Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the ...

216 Part 3: Islamic Philosophy in History
posits the thesis of creatio ex-nihilo have been concerned with this issue.
In contrast philosophers in the Abrahamic world, be they Jewish,
Christian, or Muslim, have had of necessity to deal with it in one way
or another. Moreover, it is interesting to note that in a world with
different religious doctrines concerning the nature of the world of
time, philosophers have philosophized accordingly. This is true not
only of ancient Greece but also of India, where the cyclic nature of
cosmic time consisting of kalpas, manvantaras, and yugas, as revealed in
the Hindu scriptures, has been the subject of philosophical interpretations
and speculation over the ages.
M¥R FINDIRISK¥
One of the most remarkable figures of the School of Isfahan, who
along with M¥r Dåmåd and Shaykh Bahå˘ al-D¥n ‘≈mil¥ may be said
to be a member of the founding triumvirate of that school is M¥r
Ab¨˘l-Qåsim Findirisk¥. Little is known about the life of this enigmatic
figure save that he taught for a long time in Isfahan, mostly the
works of Ibn S¥nå, and trained many famous students, such as Rajab
‘Al¥ Tabr¥z¥; that he also traveled to India where he became acquainted
with Hindu philosophy and may have even participated in the movement
of translation of Sanskrit texts into Persian; and that he returned
to Isfahan, where he died in 1050/1640–41 and where he is buried.
M¥r Findirisk¥ was an exceptional figure in every way. Although known
primarily as an Avicennan philosopher, he was also a fine poet and an
alchemist, as well as being a pioneer in what today is known as comparative
philosophy. 17 M¥r Findirisk¥ wrote a small number of works
of which few have been edited and published until now. His works
include a treatise on motion, a response to a question on ontology
posed by a philosopher by the name of ≈qå Muπaffar ¡usayn Kåshån¥,
the Risåla-yi ƒinå‘iyyah (Treatise on the Arts), a major work in Persian
dealing with the structure and classes of traditional human society; a
famous philosophical poem 18 that has been the subject of a number of
commentaries; a treatise on alchemy; glosses in Arabic on the Yoga-
Vaisiƒ†ha, translated by Niπåm al-D¥n Pan¥påt¥; 19 and a Persian anthology
and commentary on the text by the name of Muntakhab-i j¶k
(Anthology of Yoga). 20 It is unfortunate that the fruits of this pioneering
effort in carrying out comparative studies between Islamic and
Hindu philosophy have not been properly edited and studied. It is
also very significant to note that the writing of commentary on a Hindu
philosophical text by an Islamic philosopher preceded by a few cen-