The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations

A short Arabic treatise in which Mulla Sadra sets out the core of his metaphysics of existence, more compactly than in his vast Four Journeys. He argues that existence (wujud) is the most evident of all things yet cannot be defined, and that it, rather than quiddity or essence (mahiyya), is what is fundamentally real; quiddities are the limits of existence as the mind grasps them. Against thinkers in the tradition of Suhrawardi who treated existence as merely a mental notion, he argues that existence is a single reality that comes in degrees of intensity and perfection, from the weakest beings up to God as pure, unlimited existence. The treatise moves from these principles to questions about knowledge and the relation between God and the world.

It is the most accessible way into the thought of one of the major philosophers of the Islamic world, whose 'primacy of existence' remains a living debate in Iran and beyond.