Hadi Sabzavari

Hadi Sabzavari
A picture of Molla Hadi which represents the actual oldest picture of an Islamic philosopher
Native name	Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā
Born	1797 Sabzevar, Iran
Died	1873 Sabzevar, Iran
Residence	Iran
Other names	Sharaf al-Mulk, Hujjat al-Haq, Sheikh al-Rayees
Academic background
School or tradition	Shia Islam, Transcendent theosophy
Influences	The Quran, Mulla Sadra, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Ibn Arabi, Avicenna, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Rumi
Academic work
Era	19th century
Main interests	philosophy, theology, kalam, logic, Persian literature, science
Notable works	Asrar al-hikmah ("The Secrets of Wisdom"), Sharh-i manzumah ("A Treatise on Logic in Verse"),
Influenced	20th century Islamic philosophy, Henry Corbin, Hossein Nasr

Hadi Sabzavari (Persian: ملا هادی سبزواری‎‎) or Hajj Molla Hadi Sabzavari (1797–1873) was a famous Iranian philosopher, mystic theologian and poet.

Molla Hadi lived in Qajar period. According to his description, this period was along with descend of Hikmah; he also complaint of his period for the sake of lacking knowledge and philosophy. This kind of entrance to subject, was common among Islamic philosophers. There was an intellectual and spiritual turmoil in Qajar period. In fact in this period, Iranian encountered with new European thought and revival of traditional thinking; also in this period we can see the diverse divisions in beliefs like Bahaei,Babi, shaykhi and at the same time weakness and disappearance of Shiite. Molla Hadi counted as one of the four prominent masters of Tehran philosophical school. He was along with Aqa ‘Ali Mudarris, Aqa Muhammad Riza Qumshihi, Mirza Abul Hasan Jelveh.

He was born in Sabzevar, Iran to a family of land-owning merchants. His formal education started as a young age under his cousin, Molla Hosayn Sabzavari, and he wrote a small treatise at the age of seven. His father died when he was seven or eight years old and his uncle Molla Ḥosayn Sabzavari, became his caretaker. When he reached the age of ten, he was taken by his cousin to Mashhad. There, he resided in the Hajj Hasan madrasa near the mausoleum of Imam Reza, where he studied Arabic, Islamic Jurisprudence, logic, and the principles of religion and law with Molla Hosay for a period of ten years. When he turned twenty, he returned to his hometown of Sabzavar. From there, he prepared his plans for the Hajj and set out in the direction of Isfahan. During this period, Isfahan was an important intellectual center of Iran, where philosophy and intellectual mysticism ('Erfan) flourished.

Among the important masters of these tradition at the time, the names of Mollā ʿAli Nuri (died 1830–31) and Mollā Esmāʿil Eṣfahāni, a student of Nuri, were prominent. They taught Islamic philosophy, mostly of Sadr al-Din Shirazi and his school. He remained in Isfahan for around eight or nine years, where he studied under these two undisputed masters of Mulla Sadra's school of philosophy. He concentrated on the main works of Mulla Sadra, such as the Asfar and Al-Shawahed al-Robubiya. Simultaneously, he also studied Islamic jurisprudence with Aqa Mohammad 'Ali Najafi, one of the major Shia scholars of Isfahan. In Isfahan, Sabzevari lived a life of pietry despite having received a substantial inheritance. According to the orientalist Edward Browne, “he used to take pains to discover which of the students stood most in need of pecuniary help, and would then secretly place sums of money in their room during their absence, without leaving any clue that would lead to the identification of the donor. In this way he is said to have expended no less than 100,000 tumáns (about 30,000 Pounds Sterling), while he was in Isfahan, leaving himself only so much as he deemed necessary for his own maintenance”.