Quran and Social Sciences

Quran and Social Sciences

Mulla Sadra’s Qur’anic Citations in Critiquing Social and Political Crises and Exploring Pathways for Overcoming Them: A Study Based on Kasr al-Aṣnām al-Jāhiliyyah and Risālah-yi Seh Aṣl

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
zahra Abyar 1
Davud Saemi 2
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies Education, Farhangian University, Tehran, Iran (Corresponding Author)
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Qur’anic Sciences and Ḥadīth, Shahroud Faculty of Qur’anic Sciences, University of Qur’an and Islamic Studies, Shahroud, Iran
10.22034/arq.2026.251999
Abstract
Transcendent Philosophy (al-Ḥikmah al-Mutaʿāliyah), with the aim of reforming and completing practical reason, can only be realized within the context of social life. It is for this reason that Mulla Ṣadrā, as a social philosopher, regards addressing the historical and social conditions of his time as a philosopher’s duty. He devoted considerable attention to this matter in Risālat Kasr Aṣnām al-Jāhiliyyah and Risālat-i Seh Aṣl (The Treatise on Three Principles). The analysis of idols and their relationship to social ignorance (Jāhiliyyah) and the critical condition of society constitutes one of the central themes of Mulla Ṣadrā’s social philosophy; yet, it has received comparatively little scholarly attention to date. Mulla Ṣadrā’s critique of the social and political conditions of his time focuses, in fact, on a misunderstanding of religion in the form of an anesthetizing interpretation whose consequences could produce harmful effects in the future. He considers such interpretations of religion to result in the production of “a concoction of the magic of poison, deception, and sorcery, and an antidote laden with deadly poison.” The injection of such an opiate into society induces social drowsiness and plunges a large portion of society into widespread ignorance and general unconsciousness. In Kasr Aṣnām al-Jāhiliyyah, Mulla Ṣadrā presents an account of the social and political conditions of his time, constituting a kind of pathology of social phenomena and a critique of the reference groups that had emerged within society, and, where appropriate, cites and adduces divine verses as evidence. Risālat-i Seh Aṣl is likewise a treatise on social self-knowledge and social-political ethics, in which these subjects are explained on the basis of the three principles presented in the treatise. Given Mulla Ṣadrā’s use of divine verses and the significance of this issue, the present article employs thematic analysis to examine the social and political crisis of society and analyze Mulla Ṣadrā’s Qur’anic citations. The findings, with regard to the characteristics of his time, reveal the overarching themes of “unconsciousness and general ignorance, instrumental religiosity, the absence of leadership, and behavioral distortion.” The breaking of these idols by a social philosopher such as Mulla Ṣadrā indicates a way out of this social predicament, identified through the overarching themes of “knowledge and self-purification, adherence to the Sharīʿah, commitment to leadership, and acting upon the Qur’an.”
Keywords
Mulla Ṣadrā
Risāleh-i Seh Aṣl
Kasr Aṣnām al-Jāhiliyyah
Qur&‌‌rsquo
an
Social crisis
Jāhiliyyah
Subjects
The Holy Qurʾan
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  • Receive Date 06 April 2025
  • Revise Date 09 June 2025
  • Accept Date 08 November 2025