¶ÙÄ€²ÑÄ€¶Ù, MĪR(-E), SAYYED MOḤAMMAD-BÄ€QER b. MÄ«r Šams-al-DÄ«n Moḥammad ḤosaynÄ« AstarÄbÄdÄ« (d. 1041/1631), leading Twelver ShiÊ¿ite theologian, philosopher, jurist, and poet of 17th-century Persia. He inherited the title DÄmÄd (son-in-law) from his father, who had married the daughter of the famous ShiÊ¿ite theologian Shaikh Ê¿AlÄ« b. Ḥosayn KarakÄ«, known as Moḥaqqeq-e á¹®ÄnÄ« (d. 940/1534). For his contributions to philosophy MÄ«r DÄmÄd was later dubbed moÊ¿allem-e ṯÄleṯ (the third teacher), thus being classed with Aristotle and FÄrÄbÄ«, the first and second teachers respectively.
Life. MÄ«r DÄmÄd was born in AstarÄbÄd and studied in Mašhad with his maternal uncle Shaikh Ê¿Abd-al-Ê¿Ä€lÄ« b. Ê¿AlÄ« b. Ḥosayn (d. 993/1585) and Sayyed NÅ«r-al-DÄ«n Ê¿AlÄ« b. Abi’l-Ḥasan Ê¿Ä€melÄ«, a student and son-in-law of Shaikh Zayn-al-DÄ«n Ê¿AlÄ« b. Aḥmad Ê¿Ä€melÄ«, ŠahÄ«d-e á¹®ÄnÄ«. In 983/1575 he received an ±ðÂáÄå³ú²¹ (license, diploma) from Shaikh Ḥosayn b. Ê¿Abd-al-á¹¢amad Ê¿Ä€melÄ« (d. 984/1576), the father of Shaikh BahÄʾ-al-DÄ«n Moḥammad Ê¿Ä€melÄ« (q.v.). During the reign of Sultan Moḥammad ḴodÄ-banda (985-95/1578-87) MÄ«r DÄmÄd went to Isfahan (Eskandar Beg, pp. 146-47), where he studied with MÄ«r Faḵr-al-DÄ«n Moḥammad SammÄkÄ« AstarÄbÄdÄ«, himself a student of ḠīÄṯ-al-DÄ«n Manṣūr DaštakÄ« (d. 948/1541). MÄ«r DÄmÄd led the Friday prayer service in Isfahan after the enthronement of Shah á¹¢afÄ« (1038-52/1629-42; Moḥammad Maʿṣūm, pp. 82, 96).
MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s own students included á¹¢adr-al-DÄ«n ŠÄ«rÄzÄ«, known as MollÄ á¹¢adrÄ (d. 1050/1640); Sayyed Ḥosayn b. Ḥaydar KarakÄ« Ê¿Ä€melÄ« (fl. ca. 1029/1620); Sayyed Aḥmad Ê¿AlawÄ« Ê¿Ä€melÄ«, who married his daughter; ḴalÄ«l b. ḠÄzÄ« QazvÄ«nÄ« (d. 1088/1677); MollÄ ŠamsÄ Šams-al-DÄ«n Moḥammad GÄ«lÄnÄ« (d. 1098/1687); Qoá¹b-al-DÄ«n AškevarÄ«; and the poet Moḥammad-Ḥasan ZolÄlÄ« ḴᵛÄnsÄrÄ« (d. 1024/1615).
Philosophy. MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s fifty surviving works, not all complete, attest his versatility as a thinker. He wrote mostly on philosophy, fusing within the framework of Twelver ShiÊ¿ism aspects of the philosophy of Avicenna with the illuminationist (±ð&²õ³¦²¹°ù´Ç²Ô;°ùÄå±çÄ«) philosophy of ŠehÄb-al-DÄ«n SohravardÄ« (d. 570/1191). MÄ«r DÄmÄd distinguished between ²â²¹³¾Äå²ÔÄ« and ²âÅ«²ÔÄå²ÔÄ« (Greek) philosophy, the former associated with the ²â²¹³¾Ä«²Ô (right side), or the east, as the source of light and revelation, the latter with darkness and purely rational knowledge, in accordance with illuminationist principles. His best-known philosophical achievement was development of the concept of ḥodūṯ-e dahrÄ« (origination in perpetuity) as an expression of God’s relation to the world.
The question whether God created the world in time or both God and the world are eternal has been a constant theme in Muslim theology and philosophy (see dahrÄ« ii). Avicenna had distinguished three levels of time and eternity and had defined the world, its intelligences, and the heavenly spheres as essentially (²ú±ð&°ù²õ±ç³Ü´Ç;±ô-ḴÓt) “posterior” to God. However, although he perceived God as necessary and the world as contingent, he considered them coeternal, existing in the realm of dahr (perpetuity).
In KetÄb al-qabasÄt (ed. M. Moḥaqqeq, Tehran, 1356 Š./1977), completed in 1034/1625, MÄ«r DÄmÄd criticized Avicenna’s use of the term dahr as inconsistent (pp. 1-10). He charged that sometimes it referred to a distinct category, at others to an element of sarmad (eternity). As an example of the latter usage, Avicenna depicted the relation of God to “the Active Intelligence or to the (highest) heaven” as on the level of relations between eternals, a level that he called both dahr and sarmad. MÄ«r DÄmÄd argued that, if God and the world are coeternal, the difference between God and what is “not God” threatens to disappear. Furthermore, to the extent that Avicenna reduced the “essential” priority of God’s creation to the rank of the “mental,” rather than the real, MÄ«r DÄmÄd argued, the distinct priority of each became merely nominal.
In KetÄb al-qabasÄt MÄ«r DÄmÄd attempted to prove that Avicenna’s concept of essential origination (ḥodūṯ-e á¸ÄtÄ«) had evolved into one of real origination at the level of dahr (ḥodūṯ-e dahrÄ«). In this effort MÄ«r DÄmÄd drew on such sources as Plato’s Timaeus, the Theology of Aristotle, Avicenna’s own &³§³¦²¹°ù´Ç²Ô;±ð´ÚÄåʾ, and KetÄb al-moÊ¿tabar by Abu’l-BarakÄt BaḡdÄdÄ« (d. after 560/1164-65), though he criticized their views that the world is either eternal in itself or created in time from outside. Important also was SohravardÄ«’s doctrine of the priority of essence over existence. MÄ«r DÄmÄd posited sarmad, dahr, and ³ú²¹³¾Äå²Ô (time) as three real, ontological—not merely “mental”—and distinct categories of time. Sarmad is the level at which God exists, unique and alone. ´Ü²¹³¾Äå²Ô is the realm of the changing, physical world. MÄ«r DÄmÄd argued that God had brought the physical world into existence by means of intermediate archetypes, which exist in the middle realm, dahr. Dahr was thus conceived as preexisting ³ú²¹³¾Äå²Ô but having itself been created from sarmad, the realm of the divine essence. Each of these three realms exists independently, even though each has a clear relation to the other two. Ultimately, therefore, God as the divine essence was the cause of all things, even as in His essence nothing may be said to exist (Rahman, 1975, p. 109; idem, 1980, pp. 139-42; Nasr, Camb. Hist. Iran, p. 672; idem, 1966, pp. 915-17).
MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s other treatises on philosophy include ²¹±ô-´³²¹á¸a·ÉÄå³Ù (Particles of fire; Bombay, 1302/1884; Tehran, 1360 Š./1981), composed in Persian at the command of Shah Ê¿AbbÄs I (996-1038/1588-1629) in response to Indian scholars’ questioning why Moses was not consumed by the fire that swept the hilltop when God appeared to him. In this treatise the entire range of MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s metaphysics is displayed, including critiques of the Aristotelian and Peripatetic aspects of Avicenna’s ideas on the relations between the first intellect and other intelligences, recourse to illuminationist concepts of “the world of separated imagination,” and use of the numerical symbolism of letters and their relations to the planets. MÄ«r DÄmÄd also cited the Koran, Hadith, and his own poetry (Nasr, 1966, pp. 917-22).
Al-ResÄlat al-ḵaḷʿīya (ed. and tr. H. Corbin as “Confessions extatiques de Mîr Damâd, maître de théologie à Ispahan (ob. 1041/1631-1632),” in Mélanges Louis Massignon I, Damascus, 1956, pp. 331-78; cf. 1972, pp. 9-53) is a metaphysical explication of a spiritual vision that MÄ«r DÄmÄd experienced while at prayer in Isfahan in 1023/1614. In al-á¹¢erÄá¹ al-mostaqÄ«m, dedicated to Ê¿AbbÄs I, he dealt with the relationship between the eternal and the created, in al-Ofoq al-mobÄ«n with being, time, and eternity. Other works included ²¹±ô-°Õ²¹±ç»åÄ«²õÄå³Ù, in Persian, and Sedrat al-montahÄ. All these treatises were completed before 1025/1616 (Eskandar Beg, I, pp. 146-47). In TaqwÄ«m al-Ä«mÄn MÄ«r DÄmÄd discussed being, creation, and God’s knowledge. He also composed commentaries on the ·¡²õ³Ù±ðḥṣÄå°ù of Naṣīr-al-DÄ«n ṬūsÄ« (d. 672/1274) and the metaphysics in the &³§³¦²¹°ù´Ç²Ô;±ð´ÚÄåʾ of Avicenna. In ResÄla fÄ« maá¸hab Aresá¹Äá¹Äles he drew on the ideas of FÄrÄbÄ« in his discussion of the views of Plato and Aristotle on time and eternity (Nasr, 1966, p. 917 n. 53).
MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s role in establishing approaches later adopted by MollÄ á¹¢adrÄ, ŠamsÄ GÄ«lÄnÄ«, and Sayyed Aḥmad Ê¿Ä€melÄ«, led Henry Corbin (in his edition of al-ResÄlat al-kaḷʿīya, p. 333) and Sayyed Hossein Nasr (Camb. Hist. Iran, pp. 669-70) to dub him “the real founder and central figure” of the “school of Isfahan.”
Jurisprudence. Like another member of the “school of Isfahan,” Shaikh BahÄʾī, MÄ«r DÄmÄd favored the rationalist jurisprudence of the OṣūlÄ«s, who upheld the authority of the ´Ú²¹±çÄ«³ó as the deputy in practical matters for the Imam during the occultation. His text on Twelver jurisprudence and ´Çṣūl-²¹±ô-»åÄ«²Ô (lit., “principles of religion”) al-SabÊ¿ al-šedÄd (Tehran, 1317/1899), composed in 1023/1614, reveals this predilection. It contains a spirited defense of conjectural proofs (al-adella al-ẓannÄ«ya) as employed in philosophy, albeit in conformity with the Twelver rejection of °ù²¹Ê¾²â (opinion) and ±çÄ«Äå²õ (analogy), for example. His allusions to agreement between the “´Ú´Ç±ç²¹³óÄåʾ and OṣūlÄ«s among us” and “among ²¹±ô-Ê¿Äå³¾³¾²¹” (the Sunnis; pp. 51, 89) on various principles are an acknowledgment of the OṣūlÄ«s’ intellectual debt to the Sunni Ê¿´Ç±ô²¹³¾Äåʾ, a debt criticized by some contemporary AḵbÄrÄ«s (Newman, 1992, pp. 51, 254-55; see ²¹á¸µbÄå°ùÄ«²â²¹). MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s support for the expanded authority of the Twelver ´Ú´Ç±ç²¹³óÄåʾ during the occultation is apparent in his arguments for the performance and conduct of congregational prayer by the ´Ú²¹±çÄ«³ó on Fridays during the occultation (KetÄb al-qabasÄt, p. 39).
MÄ«r DÄmÄd also composed Ê¿OyÅ«n al-masÄʾel, and, in Persian, ŠÄreÊ¿ al-najÄt, two handbooks of ShiÊ¿ite feqh and oṣūl al-dÄ«n, both apparently incomplete. On Hadith he wrote al-RawÄšeḥ al-samÄwÄ«ya (Tehran, 1311/1893; Qom, 1405/1984) and commentaries on two of the four most authoritative early ShiÊ¿ite collections of Hadith, al-TaÊ¿lÄ«qa Ê¿alÄ KetÄb al-KÄfÄ« (ed. M. RajÄʾī, Qom, 1403/1982) on KolaynÄ«’s al-Oṣūl men al-KÄfÄ« and another on ṬūsÄ«’s KetÄb al-estebá¹£Är. He was also the author of al-TaÊ¿lÄ«qa Ê¿alÄ EḵtÄ«Är maÊ¿refat al-rejÄl al-maÊ¿rÅ«f be-RejÄl al-KaššÄ« (ed. M. RajÄʾī, I, Qom, 1404/1983), a commentary on EḵtÄ«Är maÊ¿refat al-rejÄl, ṬūsÄ«’s abridgment of Moḥammad b. Ê¿Omar KaššÄ«’s early Twelver biographical dictionary. In addition, MÄ«r DÄmÄd defended ṬūsÄ«’s rational interpretation of Twelver Hadith against critics of the Safavid period.
MÄ«r DÄmÄd composed poetry in Persian and Arabic under the pen name EšrÄq, an allusion to his sympathy with the views of SohravardÄ«. His poetical output includes a ³¾²¹á¹¯n²¹·ÉÄ« entitled Mašreq al-anwÄr (see his ¶ÙÄ«±¹Äå²Ô, Isfahan, 1310 Š./1931).
Relations between clergy and state. MÄ«r DÄmÄd was an intimate of the Safavid court during the reigns of both Ê¿AbbÄs I and Shah á¹¢afÄ« (1039-52/1629-42). Stories linking Shaikh BahÄʾī, MÄ«r DÄmÄd, and Ê¿AbbÄs I (e.g., Modarres, p. 59), even if their details are inaccurate, suggest a close relationship among the three. MÄ«r DÄmÄd died while accompanying Shah á¹¢afÄ« on a visit to the Shiite shrines in Iraq.
From the Buyid period such rationalist Twelver scholars as Ê¿Alam-al-HodÄ ŠarÄ«f Morá¹aÅ¼Ä (d. 436/1044) had permitted the ´Ú²¹±çÄ«³ó, the Imam’s deputy, to interact with the established political institution, in order to serve or protect the interests of the Twelver community. The OṣūlÄ« Ê¿AlÄ« KarakÄ« was well known for his close association with the Safavid court. Commentators who accept the designation “school of Isfahan” have also accepted the implicit corollary that the brand of “gnostic ShiÊ¿ism” practiced by its members predisposed them to “radical political indifferentism” (e.g., Amir Arjomand, p. 23). In fact, it appears that MÄ«r DÄmÄd’s acceptance of the deputyship of the ´Ú²¹±çÄ«³ó both in jurisprudence and in community practices paralleled that of such moderate OṣūlÄ«s as Shaikh BahÄʾī and such moderate AḵbÄrÄ«s as Fayż KÄšÄnÄ« (d. 1091/1680; Newman, 1986). These scholars also continued the close personal relations with the court initiated by KarakÄ«.
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(Andrew J. Newman)
Originally Published: December 15, 1993
Last Updated: November 14, 2011
This article is available in print.
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