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The Babi religion had, during its brief life, a tremendous impact on Iranian society. Its founder, Sayyid $ sp{ rm c}$Ali Muhammad, the Bab (1819-1850) wrote a great many works of several kinds. Of his major writings, the two earliest are partial commentaries on the Qur'an. The following study examines these two remarkably different commentaries in an attempt to appreciate the Bab's attitudes towards the Qur'an, Islam, and himself. The earliest work, the Tafsi r surat al-baqara, was written before the Bab had publicized a claim to messiahship. In the Tafsi r surat Yusuf, written only a short time later, this claim is made explicit. The radical difference in the style of the two commentaries, which may be seen as a reflection of a development in the Bab's perception of himself, is analyzed.

This thesis will examine Mulla Sadra's theory of substantive motion. Mulla Sadra (1571-1640) challenged those philosophers who restricted motion to accidents and held that the substance of nature is unmovable, otherwise insurmountable problems arise. In order to solve the dilemmas, Mulla Sadra sought various ways to prove that motion is identical with nature and that no stable entity exists in the corporeal world. Here, time is one of the most important elements in the proofs for the theory of substantive motion, where, for the first time in intellectual history, Mulla Sadra introduced time as the fourth dimension of corporeal being. This implies mobility of nature, including its substances. This evolutionary motion in the case of body extends from the material realm to the emergence of soul, which is immaterial. / By solving problems like the one concerning the eternity or temporality of the world debated between theologians and philosophers, this theory played a significant role in Islamic philosophy.

The problem of causality and its relation to the unity of existence is one of the peculiar themes of Mulla Sadra (1571-1640). Although the treatment of and solutions to the problem of "causality" and the problem of "unity of existence" were considered by previous Islamic philosophers, no one considered these two problems could complement each other. Sadra, through the law of causality, proves the unity of existence. The applications of Sadra's principles (of the fundamental reality of existence and the analogical gradation of existence) which are the central principles of his entire thought, provide his unique theory of "unity of existence." By this theory he attempted to convince mystics that although there is in the world one reality, that reality manifests itself in various degrees of classifications and intensity of existence.

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This thesis will partly compare the approaches of two pioneers in Islamic philosophy to the soul-body problem: the philosophical psychology of Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Muta'allihin Shirazi 975-1050/1571-1640) and that of Ibn Sina (370-428/980-1037). Our main concern will be with the former, the founder of "trancendent theosophy", particularly his ideas regarding the corporeal generation of the soul. / A brief historical background of the problem is presented in the first chapter. In order to evaluate the real philosophical value of Mulla Sadra's doctrine, the thesis will investigate the soundness of Mulla Sadra's novel psychological findings. "Substantial motion" (al-harakah al-jawhariyyah) and the "gradation of existence" (al-tashkik fi maratib al-wujud) are the two main philosophical principles formulated and implied by our philosopher regarding the elaboration of his theory on the soul's developmental process. / In our study, we discuss the nature of the soul-body relationship, the evidence which indicates their mutual interaction, and finally, the various forms of this relationship. In the final chapter, we focus on the developmental process of the soul's substantial motion up to the stage of union with the active intellect. Our analytical discussion is centered on whether or not the theory of the corporeality of the soul's generation yields a meaningful conception of the soul's evolution from materiality to immateriality. / Considering the serious challenges and unsolved difficulties that still remain, it is an open question whether Sadra's theory, particularly its emphasis on the corporeality of the soul's generation, can adequately account for the soul's developmental process up to the stage of unity with the world of intellects.

The question of perception constitutes one of the most complex and important sections of philosophical psychology. Unlike the Intellectual perception (al-idrak al-$ sp{c}aql bar i)$, which met with more or less agreement among philosophers, particular perceptions (al-idrakat al-juz'iyah) and more specifically, sensory (al-idrak al-hissi) and imaginal perception (al-idrak al-khayali) were felt to be problematic. How do these kinds of perception occur and what is their reality? Is there any difference between particular and universal perceptions? This study deals with these problems from the standpoint of Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi (Mulla Sadra), one of the greatest Islamic philosophers in the 16th and 17th century, whose work in this field is barely known. Comparing Mulla Sadra's contribution with that of his predecessors from both the Peripatetic and Illuminationist Schools, namely Ibn Sina and al-Suhrawardi this thesis attempts to explain what Mulla Sadra has offered as new ideas and new analyses in this regard. "The immateriality of perception," "unification of the subject and the object" and "the role of the soul in particular perception" are the main issues that are dealt with in this thesis.

Human cognitive development is a matter of interest for different disciplines among which are philosophical epistemology and cognitive psychology. Shi razi (Mulla Sadra), a Muslim philosopher, deals, among other issues, with the problem of human cognitive development through his 'Irfani -philosophical methodology on the basis of the principles of his philosophy. These principles are the principality and gradation, tashki k, of existence and substantial motion through which Shi razi relates cognitive development to the existential progress of the human being. Piaget from the Western tradition of cognitive psychology focuses his work on the problem of human cognitive development, investigating the issue through a semi-experimental methodology and interpreting his findings on the basis of the principles of genetic epistemology, namely, the analogy between cognitive and physical organisms in terms of assimilation, accommodation and equilibrium. These two perspectives are studied and compared in this thesis with respect to their underlying principles, their scopes and methodologies. Finally, a multi-disciplinary approach is proposed for the study of human cognitive development.

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