Analysis of the existence of the link from the perspective of Jalaluddin Davani and its consequences on the issue of monotheism.

One of the major applications of the notion of relational existence in theology is its role in the preliminaries of proving the existence of the Necessary Being and His unity. The present study aims to examine and analyze the unity of the Necessary Being on the basis of relational existence from the perspective of Jalāl al-DÄ«n DawānÄ«. Although some evidence for both relational and relationalized existence can be found in DawānÄ«’s treatise al-ZÅ«rāʾ, a closer examination of additional sources and their commentaries together with an analysis of his epistemological premises in the proof of the Necessary Being reveals that he inclines toward the theory of the relationalized existence of the effect.This view, however, entails a kind of independence of the effect from its cause, resulting in duality within the order of being. The most critical implication of this duality is a disruption in the proof of divine unity.By contrast, establishing the unity and attributes of the Necessary Being is among the fundamental achievements of Mullā á¹¢adrā’s version of the Burhān al-á¹¢iddÄ«qÄ«n An analysis of DawānÄ«’s philosophical framework, however, shows that neither his own version of the Burhān al-á¹¢iddÄ«qÄ«n nor his DhÅ«q al-taʾalluh adequately establishes the unity of the Necessary Being or its degrees. In other words, DawānÄ«’s commitment to the doctrine of the primacy of quiddity and his reliance on “essential possibility” as the middle term in the proof of the Necessary Being place his understanding of divine unity in fundamental tension with the principles of his own philosophical system.