The central gesture
Al-Asfār al-arbaʿa — "The Four Journeys of the Intellect" — is the work of a lifetime: the immense summa in which Mullā Ṣadrā unfolds his whole transcendent wisdom (al-ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya). Its originality is already in its title. Metaphysics is not set out as a fixed system, but as a journey — modelled on the itinerary of the spiritual traveller who ascends towards God, then descends from Him transformed.
To think, for Mullā Ṣadrā, is never a neutral operation: it is to move, to climb degrees, to become other. The book is therefore at once a treatise of philosophy and the map of an ascent.
The four journeys
- First journey — from the creature towards God. General metaphysics: being, its unity, its degrees. It is here that the great thesis appears — the primacy of existence (wujūd) over essence, and its gradation, from the faintest reflection to the pure Light.
- Second journey — in God, with God. The knowledge of God, of His Names and His attributes: what can be said — and kept silent — of the Absolute.
- Third journey — from God towards the creature. Cosmology: how, from the subtlest degrees to the densest, the world unfolds from the Principle.
- Fourth journey — within the creature, with God. The human soul: its nature, its becoming, its destiny after death. The sage, having traversed everything, returns among men — but he is no longer the same.
The key concepts (made plain)
- The primacy of existence — What is first is not essence (the "what" of a thing), but the act of existing itself. Essence is only a limit; existence is the living reality that fills it.
- The gradation of being — There is only one reality, existence, but it knows degrees of intensity: the stone, the plant, the soul, the angel exist — without the same fullness of being.
- Substantial motion — The very substance of things is in motion. At every instant, all that exists is renewed, carried one notch further. The world is not a stable stage: it is a continuous ascent.
- The soul that makes itself — Man does not have a ready-made soul. He becomes it, through knowledge and purification — until he can become a pure spirit.
To read it
The Asfār are a measureless work, and one does not venture into them alone without a guide. But the mere understanding of their plan — the four journeys — already illuminates all of Mullā Ṣadrā. For a first approach to his thought, it is better to begin with the shorter treatises: The Wisdom of the Throne and The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations.
Resonances
- The author: Mullā Ṣadrā
- The conveyor who made him known in the West: Henry Corbin
- The Real and its degrees — see the theme
- The other works: The Wisdom of the Throne, The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations