The argument for the existence of God in Hādī Sabzawārī

Hādī Sabzawārī (d. 1289/1872) is among the late School of Isfahan philosophers. He has come to the forefront mostly with his commentary on Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640) as he has made great contributions to the understanding and interpretation of Ṣadrā. In this study, firstly her life and intellectual environment were examined in a way to include the political-cultural background of the period. Sabzawārī has attributed the arguments of God to philosophers and classified them as mutaallihūn, ilāhiyyūn, tabiiyyūn and mutakallimūn. He has examined the siddiqin arguments of mutaallih and ilāhī philosophers as metaphysically based arguments of God. The reason for this is that the arguments are based on the examination of existent inasmuch it exist. According to him, siddiqin arguments have also been more effective in terms of proving the existence of God on account of the evidence which takes place between the demonstration-that/quia and demonstration-why as for tabiiyyūn and mutakallimūn have a physics-based approach because they take into account the special qualities of the being such as movement and ḥudūth. Therefore, the method they have used is the demonstration-that/quia. However, according to Sabzawārī, the demonstration-that/quia gives incomplete explanation in proving God. Therefore, the arguments developed based on movement and ḥudūth cannot be at the level of siddiqin argument. With these methodological evaluations, his views on how the knowledge of this concept has been acquired by explaining the semantic analyses of Sabzawārī on the concept of Necessary Existence, which is the philosophical expression of God and four versions of the siddiqin argument were shown, along with their antecedents. Varieties of the proof of movement belonging to the tabiiyyūn, which were taken into account in terms of its agent and purpose, and the ḥudūth proof belonging to the mutakallimūn, to whom he took a critical attitude, were then examined. Key concepts: School of Isfahan, al-ḥikma al-mutaʿāliyah, the argument for the existence of God, siddīqīn argument, argument of movement, argument of ḥudūth.