Associate Professor at the Philosophy Department of Allameh Tabatabai University. Studied philosophy, oriental studies and religion (Tehran and Bonn)
Abstract
This paper tries to analyze prophet Muhammad's moral actions according to existential ethics. Adopting this approach, we rely on the unity of consciousness and virtue, and try to focus on the close relationship between the prophet's existential knowledge and his ethical actions. Therefore, many historical mistakes based on non-existential approaches could be corrected. Concepts such as his lebenswelt and erlebnis express a world tied with prescientific facts and lived experiences, and opposed to the view built on the centrality of subjectivity, in which only theoretical and scientific concerns are imperative. In other words, according to this approach, the prophet’s cultural life is the central concept, which gives us a way to analyze his moral actions, especially when historical evidence is not available. Another result of this approach is that without falling prey to historicism, analyzing his lifestyle is achievable, and it grounds a history which can be considered in later historical stages, in Imam Ali and his progeny's thought, as the mystical Shiite thought, which according to Tabatabaei is the “source of mysticism”.
