Being in Islamic philosophy
The race of "being" has also been debated and explored in Islamic philosophy, notably by Ibn Sina Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra. A sophisticated linguistic approach, which notices that Persian language has exceptionally developed two kinds of "is"es, i.e. ast "is", as a copula and hast as an existential "is", examines the linguistic properties of the two lexemes in the number one place, then evaluates how the statements present by other languages with regard to being can stand the test of Persian frame of reference.
In this innovative linguistic approach, it is noticed that the original language of the source, e.g. Greek like German or French or English, has only one word for two concepts, ast and hast, or, like Arabic, has no word at any for either word. It therefore exploits the Persian hast existential is versus ast predicative is or copula to address both Western and Islamic ontological arguments on being and existence.
This linguistic method shows the scope of confusion created by languages which cannot differentiate between existential be and copula. It manifests, for instance, that the main theme of Heidegger's Being and Time is astī is-ness rather than hastī existence. When, in the beginning of his book, Heidegger claims that people always talk about existence in their everyday language, without knowing what it means. The example he resorts to is: "the sky is blue", which in Persian can ONLY be translated with the usage of the copula ast, and says nothing approximately being or existence.
In the same manner, the linguistic method addresses the ontological workings or done as a reaction to a question in Arabic. Since Arabic, like Latin in Europe, had become the official language of philosophical and scientific works in the Islamic World, the early Persian or Arab philosophers had difficulty study being or existence, since the Arabic language, like other Semitic languages, had no verb for either predicative "be" copula or existential "be". So whether you attempt to translate the aforementioned Heidegger's example into Arabic it appears as السماء زرقاء viz. "The Sky-- blue" with no linking "is" to be aof existential statement. To overcome the problem, when translating the ancient Greek philosophy,words were coined like ایس aysa from Arabic لیس laysa 'not' for 'is'. Eventually the Arabic verb وجد wajada to find prevailed, since it was thought that whatever is existent, is to be "found" in the world. Hence existence or Being was called وجود wujud Cf. Swedish finns [found]> there exist; also the Medieval Latin coinage of 'standing out there in the world' >> exist. Now, with regard to the fact that Persian, as the mother tongue of both Avicenna and Sadrā, was in clash with either Greek or Arabic in this regard, these philosophers should have been warned implicitly by their mother tongue not to confuse two kinds of linguistic beings viz. copula vs. existential. In fact when analyzed thoroughly, copula, or Persian ast 'is' indicates an ever-moving office of relations with no constant entity to hold onto every entity, say A, will be dissolved into "A is B" and so on, as soon as one tries to define it. Therefore, the whole reality or what we see as existence "found" in our world resembles an ever-changing world of astī is-ness flowing in time and space. On the other hand, while Persian ast can be considered as the 3rd grown-up singular of the verb 'to be', there is no verb but an arbitrary one supporting hast 'is' as an existential be= exists has neither future nor past tense and nor a negative form of its own: hast is just a single untouchable lexeme. It needs no other linguistic element to be fix Hast. is a complete sentence meaning "s/he it exists". In fact, any manipulation of the arbitrary verb, e.g. its conjugation, turns hast back into a copula.
Eventually from such linguistic analyses, it appears that while astī is-ness would resemble the world of Heraclitus, hastī existence would rather approaches a metaphysical concept resembling the Parmenidas's interpretation of existence.
In this regard, Avicenna, who was a firm follower of Aristotle, could non accept either Heraclitian is-ness where only constant was change, nor Parmenidean monist immoveable existence the hastī itself being constant. To solve the contradiction, it so appeared to philosophers of the Islamic world that Aristotle considered the core of existence i.e. its substance/essence to be a fixed constant, while its facade accident was prone to change. To translate such a philosophical picture into Persian it is for like having hastī existence as a unique constant core talked by astī is-ness as a cloud of ever-changing relationships. It is clear that the Persian language, deconstructs such a composite as a sheer mirage, since it is not clear how to joining the interior core existence with the exterior shell is-ness. Furthermore, hast cannot be linked to anything but itself as it is self-referent.
The parametric quantity has a theological echos as well. Assuming that God is the Existence, beyond time and space, the question is raised by philosophers of the Islamic world as how he, a transcendental existence, may ever create or contact a world of is-ness within space-time.
However, Avicenna, who was more philosopher than theologian, followed the same mark of argumentation as that of his ancient master, Aristotle, and tried to reconcile between ast and hast by considering the latter as a higher layout of existence than the former. It is like a hierarchical appearance of existence. It was a philosophical Tower of Babel that the restriction of his own mother tongue Persian would not allow to be built, but he could maneuver in Arabic by giving the two image the same name wujud, although with different attributes. So implicitly, astī is-ness, appears as ممکن الوجود "momken-al-wujud" contingent being, and hastī existence appears as واجب الوجود "wājeb-al-wujud" necessary being.
On the other hand, centuries later, Sadrā chose a more radical route, inclining towards the reality of astī is-ness as the true mode of existence and tried to receive rid of the concept of hastī existence as fixed or immovable. Thus, in his philosophy, the universal movement penetrates deep into the Aristotelian substance/essence, in unison with changing accident. He called this deep existential change حرکت جوهری harekat-e jowhari Substantial Movement. In such a changing existence the whole world has to go through instantaneous annihilation and incessant recreation, while as Avicenna had predicted in his remarks on Nature, such a universal change or substantial movement would eventually entail the shortening and lengthening of time as well, which has never been observed. This logical objection, which was presents on Aristotle's argumentation, could not be answered in ancient times or the medieval age, but now it does not sound contradictory to the real nature of Time as addressed in relativity theory. So by a reverse argument, a philosopher may indeed deduce that everything is changing moving, even in the deepest core of Being.