On the Hermeneutics of the Light Verse of the Qur’an

Mulla Sadra Shirazi
Translated, introduced and annotated by Latimah-Parvin Peerwani

ISBN 1 904063 16 0 167pp £14.99
This work marks the meeting point of four different traditions of the Qur’anic commentary: Philosophical, Sufi, Shi‘ite and theological. It also presents Mulla Sadra Shirazi’s metaphysical commentary and records the earlier commentaries on the Light Verse. It is significant from the point of view of both the history of Qur’anic commentary and Islamic philosophy.
The most outstanding characteristic of Mulla Sadra’s hermeneutic of the Light Verse is that he explains the meaning of light by establishing its metaphysics, encompassing ontology, cosmology, epistemology, psychology and spiritual wayfaring.
Mulla Sadra Shirazi (1571–1640) is one of the most influential Muslim philosophers of the last four hundred years. The author of over forty works, he was the principal figure of the major revival of philosophy in Iran in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.