Teorijski sufizam - periodizacija istorije discipline

Abstract

Theoretical Sufism is an ontology formulated by prominent Muslim mystics. They are primarily known for their intuitive experiences in the highest realms of total existence. In the light of the final intuitions, these mystics got the opportunity to present a new system of ontology, that is, mystical knowledge about the problem of being in general. The answer to the questions about what reality is and how it really exists they provided through their spiritual experiences when they directly, with the eye of the heart, saw the most hidden secrets of existence and on that basis they built a system of knowledge about all lower levels of the universe. Muslims had intuitive knowledge with ontological content ever since the earliest period of the emergence of Islam. However, the results of their mystical effort, when ontological and metaphysical questions are involved, were not united in a separate study discipline. The discipline, which would be called theoretical Sufism, was officially established in the 13th century by the famous Ibn ʻArabī, and his students and influential representatives of his school will continuously improve and strengthen the structural order of the new ontological discipline in the cognitive tradition of Islam. At the beginning of the 17th century, Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī made one of the biggest turning points in the history of Muslim thought when, in his new philosophical school, which he called transcendent philosophy, he proved the truth of the ontological principles of theoretical Sufism with grounded philosophical demonstrations. Mullā Ṣadrā himself explained that by uniting Islamic philosophy and theoretical Sufism, he actually completed the mission of philosophy and metaphysics in general.