The main theme of the treatise is the resurrection of all existence...

The main theme of the treatise is the resurrection of all existence, including the animal and plant kingdoms and the mineral world.S adra extends the meaning and scope of resurrection to all existence in tandem with his ontology and natural philosophy, which considers the world of creation to be nothing but various degrees and modes of the all-inclusive reality of being ( al- wujud ) through ontological gradation ( al-tashkik ). The treatise is divided into eight chapters ( fasl ).

In the introduction,S adra classifies beings into five ‘layers’ or ‘classes’ ( tabaqah ) in a descending order.

These are the separate intellects, which belong to the Divine realm and in which the archetypes and the Platonic Forms/Ideas reside; the spirits operating in the intelligible world and related to lower and higher ‘bodies’ ( ajram ); particular spirits such as demons and humans where the human realm begins; plant and animal souls, which serve as a bridge between the human and material spheres; and finally the beings of the lowest degree ( asfal al-safilin ), viz., inanimate bodies.

Having given this classification,S adra explains, in eight chapters, the resurrection of all beings from the separate intellects to the grossly material entities. The first part discusses the resurrection of the…