Document Type : Research
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran.
2 Associate Professor, Institute for Humanities Research and Development (SAMT), Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Hamzah al-Fanārī is among those divine mystics who expounded most of his mystical views in his work Miṣbāḥ al-ʾuns. Among these views is his approach concerning the reality of time. He presents two interpretations of the reality of time, then explains another view and proceeds to critique it. The intelligible form of the ordering (Tartīb) between the prior and the posterior, and the very ordering (Nafs al-Tartīb) between the former and the latter, are the two interpretations that al-Fanārī offers to explain the reality of time. This article seeks, through a descriptive-analytical method, first to explore al-Fanārī’s approach precisely and then to critically examine it. The analysis of al-Fanārī’s view will be presented in the form of four critical points; i.e., the lack of a proper justification for time being the measure of the motion of the ninth celestial sphere; the incompatibility between the abstractness of the ordering of the former and the latter and time, which given al-Fanārī’s first interpretation is a transient and material reality; the necessity of a vicious circle (Dawr) in al-Fanārī’s second interpretation of the reality of time; and the incorrectness of assuming that the relation of divine names and attributes to material beings cannot be partial. These four critiques constitute the main objections that can be raised against al-Fanārī’s approach.
Keywords
- Time
- al-Fanārī
- Measure of the Motion of the Celestial Sphere
- Ordering (Tartīb)
- Intelligible Entity (Amr Maʿqūl)
Main Subjects
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