The Elixir of the Gnostics

The Elixir of the Gnostics

"Sadr al-Din Muhammad Shirazi, more commonly called Mulla Sadra (1572-1640), was one of the grand scholars of the later period of Islamic philosophy and has become one of the best known Muslim philosophers. Originally composed in Arabic, Iksir al-arifin, or Elixir of the Gnostics, may well be unique among Sadra's writings because it reworks and elaborates on an earlier work in Persian, the Jawidan-nama (The Book of the Everlasting) by Afdal al-Din Kashani, commonly known as Baba Afdal." "The underlying theme of Elixir is a teaching that stands at the heart of Mulla Sadra's writings and those of many other Muslim thinkers: the importance of self-knowledge in each person's journey of "Origin and Return." Each soul originates with God, and one's journey is completed only when the soul has returned to Him. Self-knowledge is the means by which the soul, having been created in the divine image, must realize its full and final potential; and philosophy, in Sadra's view, is the most direct path to that end. Sadra sees the soul's climb to perfection as a gradual dis-engagement from all embodiment and materiality and a return to her transcendent essence. The returning soul comes to se that all realities and essences are found in the Intellect from which all things have descended, and that their corporeal appearance is a temporary affair."--Jacket.

Mullā Ṣadrā

Provo, Utah : Brigham Young University Press

2003

a parallel English-Arabic text translated, introduced, and annotated by William C. Chittick

Series: Islamic translation series.

Chapter 1 On the division of the sciences 4 -- Chapter 2 On the science of words 4 -- Chapter 3 On the science of practices 6 -- Chapter 4 On the science of thoughts 6 -- Chapter 5 On the science of the afterworld 7 -- Part 2 On the Knowledge of the Soul, which is a Receptacle for the Sciences -- Chapter 1 On the cause of her being impeded 16 -- Chapter 2 On the knowledge that is individually incumbent on man 17 -- Chapter 3 On the attainment of the afterworld's felicity 18 -- Chapter 4 On knowledge of horizons and souls 19 -- Chapter 5 [On the Adamic tablet] 22 -- Chapter 6 On the divine vicegerency 23 -- Chapter 7 On another human world 25 -- Chapter 8 On the book of the soul 26 -- Chapter 9 On the world of Sovereignty 28 -- Chapter 10 On the consolidation of the discussion 32 -- Part 3 On the States of the Beginnings -- Chapter 1 On the sorts of beginning 35 -- Chapter 2 On the quiddity of location 38 -- Chapter 3 On the quiddity of time 39 -- Chapter 4 On beginning and end 40 -- Chapter 5 On the beginning of human existence 41 -- Chapter 6 On the angels' prostration to Adam 44 -- Chapter 7 On the quiddity of Ibis and the satans 45 -- Chapter 8 On the angel's inspiration and the satan's disquietening 46 -- Chapter 9 On the wisdom in the creation of the satans 49 -- Chapter 10 On what was obtained in these chapters 50 -- Part 4 On the Knowledge of the Ends -- Chapter 1 [On the highest knowledge] 56 -- Chapter 2 On the quiddity of the final end 62 -- Chapter 3 On the soul's imprisonment 64 -- Chapter 4 On divine solicitude 69 -- Chapter 5 On the signs of the horizons and the souls 70 -- Chapter 6 On the root of felicity and wretchedness 76 -- Chapter 7 On the quiddity of death 78 -- Chapter 8 On the meaning of forgiveness 81 -- Chapter 9 On the soul's subsistence 85 -- Chapter 10 On the interrelation of these three parts 87.

Book