Mir Damad

Mir Damad (Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Husayni al-Astarabadi, c. 1561-1631) was a Twelver Shia philosopher, jurist, and theologian who is generally regarded as the founder of what later scholars call the "School of Isfahan," a revival of philosophy in Safavid Persia. The byname "Damad" means "son-in-law" in Persian: it was inherited from his father, who had married a daughter of the influential Shia jurist Shaykh Ali al-Karaki (al-Muhaqqiq al-Thani, d. 940/1534). Admirers later titled him al-Mu'allim al-Thalith, the "Third Teacher," after Aristotle and the philosopher al-Farabi.

Born in Astarabad, he was raised and educated chiefly in Mashhad, the shrine city of eastern Persia, and is reported to have studied in Qazvin and Kashan before settling in Isfahan, the Safavid capital, where he taught for much of his life. His best-known student was Mulla Sadra, who would go on to dissent sharply from his teacher's views.

Mir Damad is most associated with the doctrine of huduth dahri ("atemporal," or perpetual, origination), a framework distinguishing the everlasting (sarmad), the atemporal (dahr), and the temporal (zaman) in an effort to reconcile the philosophers' eternal world with the theologians' created world. He also wrote poetry under the pen-name "Ishraq." He died in 1631 while travelling between Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, reportedly in the entourage of Shah Safi, and was buried at Najaf.