The Subject of Metaphysics According to Ḥakīm Tabrīzī and Transcendence of God from its Instances

Document Type : Original Article

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Univercity of Tehran

Abstract

Most of the Muslim philosophers, under the influence of the Aristotelian tradition, have considered the subject of metaphysics as "existent in terms of existence". In the meantime, only Fārābī, in a rare definition, places the necessary being (wājib al-wujūd) as the subject of wisdom (ḥikma), which Ibn Sīnā seriously criticizes. Suhrawardī also sometimes used "existence" in the infinitive sense in his peripatetic works, which was later reflected in the works of Mullā Ṣadrā, but the subject of Suhrawardī's philosophy of illumination and the divider of light and darkness is "object". Although other thinkers have unanimously mentioned the subject of metaphysics, Rajab ‘Alī Tabrīzī, the founder of the third school of thought in the Isfahan school, has discussed it with a new approach and has based it on a specific conceptual system. Considering the two conditions of "being more general" and "the ability to be taken as different subjects of science", he concludes that "the object in terms of existence" is the subject of ḥikma. In Tabrīzī's neo-peripatetic school, the meaning of "existence" is the existence of an object in the external (world), and the meaning of "existent" is the object that exists. Accordingly, actual existents are divided into two general categories: wājib and mumkin. What Ḥakīm means by wājib is constant and ever-existing creatures that are imperishable (everlasting) and in his term, is called "particular possibility". What is meant by mumkin is objects that are variable and "capable of existence and non-existence" which have been termed as mumkin-i ‘ām (general possible). Therefore, "God" is not even an instance of wājib al-wujūd, and therefore it will not be one of the instances of the subject of metaphysics. Such a conclusion is harmonious with Ḥakīm Tabrīzī's tanzīhī (transcendental) approach in theology.

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