School of Isfahan

Religious, Philosophical school of thought

The Isfahan School ( مكتب اصفهان ) is a school of Islamic philosophy. It was founded by Mir Damad and reached its fullest development in the work of Mulla Sadra. The name was coined by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Henry Corbin. Because of the attention of Shah Abbas during the Safavid Dynasty in Iran to intellectual tradition in Islam, Isfahan became a famous academic city and the intellectual center of Iran at the time, along with the cities of Rey and Shiraz.

This school of thought began to develop once Iran was economically and politically stable. The Safavid court also provided funding for the arts, which also contributed to the development. At the time, there were many disputes between Shiite scholars, such as Ahamad Alavi, and Christian and Jewish scholars. In this period the intellectual life of Suhrawardi was revived by Mir Damad and Mulla Sadra. According to Seyyed Hosein Nasr, this school of thought plays an important role both in terms of the relation between philosophy and prophecy, and in the training of Mulla Sadra. The school of Isfahan is a subsidiary of the Shiraz school of philosophy. Several philosophers that were not part of the Shiraz school of thought had very important roles in preparing the Isfahan school, such as Ibn Turkah, Qadi Maybudi and Ibn Abi Jomhour Ahsaei. The group of founders then announced Shia as formal religion in Persia, in an attempt to unify the entire country, with Isfahan as their capital.

Mir Damad founded the Isfahan philosophical school. He was the nephew of Muhaqiq Karaki, an important Shia scholar who had influence in the Shia jurisprudence. Some consider him familiar with philosophical prophecy as a result to the problem of Time. Corbin describes Mir Damad as having an analytic mind and aware of religious foundation of knowledge. Perhaps the most important characteristic of Mira Damad's philosophy is a synthesis between Avicennism and Averroism, or his synthesis is between the intellectual and the spiritual.

Mir Abul Qasim Fendereski was a peripatetic philosopher and follower of Farabi and Avicenna. He was a Peripatetic, as opposed to the illuminationists. As a scholar, he taught several scientific subjects in the Isfahan school, such as mathematics and medicine. it is debated whether or not Mulla Sadra studied under him, though the two worked together extensively. Mir Fendereski also studied other religions, such as Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. He also wrote several works on Indian philosophy, a series of treatises on the fine arts, and one on his mystical experiences. According to Nasr, he was well versed in different philosophies, poetry, alchemy, and the philosophy of Yoga. Mir Fendereski collaborated with Mir Damad to write the Treatise of Sanaiyyah, attempting to link philosophy and prophecy.

Shaykh i Baha’i was one of the three masters of Mulla Sadra, worked in the Isfahan school, and served as chief jurist on the Safavid Court. Like many Islamic scholars of the era, he was both a scientist and a man of wisdom; like Mir Damad and Mir Fendereski, he was skilled in several sciences. At the time, he attempted to harmonize the relationship between Shariah and Tariqah. He coined the term Hikmate Yamani (wisdom of believing.) He believed that humans were the only being capable of intelligence in a philosophy called "The Place of Illumination for Existence".