Mīr Dāmād

Kitāb al-Qabasāt:
The Book of Blazing Brands

‫ﻛﺘﺎب اﻟﻘﺒﺴﺎت‬
A Provisional English Translation, Introduction, and Notes.
Including Selections from Sayyed Aḥmad ‘Alawī’s
Sharḥ Kitāb al-Qabasāt

by

Keven Brown

Global Scholarly Publications

New York
 Copyright © 2009 by Keven A. Brown.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any
form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-10: 1-59267-068-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59267-068-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Damad, Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad, d. 1631?

[Qabasat. English]
Kitab al-qabasat : the book of blazing brands / Mir Damad ; a draft
English translation, introduction, and notes by Keven Brown.
p. cm.
"Including Selections from Sayyed Ahmad ‘Alawi's Sharh Kitab al-
Qabasat."
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-59267-068-0 (alk. paper)
1. Philosophy, Islamic--Iran--Early works to 1800. I. Brown, Keven. II. Title.
III. Title: Book of blazing brands.
B743.I7D36513 2009
181'.5--dc22
2009006062
 
 
 
Global Scholarly Publications
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Technical editor: Keven Brown
Cover Design: Faheem Chishty
 Dedication
To my mother, Barbara Brown, with gratitude for unfailingly supporting me in
all my endeavors from childhood into adulthood, and for trusting me
and encouraging me to follow my dreams
 

Contents
Translator’s Introduction .................................................................................... ix 
Mīr Dāmād’s Introduction .................................................................................. 1 
The First Qabas
On the kinds of creation (ḥudūth) and the divisions of existence according
to them, establishing the bases of judgment, and defining the area of
dispute  ....................................................................................................... 3 
The Second Qabas
On the three kinds of essential antecedence and constructing the demon-
stration by way of essential priority (taqaddum bi’l-dhāt)  ..................... 43 
The Third Qabas
The two kinds of separate posteriority and constituting the demonstration
by way of eternal priority  ........................................................................ 93 
The Fourth Qabas
Quotations from the Book of God and the Traditions of His Messenger,
and from the traditions of the lofty and pure Imāms  ............................ 135 
The Fifth Qabas
Concerning the mode of existence of the unqualified natures and the path
of the demonstration by the mode of the existence of the nature  .......... 157 
The Sixth Qabas
On the continuity of time and motion; setting up the course of the demon-
stration with respect to the continuity of the magnitude of time according
to the natural system in two ways; establishing the finitude of extended
continuous quantity; and invalidating a numerical infinity with respect to
successive temporal creatures  ................................................................ 199 
The Seventh Qabas
A series of abridged arguments, unsound dialectical arguments, and criti-
cism of certain syllogisms and controversial sophistical doubts according
to the two extremes of the two groups  ................................................... 259 
The Eighth Qabas
Inquiry into the power of God and His will after completing what remains
in the care of the intellect, through the use of decisive utterance, to solve
vii
viii Contents

some of the difficulties and dilemmas caused by doubt and the confusions
arising from idle fancies  ........................................................................ 303 
The Ninth Qabas
On establishing the intelligible substances and the stages of the system of
existence in the two chains of beginning and return .............................. 365 
The Tenth Qabas
The decisive doctrine on the secret of predetermination (qaḍā’) and fate
(qadar), how evil is related to predetermination, the colocynth of truth on
prayer and its granting, and the return of the command to God in the
beginning and the end  ............................................................................ 425 
Glossary  ......................................................................................................... 495 
Bibliography  ................................................................................................... 503 
 
 Translator’s Introduction1

Post Avicennan Intellectual Trends

To better understand the position of Mīr Dāmād and his most famous work, al-
Qabasāt, in the history of Islamic Philosophy, it is important to first review the
main intellectual trends that developed in Muslim lands after the time of its
most celebrated philosopher, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (d. 1037), whose philosophi-
cal works, like the Shifā’ and the Ishārāt, became the subject of numerous
commentaries over the centuries. The influence of Ibn Sīnā, known as the
Master (al-shaykh) and the Chief (al-ra’īs) by subsequent generations of Mus-
lim scholars, on both the development of Islamic philosophy and kalām (scho-
lastic theology) was so great that reference to his works became critical to the
practice of either.
When the Ash‘arite mutakallim, or theologian, al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) wrote
his famous critique of the Peripatetic philosophers, by whom he means Ibn Sīnā
and al-Fārābī (d. 950), called the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the
Philosophers), in which he undertook to refute twenty doctrines of the philoso-
phers, including the alleged belief that the Creator emanates the world neces-
sarily in the same way that fire produces heat, according to Van Den Bergh, by
this event “philosophy was defeated” in the lands of Islam and reached its cul-
mination in the monumental exposition of Aristotelian philosophy by Ibn
Rushd (Averroes) (d. 1198), who had attempted but failed to heal the declining
reputation of philosophy by his counter attack on al-Ghazālī known as the
Tahāfut al-Tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence).2 If Van Den Bergh’s
claim is true for philosophy in the western lands of Islam, including Spain, it is
certainly not true with respect to the legacy of Ibn Rushd in Europe, where his
work was translated into Latin and became the inspiration of the philosophical
movement known as Scholasticism. It is also certainly not true with respect to
the development of philosophy in the eastern half of the Muslim world, where
al-Ghazālī’s attack on the Peripatetics, although known, did not impede phi-
losophical pursuits. Philosophy in the east under Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical suc-
cessors, who valued original and critical approaches to philosophical texts,
continued to flourish and develop new ideas. Ibn Rushd’s counter attack and
rejoinder to al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al-Falāsifa was apparently unknown to both
the successors of Ibn Sīnā and al-Ghazālī in the east. This may be the reason
why, despite the fact that he is addressing the same questions that occupied al-
Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd, Mīr Dāmād only mentions al-Ghazālī’s Tahāfut once in

                                                            
1
This introduction is adapted from the introduction to my dissertation Time, Perpetuity,
and Eternity: Mīr Dāmād’s Theory of Perpetual Creation and the Trifold Division of
Existence: An Analysis of Kitāb al-Qabasāt: The Book of Blazing Brands, University of
California, Los Angeles, 2006 (UMI Dissertation Publishing 2007).
2
Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut, p. xi.
ix
x Translator’s Introduction

Kitāb al-Qabasāt 3 and places more importance upon the criticisms of Ibn Sīnā
made by the Ash‘arite Fakr al-Dīn al-Rāzī a century later.
It is true that Muslim philosophers were under attack by Muslim theologi-
ans insofar as they were perceived to be placing reason above Revelation, such
as in the problem of the eternity of the world vs. its creation. The founder of the
Illuminationist school of philosophy, Shihab al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī, was
executed at the age of 36 at the instigation of the orthodox establishment on the
charge of heresy and corrupting the youth. Mullā Ṣadrā, Mīr Dāmād’s most
famous student, was forced into exile for a time due to the systematic harass-
ment of the ‘ulamā’. There was also a popular distrust of philosophical works
due, in part, to the fact that the philosophical style of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā
was difficult to understand. The condemnation of philosophy by Sufi mystics,
who had an innate hostility to rational discourse, was also common. The use of
reason as a tool to understand Revelation, however, was never discouraged in
Islam, except by a fanatic minority, so there was nothing in philosophy to inhe-
rently hinder its harmony with Revelation.
Although the al-Ghazālī-Ibn Rushd debate does not appear to have been
known to the philosophers and theologians of Iran, there was another polemic
which took place in the thirteenth century involving the Ash‘arite theologian
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1209) and the Shī‘ite Avicennan philosopher Naṣīr al-
Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274) which held great significance to both groups. Both al-
Ghazālī and al-Rāzī had studied Hellenic philosophy in order to master it well
enough to refute the philosophical doctrines they disagreed with, such as the
eternity of the world, the doctrine that God only knows particulars through their
universals, and the denial of bodily resurrection. Al-Rāzī wrote two works to
which al-Ṭūsī responded, one called al-Muḥaṣṣal, which is a comparative anal-
ysis of the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers, Muslim philosophers, and
the theology of the Kalām, and another called Sharḥ al-Ishārāt, which is a
commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s last work, al-Ishārāt wa’l-Tanbīhāt. In both books
he made many specific criticisms against Ibn Sīnā, most of which, according to
Izutsu, are “due to misunderstandings and hasty judgments.”4 Al-Ṭūsī re-
sponded by writing his own commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s Ishārāt, known as Sharḥ
al-Ishārāt, and a critique of al-Rāzī’s Muḥaṣṣal titled Naqd al-Muḥaṣṣal. In
both books he concisely elucidates Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical positions and
defends him against the criticisms of al-Rāzī. Mīr Dāmād frequently quotes
passages from these works of al-Rāzī and al-Ṭūsī in al-Qabasāt, in which he
usually sides with al-Ṭūsī but corrects him when he thinks al-Ṭūsī has erred in
his reasoning. Al-Ṭūsī also wrote the Tajrīd al-‘Aqā’id in which he provides
Shī‘ī theology with a Peripatetic metaphysical foundation. This last work, like
his Sharḥ al-Ishārāt, became the subject of a considerable number of commen-
taries written by both Shī‘ī and Sunnī theologians.
                                                            
3
See al-Qabasāt, p. 303.
4
Concept and Reality of Existence, p. 60, n. 10. ‘Alawi also notes that “because of his
[al-Rāzī’s] poor training he did not understand his [Ibn Sīnā’s] intent” (Sharḥ al-
Qabasāt 430).
 xi

The importance of al-Ṭūsī to the subsequent development and acceptance

of Islamic philosophy cannot be overestimated. Through his clear writing style,
containing “no trace of unnecessary concepts or difficult words,”5 and his rea-
soned defense of Ibn Sīnā, he revived Peripatetic philosophy and gave it a fresh
impetus. Most significantly, al-Ṭūsī was himself a theologian,6 and his cham-
pioning of Ibn Sīnā marked the beginning of a new cycle of scholasticism in
Islam. After him the practice of philosophy will be carried on primarily by
theologians. One of al-Ṭūsī’s brightest students in philosophy, ‘Allāmah Ibn
Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (d. 1325), was a Shī‘ite jurisprudent who himself trained
many other theologian-philosophers, both Shī‘ī and Sunnī.
At the same time that Fakr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was criticizing the Peripatetics,
a new movement arose from among the ranks of the philosophers themselves.
This was the Illuminationist school founded by Shihab al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d.
1191), who had been trained in Peripatetic philosophy in his youth. After the
occurrence of a dream in which Aristotle appeared to him and revealed to him
the concept of “knowledge by presence” and the superiority of the ancient
sages, Suhrawardī subordinated discursive philosophy to philosophy based on
illumination by unveiling and intuition. He also identified his philosophy not
with Aristotle, but with pre-Aristotelian sages, like Plato, among the Greeks,
Hermes Trismegistus among the Egyptians, and ancient Persian sages and
kings. Suhrawardī is known for establishing a genuine doctrine of Platonic
Forms in Islamic philosophy, which he interpreted as self-conscious angelic
lights, each of which is “the lord of a species” or “the lord of an image.” He
also clarified that the distinction between essence and existence in concrete
entities, which he thought Ibn Sīnā had taken literally, is a purely conceptual
distinction. In other words, it is the essences which are real, and “existence” is a
mental construct which is predicated upon and signifies the actualized essences.
This doctrine of the principality of the essence, or the quiddity, was accepted by
nearly all Islamic philosophers until the time of Mīr Dāmād’s famous student,
Mullā Ṣadrā, who espoused the contrary doctrine of the principality of exis-
tence.
Another important movement that appeared around the same time among
the Sufis was centered around the work of Ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 1240), who spent
the last sixteen years of life living in Damascus, where he completed his fam-
ous encyclopedia of Islamic sciences Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya. His ideas are so rich
and cover such a vast array of themes that it is hard to summarize them, but one
of his major ideas which became a significant source of inspiration to Mullā
Ṣadrā concerns the principal reality of existence in the sense of act and the
unbounded possibility of the essences of things to become in their journey
towards reunion with God.

                                                            
5
Dhabīhullāh Ṣafā, qtd. in Dabashi, “Khwājah Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī,” 549.
6
He was in fact much more than a philosopher and a theologian. Like Ibn Sīnā, he was
a “Renaissance man.” He served as the vizier of two Mongol rulers and was versed in
mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and nearly every branch of knowledge.
xii Translator’s Introduction

In sum, prior to the time of Mīr Dāmād and the founding of the school of
philosophers that became known as “the school of Iṣfahān” in the sixteenth
century, there were four major intellectual trends prevalent in Islamic lands: (1)
the Peripatetic philosophy of Ibn Sīnā as expounded by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī
and his students, (2) the kalām, or scholastic theology, of Fakr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
and other theologians, both Shī‘ī and Sunnī, (3) the Illuminationist philosophy
of Suhrawardī and his followers, and (4) the mystical theosophy of Ibn al-
‘Arabī and his followers. It should be kept in mind that this is a general classifi-
cation, and that many thinkers belonged to more than one category.

Ḥikmat and the School of Iṣfahān

The founding of the Ṣafavid dynasty in Persia by Shah Ismā’īl at the beginning
of the sixteenth century was an event with long-lasting consequences for the
peoples of the region. Ismā’īl established the borders that have defined Iran
until the present day, and under the Ṣafavids Twelver Shī‘ism, for the first time,
became the official state religion, which was institutionalized in support of the
state. The Ṣafavid state-building program came to its height under Shah ‘Abbas
I (1588-1629), who chose Iṣfahān to be his new capital city. Iṣfahān soon
became an economically thriving, administratively powerful, and culturally rich
center for Iranian Islam. By 1666, according to a European visitor, Iṣfahān had
162 mosques, 48 colleges, 182 caravansaries, and 273 public baths.7 It was an
environment conducive to cultural and intellectual creativity. As stated by
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “just as Ṣafavid art is one of the high points of Muslim
art, so is the intellectual life of Shī‘ism in this period one of the apogees of
Muslim history,”8 producing figures like Mīr Dāmād, Shaykh Bahā’ī, Mīr
Findiriskī, Mullā Ṣadrā, Sayyid Aḥmad ‘Alawī, and ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Lāhījī to
mention just a few among the many prolific ḥukamā’ in this period.
The phrase “the School of Iṣfahān” was coined in the 1950s by Henry
Corbin and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, according to Newman, “to stress the unique-
ness of the contribution of these figures within the broader dimensions of
Islamic philosophical thought, and to call attention to the early seventeenth
century as a period of philosophical renaissance in Iran.”9 As mentioned earlier,
after the time of al-Ṭūsī, who is the prototype of this new generation of philo-
sophers, philosophy was mainly conducted by theologians, who were usually
proficient in other branches of learning as well. It would neither have been safe
nor prudent to claim oneself to be a pure philosopher. Instead of using the
Greek word “philosophy” to describe their profession, the philosophers now
used the term ḥikmat, which means “wisdom.” This gave them a means to fur-
ther legitimize their profession in the eyes of religious skeptics by associating it
with the Prophets sent by God, since in the Qur’ān it is implied that God had
revealed ḥikmat to the Prophets and sages of old. For example, the Qur’ān
                                                            
7
Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, p. 294.
8
“The School of Iṣpahān,” p. 904.
9
“Toward a Reconsideration of the ‘Isfahān School of Philosophy’,” p. 166.
 xiii

states: “We bestowed wisdom on Luqmān,”10 and in another verse it is said:

“Commemorate Idrīs in the Book; for he was a man of truth, a Prophet; and we
uplifted him to a place on high.”11 It was well-known that Idrīs was identical to
Hermes Trismegistus (or Thoth), who had revealed religion, philosophy, and
sciences to the Egyptians. Thus, Mullā Ṣadrā would write: “Know that wisdom
(ḥikmat) originally began with Adam and his progeny Seth and Hermes, i.e.,
Idrīs, and Noah, because the world is never deprived of a person upon whom
the science of unity and eschatology rests. And it is the greatest Hermes who
propagated it (ḥikmat) throughout the regions of the world….He is the ‘father
of the philosophers’ and the master of those who are the masters of the
sciences.”12 Muslim historians like Abu’l-Fatḥ al-Shahristānī (1076-1153) and
‘Imād al-Dīn Abu’l-Fidā’ (1273-1331) had reported that Empedocles had
acquired wisdom from Luqmán, and that Pythagoras had acquired wisdom from
Solomon, the son of David.13 The purpose of such statements was to show that
the fundamentals of philosophy had proceeded from the Prophets and that phi-
losophy, or ḥikmat, rests on a divine foundation. As explained by Nasr,
“Ḥikmat consists of several threads knit together by the matrix of Shī‘ism. The
most important of these elements are the esoteric teachings of the Imāms, espe-
cially as contained in the Nahj al-Balāghah by the first Imām ‘Alī, the ishrāqī
wisdom of Suhrawardī which contains in itself aspects of ancient Persian and
Hermetic doctrines, the teachings of the earlier Sufis, especially the Gnostic
doctrines of Ibn ‘Arabī, and the heritage of the Greek philosophers.”14 Those
who practiced ḥikmat were called ḥukamā’ (s. ḥākim). Dabashi writes: “The
ultimate objective of the Shī‘ī philosophers of the Ṣafavid period was to dem-
onstrate the central and meta-epistemological harmony among all these dis-
courses. In his person, Mīr Dāmād exemplified this synthetic ambition of the
‘School of Iṣfahān’. As a Shī‘ī philosopher/jurist/mystic, he wrote logical trea-
tises and juridical edicts with the same ease and competence with which he
composed mystical poems.”15

Mīr Dāmād
Mīr Burhān al-Dīn Muḥammad Bāqir Dāmād, or Mīr Dāmād as he is com-
monly known, is considered by Nasr and Corbin to be the leading figure of the
School of Iṣfahān and along with his student Mullā Ṣadrā the greatest ḥākim of
the period.16 He was known in Ṣafavid times by his pen name “Ishrāq,” and he
                                                            
10
Qur’ān 31:12.
11
Qur’ān 19:57-58.
12
Qtd. in Nasr, Islamic Studies, p. 69.
13
Juan Cole, “Problems of Chronology,” p. 32.
14
“School of Iṣpahān,” p. 907.
15
“Mīr Dāmād,” p. 622.
16
Nasr, “School of Iṣpahān, p. 914; Ashtiyānī, Anthogie des Philosophes Iraniens, p.
15.
xiv Translator’s Introduction

was honored with the title “the Third Teacher” (after Aristotle and al-Fārābī)
and “the Master of the Erudite” among the philosophers. He was the son of Mīr
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Astarābādī, known as Dāmād (son-in-law) because
he was married to the daughter of ‘Alī Ibn ‘Abd al-‘Ālī, known as Muḥaqqiq-i
Karakī, one of the most prominent Shī’ī clerics of the early Ṣafavid period.
Accordingly, Mīr Dāmād was the grandchild of Muḥaqqiq-i Karakī, and he
continued to bear the honorific title of “Dāmād,” although it was his father who
was the son-in-law.
Mīr Dāmād was born in Astarābād in 1543 but was raised in Mashhad,
where he spent a number of years engaged in acquiring the traditional and
intellectual sciences, and where he studied the philosophical works of his pre-
decessors, especially the Shifā’ and Ishārāt of Avicenna. His two most promi-
nent teachers were Ḥusayn Ibn ‘Abd al-Ṣamad al-‘Āmilī, the father of Shaykh
Bahā’ī, and Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karakī, his own maternal uncle. After that he lived
for a time in Qazvīn and then in Kāshān, finally settling down in Iṣfahān. He
spent his abundant life engaged in teaching and writing, and passed away in
Najaf in 1631, where he was buried.
During his lifetime, Mīr Dāmād was recognized not only as an accom-
plished philosopher but as a skilled mathematician, jurisprudent, Qur’ān com-
mentator, poet, and natural scientist. Nasr notes that it is reported that Mīr
Dāmād studied the life of bees and recorded observational data about them.17
As a philosopher, he was primarily a Peripatetic philosopher following in the
tradition of Al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, whom he frequently calls his “two compa-
nions in instruction and in leadership,”18 though he differed with them substan-
tially on the issue of the creation of the world. It is evident from his writings
that he considered himself their equal in philosophy, and even their superior on
some questions. Mīr Dāmād sees himself as guided first and foremost by the
wisdom of the Prophets and the Shī‘ī Imāms, who taught the doctrine of crea-
tion, and he maintains in al-Qabasāt that Aristotle, al-Fārābī, and Ibn Sīnā
failed to use their sound philosophical premises to come up with the right con-
clusion.
In Iṣfahān, Mīr Dāmād attracted a large number of students, the most
famous of whom were Mullā Ṣadrā (the author of the encyclopedic al-Asfār al-
Arba‘a), Sayyid Aḥmad ‘Alawī (who is known for his commentaries on the
Shifā’ and the Qabasāt), Mullā Khalīl Qazvīnī (who wrote a commentary on
the Uṣūl al-Kāfī), and Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkiwārī (the author of a universal sacred
history).
One of Mīr Dāmād’s friends and close associates was Shaykh Bahā’ī, both
of whom enjoyed prestigious positions at the court of Shah ‘Abbās. The fol-
lowing story by one of Mīr Dāmād’s biographers illustrates their friendship:
One day Shah ‘Abbās was riding his horse in the company of Mīr Dāmād
and Shaykh Bahā’ī. Because Mīr Dāmād was fat and heavy, he and his

                                                            
17
“School of Iṣpahān,” p. 914, n. 40.
18
See al-Qabasāt, pp. 72, 77, 191, 365. He also refers often to Ibn Sīnā separately as
“my companion in leadership” and to al-Fārābī as “my companion in instruction.”
 xv

horse would regularly fall behind. Shah ‘Abbās is reported to have

approached him and in jest suggested that Shaykh Bahā’ī is not polite and
reverential enough because he gallops fast ahead of Mīr Dāmād. “That is
not true, your Majesty,” Mīr Dāmād is said to have responded. “His horse is
so happy for having such a great man riding it, it cannot control itself and
jumps and pushes ahead of everyone else.” Shah ‘Abbās goes to Shaykh
Bahā’ī and this time complains of Mīr Dāmād’s weight and says he is so fat
he cannot keep up with the entourage. “That is not the reason, your
Majesty,” Shaykh Bahā’ī is reported to have said. “The poor animal cannot
bear the weight of so much knowledge that it carries. Mountains would
break carrying the weight of Mīr Dāmād’s knowledge.”19
Mīr Dāmād was a prolific writer in both Persian and Arabic. He is known,
however, for having a difficult style of writing and employing obscure Arabic
words, which makes it initially hard to understand the contents of his works.
Tabrīzī Khiyābānī lists 48 books by Mīr Dāmād, including the two divans of his
poetry, one for Persian and one for Arabic.20 Five important books for which
he is often discussed, according to Ashkiwārī, are al-Rawāshiḥ al-Samāwiyyah
(a commentary on the traditions of the Shī‘ī Imāms), al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm (on
theology and philosophy), al-Ufuq al-Mubīn (on theology and philosophy), al-
Qabasāt (on theology and philosophy), and al-Jadhawāt (which he wrote for
Shah ‘Abbās, being a treatise on the disconnected letters of the Qur’ān and why
Moses’ body did not burn on Mt. Sinai, while the stones around him did).21
Some of his other books include the Sidrat al-Muntahā (a commentary on the
Qur’ān), al-Taqdīsāt and al-Ḥabl al-Matīn (both on philosophy), Taqwīm al-
Īmām (expounding various philosophical questions), and Shāri‘ al-Najāt (on
the principles of religion and jurisprudence). He also wrote a commentary on
the Ibn Sīnā’s Shifā’ and al-Ṭūsī’s Istibṣār. Among his philosophical works, his
al-Qabasāt, however, is recognized as his magnum opus, which contains the
essential features of his metaphysics.

Kitāb al-Qabasāt
I made my heart the treasure of Divine Secrets.
In the world of Intellect I reigned.
In al-Qabasāt I became the sea of certitude.
The script of doubt and uncertainty I destroyed.22
With these words, Mīr Dāmād describes his accomplishment in al-Qabasāt.
The complete title of al-Qabasāt is Qabasāt Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn fī Ḥudūth al-‘Ālam,
which means “Blazing Brands of Objective Certainty on the Creation of the
World.” Mīr Dāmād began to write this book in Rabī‘ al-Awwal in the year
1034 A.H on the day of the birth of the Prophet (December 23, 1624), and he
                                                            
19
Tabrīzī Khiyābānī as translated by Dabashi, “Mīr Dāmād,” pp. 606-607.
20
In Mīr Dāmād, al-Qabasāt, pp. lix-lxii.
21
Ibid., p. xxxii.
22
Qtd. in Dabashi, “Mīr Dāmād,” p. 605.
xvi Translator’s Introduction

finished it on the 6th of Sha‘bān the same year (May 13, 1625). Mīr Dāmād
arranged the Kitāb al-Qabasāt into ten chapters, calling each chapter a “blazing
brand” (qabas). Each blazing brand contains short sections which he designated
a “flash” (wamḍa) or “gleam” (wamīḍ) of light. The word qabas means “a live
coal” or “a firebrand.” It is likely that he was thinking of the following verse
from the Qur’ān concerning Moses’ sighting of the burning bush on Mt. Sinai
when he thought of the title of his book. It is related: “‘Behold!’ Moses said to
his family, ‘I perceive a fire. I will bring you tidings from there, or I will bring
you a blazing brand (qabas) that you may warm yourselves’.”23 As Mīr Dāmād
indicates in his introduction to al-Qabasāt, it is hoped that through the
“flashes” and “gleams” emanating from these firebrands, the reader “may
obtain a glimpse of the face of God.”24
The goal of Mīr Dāmād in writing al-Qabasāt, in brief, is to demonstrate
by means of the rational methods of the Peripatetics and based upon principles
established by the Peripatetics themselves that the universe in its entirety, in
both its material and immaterial dimensions, is created by God at the level of
perpetuity and preceded by its real non-existence. He does not believe, like
Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā, and most of the Peripatetics that the universe as a whole is
eternal, nor does he believe like most of the early Mu‘tazilite and Ash‘arite
theologians that it was created in time. It is a fundamental doctrine of Mīr
Dāmād that reality is divided into three containers (wi‘ā’), each of which sus-
tains and encompasses the container directly following it. These three contain-
ers are: (1) the realm of eternity (sarmad), which has neither beginning nor end
and no cause for its existence, (2) the realm of perpetuity (dahr), which has a
beginning and a cause but not an end, and (3) the realm of time (zamān), in
which things have both a beginning and an end in time. The first realm pertains
only to the essence of God, which alone has no cause for its existence.25 The
second realm applies to the whole of everything other than God in relation to
Him, which being His effect is caused, but not temporally caused. The third
realm applies to the relationship of temporals to each other. Insofar as these
temporals are subject to progression and change, elapsing and renewal, and
quantifiable priority and posteriority, they are in time. But insofar as they are
created and exist, they are not in time but in perpetuity, the domain where all
things exist in relation to God without the flow of time. Mīr Dāmād devotes the
first six chapters of al-Qabasāt to demonstrating, through a series of demon-
strations, his alternate thesis of perpetual creation (ḥudūth dahrī). In all,
according to his own account, he presents eight different principles upon which

                                                            
23
Qur’ān 27:7.
24
Al-Qabasāt, p. 2.
25
There is good reason to hold that prime matter as such is also eternal, as I have
argued elsewhere, but this is not Mīr Dāmād’s position. See Keven Brown, “An
Analytical Summary of the First Qabas of Mīr Dāmād’s Kitābu al-Qabasāt,”
International Journal of Shī‘ī Studies, 3(1), 24-25.
 xvii

he builds his demonstrations for the creation of world26 in the domain of

perpetuity preceded by its real, unquantifiable non-existence. He says:
By the leave of God, His grace, and His mercy, we have investigated the
eight principles which are the principles for the demonstrations of the crea-
tion of the world in this book. The first is the knowledge of the containers
of existence, namely, time, perpetuity, and eternity; the second is the
knowledge that existence is identical to the essentially necessary Being but
added to the possible quiddities; the third is the knowledge of the three
kinds of essential priority and their characteristics; the fourth is the know-
ledge of the two kinds of separate priority, the eternal and the temporal, and
their characteristics; the fifth is the knowledge of the three kinds of creation
and their requirements; the sixth is the knowledge of quantitative relation
and everlasting relation and the distinction between them; the seventh is the
knowledge of the mode of existence of the unqualified natures and the set-
tling of their affair; the eighth is the knowledge of the continuity of motion
and time and what is associated with that.27
In the Seventh Qabas, Mīr Dāmād responds directly to specific arguments
of the philosophers for the eternity of the world, and in the last three qabasāt he
addresses subsidiary subjects, such as the power of God and His will, the chains
of beginning and return, the secret of predetermination and fate, the question of
evil, and the wisdom of prayer and its granting.
Like Suhrawardī, Mīr Dāmād’s placed strong emphasis on yamanī wis-
dom, the wisdom of the Prophets, and he greatly admired Plato, whom he calls
“the seal of the divine philosophers,” by which he means that Plato was the last
of “the seven noble philosophers who acquired the light of philosophy from the
niche of prophethood.”28 He is clear in the First Qabas that it is the divine
philosophers, not the followers of Aristotle, who taught the perpetual creation
of the universe. Ironically, however, Mīr Dāmād believes that Aristotle, via the
Theology mistakenly ascribed to him by early Muslim thinkers, is a wellspring
for his ideas on time and perpetuity. His frequent references to and admiration
of the words of “Aristotle” in the Theology demonstrate Mīr Dāmād’s unrecog-
nized debt to Plotinus, whose Enneads are the source of the Theology.
Al-Qabasāt is not only the epitome of Mīr Dāmād’s thought in the area of
metaphysics, it also contains a wealth of quoted passages and critical commen-
tary on the positions of other thinkers on a variety of philosophical subjects. In
laying out the above themes, Mīr Dāmād gives special attention to the works of
Ibn Sīnā, such as the Shifā’, the Ishārāt, the Najāt, the Ta‘līqāt, the ‘Uyūn al-
Ḥikmat, and al-Mabda’ wa’l-Ma‘ād. He refers frequently to Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s
Sharḥ al-Ishārāt, Sharḥ Risāla Mas’ala al-‘Ilm, and Naqd al-Muḥaṣṣal. He
quotes from al-Fārābī’s al-Jam‘ bayna al-Ra’ayn and Fuṣūṣ; Suhrawardī’s
                                                            
26
By “the world” (al-‘ālam) Mīr Dāmād means everything other than God, both
material and immaterial.
27
Qtd. in Seyyed Ahmad ‘Alawī, Sharḥ al-Qabasāt, p. 395.
28
Qtd. in ‘Alawī, Sharḥ al-Qabasāt, p. 384. The seven divine philosophers listed by
Mīr Dāmād are Thales, Anaxigoras, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates,
and Plato.
xviii Translator’s Introduction

Muṭāraḥāt, Talwīḥāt, and Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq; from the Muḥākamāt of Quṭb al-
Dīn al-Rāzī; from Baghdādī’s al-Mu‘tabir; from the Taḥṣīl of Bahmanyār; from
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Muhaṣṣal and Sharḥ al-Ishārāt; and from numerous
other works and commentaries. He quotes often from and places a lot of em-
phasis on the Theology ascribed to Aristotle. In addition, he often cross refer-
ences his readers to his other books for more details on specific themes men-
tioned in al-Qabasāt.
Besides the importance of al-Qabasāt as a major work in the philosophi-
cal literature addressing the debate of whether the universe as a whole is created
or eternal, and one which resolves the debate favorably on the side of creation
through demonstrations based on Peripatetic premises, al-Qabasāt contains
many of Mīr Dāmād’s profoundest insights into the nature of time. As Netton
rightly observes: “What is true is that many of the conceptions of time in mod-
ern philosophy are just as radical, thought-provoking and complex as anything
ever devised by Mīr Dāmād.”29 For example, Mīr Dāmād’s recognition of the
inseparable connection between time, space, and motion and their inherence in
temporal objects presages Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which recog-
nizes the mutability of space-time in response to mass and energy. Mīr
Dāmād’s idea of perpetuity as the domain where the past, the present, and the
future all exist as a single timeless whole, where time exists like a frozen river
without its extension and flow, conforms to Einstein’s statement: “For we con-
vinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an
illusion, however persistent.”30

The Text and Translation

The text of al-Qabasāt which has been used for this translation is the critical
edition prepared by M. Mohaghegh, T. Izutsu, A. Mūsavī Behbahānī, and I.
Dībājī, which was published by the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill Univer-
sity, in collaboration with Tehran University in 1977. This edition was cor-
rected based upon comparing the Shīrāz 1897 lithographed edition and three
different manuscript copies.31 Besides the text, the 1977 edition includes an
introduction to the First Qabas by Mehdi Mohaghegh, a short analytical essay
by ‘Alī Mūsavī Behbehānī on Mīr Dāmād’s theory of perpetual creation, five
biographies on Mīr Dāmād, an English introduction by T. Izutsu, and indexes
of the names of individuals, groups, and books mentioned by Mīr Dāmād in al-
Qabasāt. As noted by Mohaghegh, “because the volume of this edition is
already large, a study of Mīr Dāmād’s ideas, an introduction to his works,
annotations, and explanations from various commentaries of al-Qabasāt, dif-
ferences in the texts use, and a detailed subject index are planned for another

                                                            
29
“Suhrawardī’s Heir?,” p. 244.
30
Qtd. in Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos, p. 139.
31
Details on the manuscript copies used and the lithograph edition are in al-Qabasāt,
pp. xxi-xxiv.
 xix

volume.”32 This volume appeared in 1997 in the form of the publication of

Sayyid Aḥmad ‘Alawī’s Sharḥ al-Qabasāt, edited by Hāmed Nājī Isfahānī with
Persian and English introductions by Mehdi Mohaghegh.
As other scholars have noted, Mīr Dāmād’s style of writing and penchant
for “rare and unusual terms and expressions” make his works challenging to
read.33 His ideas are rich and complex, and his allusions to philosophical and
theological concepts require of the reader a sound knowledge of Islamic philo-
sophical and theological discourses. It is because of the difficulty of his style,
the complexity of his ideas, and the fact that a great deal of time is needed to
study and befittingly translate Mīr Dāmād’s words with clarity and precision,
time which this translator has not yet acquired, that the present translation is
being published as a “draft translation.” It is the plan of the translator to even-
tually perfect this translation of al-Qabasāt by correcting the errors and unclear
renderings that remain in it. (If you can be of assistance to me in this regard,
please contact me by sending an email to kevenbrown2006@yahoo.com.) Fur-
thermore, time is needed to study and translate the passages in Mīr Dāmād’s
other works to which he refers in al-Qabasāt and in which he elaborates upon
certain themes treated summarily in al-Qabasāt.
My translation of al-Qabasāt has benefited greatly by having on hand a
copy of Sayyid Aḥmad ‘Alawī’s commentary on al-Qabasāt known as Sharḥ
al-Qabasāt, which has been useful in providing additional explanations on
various themes. ‘Alawī was a student of Mīr Dāmād and his son-in-law, and he
wrote this commentary in accord with the desire of Mīr Dāmād and at his bid-
ding.34 Wherever it seems helpful I have included commentary from ‘Alawī in
the footnotes that accompany the translation. A thorough study of ‘Alawī’s
commentary and completing its translation needs to be done in conjunction
with any sufficient translation of al-Qabasāt. The excellent article by Fazlur
Rahman titled “Mīr Dāmād’s Concept of Ḥudūth Dahrī” also provided me with
valuable insights into Mīr Dāmād’s ideas.
The 1977 critical edition of al-Qabasāt did not include numbering to
distinguish the sections of each Qabas, called wamḍa, from the subsections
called wamīḍ. Therefore, in the course of my translation of al-Qabasāt, I have
provided numbering for each section and each subsection. For example, the
First Qabas has seven wamḍa, the fourth of which has seven wamīḍ and the
seventh of which has seven wamīḍ. Therefore, the third wamīḍ of the fourth
wamḍa of the First Qabas is numbered 1.4.3, and according to the same pattern
the other wamḍa and wamīḍ in al-Qabasāt are numbered.

                                                            
32
Foreword to al-Qabasāt, p. ii.
33
Mohaghegh, introduction to al-Qabasāt, p. xvi; Izutsu, English introduction, p. 3.
34
‘Alawī states: “Time and again while he was alive he [Mīr Dāmād] commanded me
to undertake the commentary of this delightful book.” Qtd. in Mohaghegh’s “Arabic
Introduction” to Sharḥ al-Qabasāt, p. 17.
 [Mīr Dāmād’s Introduction]
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!
Divine guidance is from God, the Mighty, the All-Knowing. Praise be to
God, the One, the Peerless, the Everlasting, the Protector of all things, the
Maker of every existent, and blessings be upon the One who followed Him
among the concourse of the Prophets and served Him with full devotion among
the assemblage of the Messengers, Whom He sent forth with the Preserved
Tablet in the station of Maḥmūd. And blessings be upon the chosen ones among
His holy family, who are infallible in their testimony and in their deeds.
Now then, this neediest of creatures and poorest of the servants of God,
the Most Praised, the Self-Subsisting, His humble servant, Muḥammad Ibn
Muḥammad, called Bāqir Dāmād al-Ḥusaynī (may God make his end blessed in
both worlds), affirms that one of the spiritual companions whom I was not able
to dissuade with a refusal asked me with great insistence to unfold for him by
means of citation (al-dhikr)1—with the clarity of ‘objective certainty’ (ḥaqq al-
yaqīn)2 by means of demonstrations, and with decisive propositions set forth
according to accepted principles and rules—what has become clear to the eye
of my intellect, to the eye of my heart, and to the vision of my soul through the
manifest light of God and His irresistible power, namely that the Lord of pri-
mary origination and generation is alone in preexistence (qidam), prior to per-
petuity (dawām), solitary in pre-eternity (azaliyya), and the exclusive possessor
of eternity without beginning or end (sarmadiyya),3 while the universe with all
its elements and parts, its compounds and members—whether these be intelli-
gences, souls, matters, forms, bodies, or accidents—is preceded by non-exis-
tence, new in creation, subject to destruction, and afflicted with nullification.

                                                            
1
The term al-dhikr, lit. “remembrance,” also means “quotation” or “citation,” and it
may have that meaning here, since Mīr Dāmād quotes frequently from his predecessors
to support his arguments in the chapters of al-Qabasāt. Alternatively, the meaning here
may be the Qur’ān, which is also called al-dhikr (see Qur’ān 16:44).
2
The term ḥaqq al-yaqīn refers to the highest in a three-tiered hierarchy of stages of
certainty derived from verses in the Qur’ān. The first is ‘ilm al-yaqīn (cognitive
certainty), which an understanding of things reached by reasoning, such as an
understanding of fire reached by reading books. The second is ‘ayn al-yaqīn (visual
certainty), which is an understanding of things obtained by seeing them with one’s own
eyes. We see the fire. The third is ḥaqq al-yaqīn (objective certainty), which is an
understanding of things reached by direct experience. We are burned by the fire. (See
Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’ān, vol. 2, footnote 5673.)
3
In philosophy and theology, qidam denotes both “preexistence” and “eternity,” the
latter meaning without beginning or end, while azal signifies the particular aspect of
eternity being without a beginning. Dāmād uses the term sarmad customarily in al-
Qabasāt, however, rather than qidam, to refer to the domain of God’s beginningless and
endless eternity.
1
Kitāb al-Qabasāt 2

By the life of the Beloved: the execution of a clear demonstration and a

proper exposition through rational methods on this theme is a difficult affair
and it has not yet been achieved. The temperaments of thoughts are sick for the
desire of it, and the loins [2] of minds are bereft of its countenance. There is no
easy path thereto from the beginning until the end of time. Even one of the pil-
lars among the eminent philosophers and one of the luminaries among the great
minds, our foregone companion in this endeavor, the master of the philosophers
of Islam and their chief [i.e., Ibn Sīnā], in the Topics, which is a book on the art
of dialectic (al-jadal) among the arts of logic in the Kitāb al-Shifā’, has stated,
in emulation of what is in the First Discipline,4 that this problem is, from whi-
chever position one takes, dialectical and not based on demonstration, due to
the lack of demonstrative proofs on either side,5 and he considered the question
of whether the world is created (ḥādith) or eternal (azalī)6 a dialectical question
having two contrary positions.
But, lo! I shall carry out what the questioner has requested and fulfill his
hopes through these “blazing brands” (qabasāt), each of which contains
“flashes” (wamḍāt) and “gleams” (wamīḍāt), in hopes of obtaining a glimpse of
the face of God, the All-Bountiful. The recompense thereof is with God. How
glorious is His remembrance and how abundant His reward! He, verily, is the
Lord of wondrous grace and ancient bounty, the Fountainhead of knowledge
and wisdom. By Him all things are preserved and in Him is our best defense.
[3]

                                                            
4
I.e., Aristotle’s books on Logic.
5
“A demonstration is a syllogism whose premises must be accepted, i.e., are certain.
That is why the conclusion, too, is certain” (Shams Inati, Ibn Sīnā: Remarks and
Admonitions: Part One: Logic, p. 38). Premises acceptable in demonstration include
those that are self-evident based on sensible experience or unanimous agreement.
Dialectic, on the other hand, may employ less than certain premises, such as
propositions based on authority and custom (Ibid., pp. 30-31).
6
The term ḥādith is the antonym of qadīm or azalī, both of which mean to be
“preexistent,” or “without cause of existence or a beginning.” Thus, ḥādith means to be
“brought into existence,” “created,” “originated,” or “with a beginning.”