a pretense to that of
which you have no knowledge, and I am the Creator, the All-Knowing. By My

knowledge are there differences in their character and by My will is My command carried
out in them and toward My arrangement (tadbir) and toward My decree (taqdir) are they
traveling.
There is no alteration in My Creation. I only created the jinn and mankind to worship Me,
and I have created Paradise for those who obey Me... and I created the fire for those who
disbelieve in Me and disobey Me... and I only created you and [your progeny] to try you
and to try them. You are urged to the best of acts in the life of this world in your lifetimes
and before your deaths, and for this [purpose] was this world and the next created... [43]
This tradition clearly manifests the ambiguity - perhaps deliberate ambiguity - over the
issue of divine compulsion and human free will in the determination of ones spiritual
destiny. But it is clear that the ambiguity stems from the difference between the
perspective of the unchanging knowledge and decree of God, and the perspective from
the world of becoming which is ordained by God but only experienced as such, by
created beings. On the one hand, God says that toward My arrangement and toward My
decree are they traveling. On the other hand, God says that He only created mankind to
try or test them, and that they are urged, but not compelled toward obedience and
spiritual success; for this purpose was this world and the next - that is the world of
human action and consequence - created. While Mulla Sadra does not give a specific
commentary on this particular tradition, such an interpretation as we have suggested
would seem to accord with Mulla Sadras commentary on another, very famous statement
of the sixth Shiite Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, with regard to the issue of divine compulsion
(Jabr) and human free will (tafwi), namely: It is not [divine] compulsion and it is not
free will, but the matter lies between the two (la jabr wa la tafwi, wa lakinna amr bayn
amrayn.)[44] In another treatise, Mulla Sadra gives a commentary on this tradition in
particular. In this commentary he makes it clear that the fact that the matter [of human
destiny] lies between divine compulsion and human free will does not mean that the
matter is half one and half the other. It is not, he says, like tepid water which is neither
hot nor cold, but only a kind of weak and imperfect hot or a weak and imperfect cold.
The matter of human destiny is not determined by a divine will weakened or constrained
by the human will; nor is it determined by a human will weakened or constrained by the
divine will. Rather, the matter is determined fully by the will of God and fully by the will
of man: we move of our own free will toward an end which God has likewise willed.[45]
Something of the divine/non - divine dichotomy in man, and its relation to human free
will is also suggested in the part of the tradition in which Adam (a.s.) asks God for the
faculty of speech. God responds to Adam (a.s.), saying: speak, for verily your spirit
(r) is from My Spirit and your nature (abia) is from other than My Kaynuna. Thus,
on the one hand, it is by virtue of the divine in man (or the r which is derived from
the Spirit of God) that Adam is able to speak; but on the other hand, it is by virtue of
mans separateness from God (generated by his own individual nature, abia) that he is
able to speak to God with words that are other than those of God and which may even
contradict Him. Adam indeed demonstrates his free will and independence by using his
newly bestowed faculty of speech to call into question the manner in which God has
brought humankind into being - in inequality, and thus destined for conflict. God
responds to Adams expressed opinion by telling him, ... you speak (naaqna) through
My Spirit, and through the weakness of your nature (abia) you make a pretense to that
of which you have no knowledge. In other words, the human faculties - in this case,

speech - are derived from their divine counterparts; yet every man is free to use those
faculties in submission to and agreement with the divine will, or in opposition to and
rebellion against it. Yet, paradoxically, it is in contradiction or rebelling against God
that Adam - and indeed all men - demonstrate, not human strength vis-a-vis God, but
rather their own human weakness and ignorance.
It is interesting that the tradition juxtaposes r or spirit (as representing the divine in
man) to abia or nature, representing mans individuation and relative independence
and separation from God as the two elements present in man. As mentioned earlier, Mulla
Sadra uses the term abia to refer to that energy which is the principle of all motion, of
all substantial change, or the transfer of all realities from potentiality to actuality, and as
the force or energy through which the wujd or Being of the one Necessary Being (God)
is made to emanate in various intensities throughout all contingent beings. It is like the
wave of energy through which that light of the sun is caused to extend through its rays
beyond their source, while still remaining inescapably connected to it. Even if this
particular Shiite tradition does not employ the term abia in the technical sense which
Mulla Sadra has given to it, its meaning is not far from the same. As the rays of the sun
extend further into darkness, they do not grow stronger by virtue of their distance from
their source, but weaker. So, too, the will, knowledge and independence of man grows
weaker and dimmer as it extends further from its divine source. Only when human will is
nearest to the divine will does it reach its pinnacle of freedom, for it nears that absolute
freedom which can only belong to God.
In conclusion, we would re-iterate the fact that although Mulla Sadras philosophy and
Imami Shiite adith tradition and theology are technically separate disciplines, with their
own principles and terminology, we believe that there is a profound intellectual
consistency between the two. The spiritual authority of the Shiite Imams allowed them
to speak at great length on matters beyond the realm of ordinary knowledge; and for this
reason Shiite tradition deals with spiritual, cosmological or mystical topics to a far great
extent than its Sunni counterpart. Mulla Sadra, for his part, both operated within the
received Islamic philosophical tradition, and at the same time claimed to have
transcended it through his own mystical insights. It is precisely in this transcendent realm
the realm closest to the true source of all knowledge - that the two strains of though
resonate with a clear consistency.
Notes
[1]

. For an explanation of Mull sadr's classification and explanation of the nature of his
own thought and writing, see the chapter, What is the Transcendent Theosophy? in S.
H. Nasr, sadr al-Din Shirzi and his Transcendent Theosophy, Institute for Humanities
and Cultural Studies, Tehran, 1997, pp. 85 - 88.
[2]
. sadr al-Din al-Shirzi, Wisdom of the Throne (trans. and ed., James Winston Morris),
Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 132, 142.
[3]
. See, for example, sadr al-Din al-Shirzi, Taliqt' ala ikmat al - ishrq (Mull sadr's
commentary on the margins of Suhrawardi's Kitb ikmat al-ishrq), Lith. Tehran, 1897,
p. 476.
Note:

Mull sadr himself mentions that it is in this commentary that he provides the clearest
exposition on the theories regarding the nature of the pre-existence of the soul. See
Wisdom of the Throne, p. 140.
[4]
. sadr al-Din al-Shirzi, al-ikmat al-muta'liyya (14 vols.), Beirut, 1990, V. 9, p. 159.
[5]
. Wisdom of the Throne, pp. 121 - 123.
[6]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 132.
[7]
. Taliqt, p. 476.
[8]
. Taliqt t, p. 476 (for the attribution of this to Buddhists and the Brethren of Purity)
and p. 479 (for the attribution of a doctrine entailing a kind of transmigration to the
literalists, i. c., those who believe that bodily resurrection entail resurrection in the
earthly body.)
[9]
. Taliqt, p. 476.
[10]
. Taliqt, p. 479.
[11]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 140; Taliqt, p. 479.
[12]
. sadr al-Din al-Shirzi, Kitb al-mashir, (ed. with French translation, Henry Corbin),
Institut Francais d'iranologie de Teheran, Tehran, 1982, p. 61, Where Mull sadr is
quoting an unnamed authority for this principle, and agreeing with it.
[13]
. Ibn Babawayh, A Shi'ite Creed, (trans. and ed. A. A. A. Fyzee), World Organization
for Islamic Services, Tehran, 1982, p. 48.
[14]
. Kitb al-mashir, p. 62.
[15]
. Kitb al-itiqd, p. 48.
[16]
. Kitb al-mashir, p. 62.
[17]
. For example, see in general Kulayni, Ul al-kfi (7 vols., ed. `Ali Akbar alGhaffari), Dar al-Kutub al-Islamiyya, Tehran, v. 2, pp. 242-244, for an entire chapter on
this subject.
[18]
. Kitb al-mashir, p. 62.
[19]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 148.
[20]
. Taliqt, p. 479; Wisdom of the Throne, p. 132.
[21]
. Taliqt, p. 476.
[22]
. Taliqt, p. 476; Wisdom of the Throne, p. 148.
[23]
. Wisdom of the Throne, pp. 120-122.
[24]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 161.
[25]
. Taliqt, p. 476; Wisdom of the Throne, p. 146.
[26]
. Taliqt, p. 480.
[27]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 145; Taliqt, p. 480.
[28]
. Taliqt, p. 476; Wisdom of the Throne. p. 146.
[29]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 141.
[30]
. For example, see Kitb al-mashir, pp. 58-63, where he quotes the Shi'ite
theologians, Ibn Bbawayh and al-Shaykh al-Mufid, the Immi traditionist al-saffr alQummi's Ba'ir al-darajt, as well as other Shi'ite traditions found in Kulayni's Ul alkfi and al-Sharif al-Rai's Nahj al-balgha, a collection of the sayings of Ali b. Abi
lib. See also Wisdom of the Throne, p. 141.
[31]
. Kulayni, Ul al-kfi, v. 2, p. 2, h. l.
[32]
. Taliqt, p. 479.

[33]

. In Mull sadr's words: ... the derived [substance - i. e., the spiritual element in man
derived from its pre-existent spiritual reality] does not attract its source to it; but it is,
perhaps led toward the source. The caused does not constrain the cause, it is [the cause]
which is re-integrated into [the cause] and which moves toward it. Taliqt, p. 479.
[34]
. Taliqt, p. 479.
[35]
. Kulayni, Ul al-kfi, v. 2, pp. 6-7, h. 1, 2, 3.
[36]
. Ibid., v. 2, p. 8, h. l.
[37]
. For Sunni traditions, see abari, Jami' al-bayan fi tafsir al-Qur'an, v. 9, p. 76.
[38]
. It should also be noted that Mull sadr says that the final realization of the pure spirit
or intellect in man - this rare and final completion of the actualization of man in his
earthly life - cannot be acquired merely through human efforts, but it requires, in
addition, a certain divine attraction. (Wisdom of the Throne, p. 132.)
[39]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 150.
[40]
. Wisdom of the Throne, p. 138; Taliqt, p. 476.
[41]
. Wisdom of the Throne, pp. 105-108.
[42]
. Taliqt, p. 479.
[43]
. Kulayni, v. 2, pp. 8-10, h. 2.
[44]
. Kulayni, v. l, p. 160, h. 13. See, in general, Kulayni, v. l, pp. 155 - 160 for other
formulations and elaborations of this basic principle.
[45]
. sadr al-Din al-Shirzi, Rislt khalq al-a'mal, in Majmu'eh-vi rasa'il-i falsafi-yi Sadr
al-muta'allihin (ed, IIamid Naji Isfahani), Intisharat hikmat, Tehran, 1996, pp. 276-277.