The Place of Mullā Ṣadrā’s Kitāb al-Mashāʿir in Izutsu’s Philosophy

Abstract

Abstract: This paper examines Izutsu’s study of Islamic philosophy, notably his work on Mullā Ṣadrā’s Kitāb al-Mashāʿir, a philosophical treaties on existence and quiddity, in a wider framework of his philosophical thinking. From his younger days Izutsu had been interested in philosophical systems that were based on thinkers’ own unitive experience of the Reality. Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophical thesis of the “principality of existence” (aṣālat al-wujūd) based on his own unitive experience was of special interest to Izutsu. He analysed Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy of mystical experience using the function of semantic articulation of language and showed how the non-articulated reality of the mystic’s ecstatic experience with no meaning becomes meaningful. Izutsu’s study of Islamic philosophy such as Mullā Ṣadrā’s may be seen as a case study of his “Oriental Philosophy.”