Mulla Sadra and the problem of plagiarism; a reevaluation of apologies

Mulla Sadra and the problem of plagiarism; a reevaluation of apologies

Mulla Sadra, or Sadr Al-din Muhammad Shirazi (c. 979/1571-1050/1640) is the founder of Hekmate Mota'liea school of thought and one of the most important Shi'a philosophers in Iran during three past centuries. He attempted to synthesize the rival schools of thought in his period. The result was bringing into being a new synthesis that later was known as Hekmate Mota'liea or the "Transcendent Philosophy" or as some contemporary thinkers prefer, "Transcendent Theosophy". He was prolific author and wrote many significant books, including Al-Asfar Alaqliea Al-Arba'a, or the Four Intellectual Journeys.

More than one hundred years agoAbo Al-Hassne Jelwe, an Iranian philosopher and a famous exponent of Ibne Sina's philosophy, revealed Mulla Sadra's huge indebtedenss to other philosopher's works, without acknowledging it properly.

The problem was that Mulla Sadra had borrowed the exact words, sentences, paragraphs, and in some cases the whole chapters of famous thinkers' works, such as Al-Ghazzali and Al-Razi's books, while he did not mention them appropriately or citing them correctly. So, he was accused of committing plagiarism, by his opponents. To invalidate this accusation, his followers and defenders tried to justify, or in some cases rationalize, his deed by proposing some apologies. According to one of them, for example, plagiarism was not a morally wrong in his period, and according to the other, the borrowed sentences and sections were trivial information and common knowledge, not genuine thoughts.

The author of this paper, first of all, has gathered and classified these apologies into six types. Secondly, has attempted to show that all them are insufficient and cannot prove anything in Mulla Sadra's interest. Finally, the author has come to the conclusion that the accusation of plagiarism that is launched against Mulla Sadra is still powerful and cannot be defeated easily.

This paper (in Farsi)  is published in: Ayeneh-ye- Pazhoohesh, vol. 22, no.5,  Des 2011-Jan 2012.