ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra and Its Influence in India [subcontinent] [Mulla Sadra’s Philosophy In Subcontinent] When Mulla Sadra and the earlier generation of Iranian scholars were debating fundamental issues of philosophy in the manner we have outlined, India had already experienced under Akbar (d. 1605) an official shift towards the patronage of the rational sciences at the expense of Muslim theology.

It was prescribed that only such sciences as arithmetic, agriculture, household management, rules of governance, medicine, etc., should comprise the educational curriculum.17 There was a stress on reason ('aql) which was to be given precedence over traditionalism ( taqlid ).18 This open stress on rationalism was in some respects remarkable for the time.

The chief proponent of the rational attitude during this period was Abul Fazl.19 Among the two important functions which Abul Fazl assigns to a just ruler ( kar giya ) one-is that such a sovereign 'shall not seek popular acclaim through opposing reason ( 'aql )'.20 The large number of Persian Shi'i emigrants to Akbar's India included physicians like Hakim Abul Fath Gilani along with his two brothers, Hakim Humam and Hakim Lutfullah Hakim Ali, and a technologist like Shah Fathullah Shirazi, and the turn towards rationalism could probably have also owed a little to their arrival.

We have the (admittedly late) testimony of Azad Bilgrami that it was Fathullah Shirazi who introduced the works of Iranian rationalist thinkers like Muhaqqiq Dawwani,21 Mir Sadruddin, Mir Ghiyasuddin Mansur and Mirza Jan in India.

He would not only himself teach these works but under his influence they were introduced in the curriculum of the seminaries of higher education.22 Most of these Shi'i migrants, it appears, were the followers of the Akhbari fiqh which was the most popular among the Shi'as in North India during the Mughal period.23 This school rejected the legitimacy of independent legal reasoning and held that in the absence of the twelfth Imam, who was in occultation, state-related functions could not be carried out in his name by the clergy.24 Conducive ground for the penetration of Iranian philosophical ideas might also have been prepared by the visit of Mulla Sadra's teacher, Mir Findiriski to India during the reign of Shahjahan.25 Findiriski (d.