 Mulla Sadra was the sole child born into a courtly family in Shiraz, southern Iran, in around 979 AH/1571–72. A bright young man, his interest in intellectual pursuits was indulged by his father, and he moved first to Qazvin in 1000 AH/1591 and then to Isfahan in 1006 AH/1597, successive capitals of the Safavid empire, to pursue his study of philosophy, theology, the prophetic tradition, and Qur’anic hermeneutics and exegesis. His teachers were the two pre-eminent scholars of his age, Mir Muhammad Baqir Damad Astarabadi, the grandson of the powerful jurist and statesman ‘Ali Karaki, and Shaykh Baha’ al-Din ‘Amili known as Shaykh Baha’i (d. 1030 AH/1620–21), who was the leading jurist in Isfahan during the reign of Shah Abbas I. With the former, he studied philosophy and theology, in particular the Peripatetic works of Avicenna (d. 428 AH/1037) and his student Bahmanyar (d. 458 AH/1066), the pseudo-Aristotelian Plotiniana Arabica (in particular the so-called Theology of Aristotle), and the Illuminationist works of Suhrawardi (d. 586 AH/1191). With Shaykh Baha’i, as was the case with a number of other students, he studied the scriptural sciences of Qur’anic exegesis and the traditions of the Shi‘i Imams. Contrary to what Corbin and others have claimed (Corbin 1971: 58; Nasr 1977: 32), there seems to be no evidence that he studied with another intriguing scholar from Astarabad and associate of Mir Damad, Mir Findiriski (d. 1050 AH/1640–41), an itinerant scholar who spent much time studying Indian philosophies and religions. Certainly the story recorded by some of the later biographical dictionaries that claims that Mulla Sadra was advised by Mir Findiriski to study with Mir Damad is apocryphal. We do not have a formal license (ijaza) from his teachers that has survived, which could attest to his study with them and to the content of the curriculum; certainly, we know that both Mir Damad and Shaikh Baha’i granted a number of these licenses and attestations of study to their students as compiled by Majlisi II (Mulla Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, known as ‘Allama-yi Majlisi, 1036–1110 AH/1627–99) in Bihar al-anwar [Seas of Lights]. However, we have one very valuable source that records the intimate relationship of his study and even spiritual discipleship in a literary-poetic collection of the early 17th century from Qazvin known as the Jung-i Qazvin. This codex (which is in the National Library in Tehran) includes autograph notes of Mir Damad, Shaikh Baha’i, and Mulla Sadra. Among these notes are short ijaza-like statements for Mulla Sadra. Shaikh Baha’i quoted some narrations of the Imams and wrote that he did so at the bequest of his “illustrious and most excellent, intelligent and witty and pure son Sadra” (Khaminihi 2000: 59). Similarly, in a note Mir Damad referred to Sadra as his spiritual son (Khaminihi 2000: 56). The dual influence of his teachers can be gauged in his early notes that reveal an interest in Sufism, especially Sufi poetry and the law. These notes were probably written in Shiraz in 1016 AH/1607–8. However, interest in Sufism does not necessarily entail affiliation to a Sufi order, a practice which, in any case, was highly controversial in this period: the claim of the 19th-century Ni‘mat-Allahi Sufi Ma‘sum-‘Ali-Shah that Mulla Sadra was a Nurbakhshi Sufi cannot be substantiated.