Mulls Sadra's Arrivers in the Heart (al-Waridat al-Qalbiyya)

It is increasingly difficult after Ibn 'Arabi (d. 638/1240) to differentiate the aims of the Sufis from those of the philosophers. Mulla Sadra (d.1050/1640) offers a fine example of a thinker who synthesized the Sufi and philosophical methodologies in his voluminous writings. In Arrivers in the Heart he combines the precision of philosophical reasoning with the recognition (ma'rifa) of God and self that was central to the concerns of the Sufi teachers. In forty "effusions" (fayd) of mostly rhymed prose, he provides epitomes of many of the themes that he addresses in his long books. These include the concept and reality of existence, the Divine Essence and Attributes, God's omniscience, theodicy, eschatology, the worlds of the cosmos, spiritual psychology, divine and human love, disciplining the soul, and the nature of human perfection.