Do We Go Back to Where We Came From? Mullā Ṣadrā's Philosophical Exegesis on the Paradise of Adam and the Promised Paradise of the Afterlife

Abstract

The cosmological location and identity of the Paradise in which Adam and Eve dwelled and from which, we are told in Q. 7:22 and 24, they were sent down to earth after giving in to Satan’s temptation and approaching the forbidden tree, has long been a controversial issue among exegetes and theologians. Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā Qawāmī Shīrāzī Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640), a flag-bearer for the philosophical and mystical exegesis of the Qur’an, is one of those who has engaged with this question. The subject is important because it is closely connected with several important anthropological Qur’anic topics: the philosophy of the creation of humankind and their earthly abode; the states of human existence before earthly life on this world, and in the descending journey to it; as well as the connections between these states and those following death and in the ascending journey. An analysis of Ṣadrā’s approach to the issue of Adam’s Paradise has implications for both our appreciation of his philosophical understanding of the Qur’an and his methodology, as well as a clearer understanding of his contribution to Islamic philosophical thought. Mullā Ṣadrā took the view that the location of one Paradise on the descending arc of the circle of being, and a second on the ascending arc of this circle, indicate the stages of human existence before and after this world. He believed that these two Paradises suggest the same reality, though from two different aspects; the first shows the inward and indistinct aspect of the human soul while the second represents its outward and distinct side.