Iqbals The Development of Metaphysics in Persia [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

143Absolute Light by losing
itself in its universality." In itself non-existent, but existent in the eternal
Friend: how wonderful that it is and is not at the same time. " But is the
spirit free to choose its course? Hadi criticises the Rationalists for their
setting up man as an independent creator of evil, and accuses them of what he
calls "veiled dualism". He holds that every object has two sides bright " side,
and "dark" side. Things are combinations of light and darkness. All good flows
from the side of light; ,evil proceeds from darkness. Man, therefore, is both
free and determined.

But all the various lines of Persian thought once more find a synthesis
in that great religious movement of Modern Persia - Babism or Bahaism, which
began as a Shi`ah sect, with Mirza `Ali Muhammad Bab of Shiraz (b. 1820), and
became less and less Islamic in character with the progress of orthodox
persecutions. The origin of the philosophy of this wonderful sect must be sought
in the Shi`ah sect of the Shaikhis, the founder of which, Shaikh
Ahmad, was an enthusiastic student of Mulla Sadra's Philosophy, on which he
had written several commentaries. This sect differed from the ordinary
Shi`ahs in holding that belief in an ever present Medium between the absent Imam
(the 12th Head of the Church, whose manifestation is anxiously expected by the
Shi`ahs), and the Church is a fundamental principle of the Shi'ah religion.
Shaikh Ahmad claimed to be such a Medium; and when, after the death of the
second