Mir Damad

Mir Sayyid Mohammad Baqir Esterabadi, known as Mir Damad, was the grandson of the renowned scholar Al-Karaki and a towering intellectual titan of Safavid Isfahan. Honored with the title 'The Third Teacher' (after Aristotle and Al-Farabi), he was the chief spiritual and intellectual advisor to Shah Abbas I.

Mir Damad founded the philosophical School of Isfahan, synthesizing Avicennian peripatetic philosophy, Suhrawardi's illuminationist metaphysics (hikmat al-ishraq), and Twelver Shi'ite theology. In his masterwork Al-Qabasat, he solved the classical dilemma between the temporal creation and eternity of the cosmos by formulating huduth-e dahri (origination in meta-time). He was also the beloved mentor of Mulla Sadra.