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42 International Multi. J. of PURE LIFE. 10(34), Spring. 2023
is committed is not so easily existence of souls prior to
reconciled with Aristotle. their corporeal generation.
Sadra writes: Although he explicitly asserts
These souls prior to their that the religious texts are
descent in the bodies were consistent with the physical
distinguished from each generation of the soul in the
other by the active body, his explanations of the
intelligible dimensions and matter are not easy to
aspects preceding their comprehend.
natural beings in essence, In The Wisdom of the
and not by receptive Throne, he writes:
accidents prior to their The human soul has a form
quiddities. of existence preceding the
There is an indication of it body, without this entailing
in his [i.e. the Prophet’s] the transmigration of souls,
saying, may the blessing of and without necessitating
God be upon him and upon the pre·eternity of the
his progeny, that: “We are individual soul, which is
the preceding ones and the the well·known view of
posterior ones”; and his Plato. (Mulla Sadra, 1981: 140)
saying: “I was a prophet
when Adam was between This can be interpreted in
water and clay”. (Mulla Sadra, at least two ways. First, Sadra
2008: 300) might mean that the soul has
two forms of existence: one in
Furthermore, Mulla Sadra which the soul exists prior to
cites verses of the Quran and the body and another in which
narrations like those mentioned the body comes first.
in this quote that indicate the
