Mir Damad


Mīr Dāmād , known also as Seyyed Mir Mohammad Baqer Esterabadi, or Asterabadi, was an Iranian Twelver Shia philosopher in the Neoplatonizing Islamic Peripatetic traditions of Avicenna. He was a scholar of the traditional Islamic sciences, and foremost figure of the cultural renaissance of Iran undertaken under the Safavid dynasty. He was also the central founder of the School of Isfahan, noted by his students and admirers as the Third Teacher after Aristotle and al-Farabi.

Philosophy

His major contribution to Islamic philosophy was his novel formulation regarding gradations of time and the emanations of the separate categories of time as descending divine hypostases. He resolved the controversy of the createdness or uncreatedness of the world in time by proposing the notion of huduth-e-dahri as an explanation grounded in Avicennan and Suhrawardian categories, whilst transcending them. In brief, excepting God, he argued all things, including the earth and all heavenly bodies, share in both eternal and temporal origination. He influenced the revival of al-Falsafa al-Yamani, a philosophy based on revelation and sayings of prophets rather than the rationalism of the Greeks, and he is widely recognized as the founder of the School of Isfahan, which embraced a theosophical outlook known as Hikmat-i Ilahi.
Mir Damad’s many treatises on Islamic philosophy include Taqwim al-Iman, the Kitab Qabasat al-Ilahiyah, wherein he lays out his concept of atemporal origination, Kitab al-Jadhawat and Sirat al-Mustaqim. He also wrote poetry under the pseudonym of Ishraq. He also wrote a couple of books on mathematics, but with secondary importance.
Among his many other students besides Mulla Sadra were Seyyed Ahmad ibn Reyn-al-A’bedin Alavi, Mohammad ibn Alireza ibn Agajanii, Qutb-al-Din Mohammad Ashkevari and Mulla Shams Gilani.
Mir Damad's philosophical prose is often accounted as being among the most dense and obtusely difficult of styles to understand, deliberately employing as well as coining convoluted philosophical terminology and neologisms that require systematic analysis and detailed commentary. He was called Mir Damad because he married Shah Abbas's daughter and hence his fame was based on that event.

Architecture

Mir Damad was also the architect of the Masjide Shah in Isfahan which employed highly advanced mathematical calculations which required the knowledge of the speed of sound at that time. The geometry of the dome is as such that all sound dissipated from the base will echo in hundreds of carefully calculated and masterly executed interior corners of the dome which will ultimately collide in the center of the dome. The geometrical analysis of the dome is of absolute sophistication and the design of the dome is a magnificent piece of art and furthermore the construction of such dome in the 17th century to a precision where all sound waves must travel and collide in an imaginary point above.

Family

His son was Seyed Ali Naghi Astarabadi and his grandson was Sayyid Mahdi bin Sayyid Ali Naqi. His daughter was the wife of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Zayn al-Abidin Alavi.
The man has not been seen: Seyyed Ali Naqi Ibn Al-Seyyed Al-Musa : Mirza Nasrollah Karimian, Mirza Assadollah Karimian, Mirza Ali Karimian, Mirza Mehdi Karimian, Mirza Reza Karimian, Mirza Jalal Karimian, Mirza Hassan.
Male result: Sayyid Hassan bin al-Sayyid Mahdi

Works

Among his 134 works known:
  • Taqwim al-Iman
  • Kitab Qabasat al-Ilahiyah
  • Kitab al-Jadhawat
  • ''Sirat al-Mustaqim''