Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā’s philosophies are based on reason, and the further we go from these two philosophers, intuition and unveiling replace philosophical reasoning. The most important feature of the School of Isfahan is considered to be the synthesis of these two ration
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Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā’s philosophies are based on reason, and the further we go from these two philosophers, intuition and unveiling replace philosophical reasoning. The most important feature of the School of Isfahan is considered to be the synthesis of these two rational and gnostic approaches. This school of philosophy claims to have integrated philosophical and demonstrative aspects of affairs with religious teachings and, specifically, the Imāmīyah Qur’anic-narrative thoughts. All thinkers of the School of Isfahan have comprehensively explained and extended the Imāmīyah ḥadīth or commented on them based the Qur’anic intellectual wisdom. The secretive and allegorical approach to interpretation became prevalent in Ibn Sīnā’s time; however, writing commentaries on ḥadīths and traditional thoughts are among the unique characteristics of the philosophical school of Isfahan. This method has been in use since then, and some of the prominent post-Sadrian philosophers view writing interpretations and comments on Qur’anic verses as an inseparable part of philosophical tradition. Perhaps, the only exception here who has emphasized the distinction between these two fields is ‘Allāmeh Ṭabāṭabā’ī. Nevertheless, the fundamental question here is whether the School of Isfahan, with Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophical system at its center, represents a philosophical and demonstrative school of thought or depends on religious thought and employs argumentation merely to access previously-established and correct thoughts. Mullā Ṣadrā and his followers have paid attention to this problem and emphasized the consistency of these two methods. The most important questions in this discussion include the following: 1) Is the method of rational argument completely different from the religious method? 2) If they are different, which depends on which? 3) Which is the basis in Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy: rational reasoning or defending Sharī‘ah and revealed thoughts? How could rational affairs, which can be verified or rejected, and Shar‘ī teachings, which cannot be rejected, be compatible with each other? Here, the author tries to show that Mullā Ṣadrā’s effort to establish this consistency has not been much successful. In fact, in doing so, he has had to either forget about rational reasoning or interpret the religion rationally to prove their consistency.
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