Mulla Sadra’s Commentary on Surat al-Sajdah

In the introduction to his commentary on Surat al-Sajda, Mulla Sadra describes the Qur’an as ‘a light which guides through the darkness of land and sea, and a medicine for every sickness.’ ‘When it lifts the veil from its face’, he continues, ‘...revealing its treasures and lights, it heals those ailing from the sickness of ignorance and wretchedness, and quenches the thirst of those who seek truth and felicity.’[7] It will even ‘heal a heart that is afflicted with deep-seated and reprehensible moral traits, while the the vision of those with discerning hearts will be illumined and prepared for the meeting with God, equipped with knowledge of the mysteries and unseen realities.’

Our commentator explains how, despite the magnitude and power of its reality and the exaltedness of its meaning, the Qur’an is clothed in a garment of letters and sounds and veiled by a covering of words and expressions, and this in itself is a mercy and kindness from God, making [the Revelation] more familiar and attainable, and adapting it to [what can be understood through] human experience.[9] We shall see later how Mulla Sadra sees this outer clothing as indispensible to a true understanding of the inner meanings of the Qur’an.

These words and sounds of the Qur’an are spread out ‘like a net with [a bait of] the seeds of meaning to trap heavenly birds’, that is, the birds of human intellects (tuyur nafsaniyya). Each of these birds has its own designated food, although, as Mulla Sadra explains, the principle aim in casting out the net is to catch the birds that feed on the very choicest grain. But apart from these lofty intellectual spirits whose food is the very gnosis of the divine realities, there are in the Qur’an many other kinds of food designated for all the different levels of humanity.

In the Mafatih al-ghayb, Mulla Sadra expresses a similar idea, but using a different metaphor. There he compares the Qur’an to a table laden with food which is sent down from the world of intellects to the earth of souls in which are the seeds of the trees of the Hereafter. On this table is food of every kind and provision for every type of human being in varying degrees of subtely or opacity, down to the residues and husks which are for the commonality whose level is that of beasts of burden, or cattle.[11] Returning to the introduction to Surat al-Sajda, we find that Mulla Sadra has formulated this idea in a Persian poem at the end of which he warns his listener not to remain with the husk:-

You look at the Qur’an And see the husk and the chaff, not the seed or kernel.

You see nothing of the Qur’an but the letter, Giving yourself up to the detail of word and grammar.

You are striving in such haste That there should be no difference between you and the beasts!

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