Metaphysics of the Atom

Metaphysics of the Atom: A Philosophical History

Summary

The concept of the atom, originating not as a scientific theory but as a metaphysical and spiritual construct, posits a universe built from indivisible, eternal units moving through an infinite void. This doctrine, likely emerging from Phoenician thought before being formalized in ancient Greece, served as a grand speculation on being, soul, and cosmic order. Initially, thinkers like Pythagoras envisioned the atom as the Monad—a symbol of ultimate, indivisible unity and a "seminal principle" for all existence. This was secularized by Leucippus and Democritus, who framed a materialist universe composed of Ens (atoms, or being) and Non-Ens (the vacuum, or non-being), governed by the immutable law of "Necessity." In this view, all phenomena, including the soul and even the gods, were merely aggregates of finer or coarser atoms.

However, historical analysis reveals that this unified vision conflates two distinct and often opposing ancient schools: the materialist atomism of Democritus (physical particles) and the metaphysical monadology of Pythagoras (immaterial points). The atomist framework was later radically transformed within Islamic theology (Kalām), where it was adapted to prove the existence of a creator God. Islamic atomism is fundamentally theistic and occasionalist, arguing that atoms (jawhar) and their properties ('arāḍ) are recreated by God in every instant, denying natural causality.

This theological adaptation provoked profound philosophical responses. Avicenna rejected the physical proofs of the atomists, formulating his "Proof of the Truthful" based on the purely metaphysical distinction between contingent and necessary existence. The intellectual trajectory culminated in Mulla Sadra's revolutionary doctrine of Substantial Motion (al-Ḥaraka al-Jawhariyya), which synthesized prior views by positing that existence itself is not a static state but a continuous, fluid process of intensification. In this final form, the ancient "atom" is no longer a particle that moves, but a manifestation of existence as pure, perpetual motion.

 

The Foundational Greek Model of Atomism

Ancient atomism emerged as a synthesis of religious intuition and philosophical reasoning, proposing a comprehensive cosmology long before the advent of empirical science. Its core tenets described a universe of eternal particles and boundless space, animated by an inexorable law.

A. Origins and Metaphysical Lineage

The atomic theory's roots are traced to Phoenician thinkers prior to the Trojan War, with the philosophy migrating to Greece by the 18th century BCE. The original doctrine was largely religious, undergoing a gradual secularization through philosophy before being adopted by science in the 17th and 18th centuries. The initial conception viewed the atom not merely as a physical particle but as a spiritual imperative.

B. The Pythagorean Monad: The Atom as Unity

Pythagoras of Samos is presented as a foundational figure in atomist thought. He identified the atomos ("that which cannot be divided") with the Monad. This was not simply the number one but the metaphysical "seed of number"—an absolute, ultimate unity embodying both origin and limit. Key characteristics of the Pythagorean atom include:

• Indivisibility and Potency: Unlike the modern concept of fission, the Pythagorean atom symbolized sovereign, unchanging, and indivisible unity. It was considered the "seminal principle" of existence.
• Power and Perfection: Though minute and invisible, the atom possessed the ultimate quality of power, making it the most akin to the infinite itself.
• Aggregation: Driven by energetic forces of attraction and repulsion, atoms aggregate to form all phenomena. While compounds could be dissolved, the fundamental atom remained immutable.

C. The Democritean Universe: Being and Non-Being

Building upon earlier thought, Leucippus and Democritus formulated a dualistic cosmology based on two co-eternal principles:

• Ens (Being): The "something," symbolized by the atom. The number of atoms in the universe was considered infinite.
• Non-Ens (Non-Being): The "nothing," represented by the vacuum or void. The extent of the vacuum was also infinite.

Existence required both principles. The atom needed the negative environment of the vacuum to be mobile and unimpeded. Within this framework, atoms were uncreated and indestructible, and time was merely the measure of their motion, not a substance in itself. Any conception of a deity would require it to partake in the eternal nature of the atom.

D. The Law of Motion: Necessity

The Greeks observed the ceaseless movement of matter and concluded that atoms, while fundamentally inert, were compelled into motion by an agitating agent termed "Necessity" (Anankē). Plato described this as the "spindle of necessity," signifying an immutable and inevitable law underpinning all change. This force was not a blind mechanism but an organizing Providence, moving atoms along determined courses to prevent chaos and enable the formation of ordered worlds.

E. The Atomic Soul and the Nature of Reality

This philosophy extended its materialist explanation to encompass all aspects of existence, from physical matter to consciousness.

• Differentiation and Aggregation: Though composed of a single essence, atoms were believed to differ in magnitude and form. Like billiard balls, their unique shapes determined how they collided, interlocked, or deflected, giving rise to the manifold structures of the universe. The human mind was said to perceive the patterns emerging from these arrangements.
• The Soul and the Gods: The soul, mind, and emotions were considered subtle aggregates of finer, invisible atoms. These refined compounds could permeate the coarser atoms of the body, just as water permeates sand, because atoms were believed to hang in proximity without physically touching. Even the gods were envisioned as exalted beings composed of rarefied atoms, inhabiting realms imperceptible to ordinary senses.
• Life and Death: Life was defined as a constant accumulation and exchange of atomic particles, while death was the cessation of this replenishment. The soul was seen as a contemplative body capable of surviving physical separation.
• Spiritual Evolution: The human soul was believed to follow an "ascending arc" of evolution, refining itself through cycles of existence. This process could culminate in a voluntary dissolution of the atomic self—a spiritual enlightenment releasing immense potential—or a violent, instantaneous release akin to fission, which was feared as a catastrophic violation of natural order that risked total annihilation.

Ultimately, Platonic philosophers speculated that the endless cycle of atomic interactions could generate an emergent spiritual quality—a "plus factor" or "World Soul"—transforming the mechanical struggle of existence into a purposeful evolution toward "The Good."

II. Historical and Philological Critiques

A rigorous analysis of the historical and textual evidence reveals that the syncretic model of ancient atomism conflates distinct philosophical schools and relies on legendary, rather than verifiable, origins.

A. The Syncretic Fallacy: Atom vs. Monad

The assertion that Pythagoras was the "greatest of the Greek atomists" is a historical inaccuracy rooted in the confusion of two separate concepts. The scholarly consensus distinguishes between them as follows:

Concept	The Democritean Atom (Atomos)	The Pythagorean Monad (Monas)
Nature	Physical, extended, solid particle with shape and size.	Metaphysical, non-extended point without magnitude.
Function	A material building block of reality.	The immaterial generator of number and being.
School	Materialist and atheistic (Abderan School).	Idealist and mathematical (Pythagorean School).

Aristotle explicitly criticized the Pythagoreans for confusing physical bodies with numbers. The conflation of the Atom and the Monad is a feature of later Neoplatonic or esoteric historiography, not a reflection of original Greek thought.

B. Deconstructing the Phoenician Origin

The claim of a Phoenician origin for atomism rests on specific, yet problematic, ancient testimonies.

• The Mochus Legend: The source for this claim is the Stoic philosopher Posidonius (cited by Strabo), who attributed the theory to "Mochus, a Sidonian, born before the Trojan times." Mochus is a "ghost authority" for whom no primary texts exist. The story was likely a Hellenistic trope intended to grant Greek philosophy ancient "Oriental wisdom" credentials.
• Sanchuniathon's Cosmogony: The surviving text of the Phoenician writer Sanchuniathon does not contain a theory of atomism. It describes a "Wet Materialism," where the universe evolves from Pneuma (Wind), Chaos (Turbid Void), and Mōt (Primeval Mud/Slime). Its mechanism is biological and erotic (Pothos, or Desire), not the mechanical collision of solid particles.

C. Primary Concepts and Terminology

A precise philological understanding of the key terms is essential to grasp the original Greek framework.

Greek	Transliteration	Original Sense	Role in Atomism
Ἄτομος	Atomos	"Uncuttable," solid particle.	The terminal, immutable unit of matter (Ens).
Κενόν	Kenon	"Empty," non-being (mē on).	The void/vacuum required for motion (Non-Ens).
Ἀνάγκη	Anankē	"Necessity."	The mechanical force of collision and rebound governing all motion.

III. The Transformation of Atomism in Islamic Theology (Kalām)

The "atheistic" physics of Democritus underwent a radical re-engineering within Islamic speculative theology (Kalām), where it was repurposed to prove God's absolute power and continuous creation of the world.

A. Core Divergence: Greek vs. Islamic Atomism

The two systems were built on the same premise of indivisible particles but for diametrically opposed metaphysical ends.

Feature	Greek Atomism (Materialist)	Islamic Atomism (Occasionalist)
Origin of Atoms	Eternal and uncreated.	Temporal and created by God (Hādith).
Duration	Indestructible; can only be rearranged.	Fleeting; vanish unless actively sustained by God.
Cause of Motion	Mechanical necessity (Anankē).	Divine Will; God creates motion moment by moment.
Qualities	Subjective reactions to atomic shape (e.g., color).	Real "accidents" created by God in each atom.
Metaphysical Goal	To explain nature without recourse to gods.	To prove God's existence and omnipotence.

B. The Architecture of Divine Will: Jawhar and ’Arāḍ

The Mutakallimūn (speculative theologians) developed a unique atomic physics to combat the Aristotelian doctrine of an eternal world.

• The Singular Substance (al-jawhar al-fard): The world is composed of identical, point-like atoms. These atoms are created by God and have no inherent duration.
• Accidents ('arāḍ): An atom's properties (color, motion, life, rest) are "accidents" created by God that inhere in the atom. An accident cannot endure for two moments (la yabqa zamanayn).
• Occasionalism: Because accidents must be recreated in every instant, God is the sole and direct cause of all events. Fire does not burn cotton; rather, God continuously creates the accident of "burning" in the cotton at the occasion of its contact with fire. This constant recreation of the universe is known as Tajaddud al-amthal (The Renewal of Likenesses).

C. A Contrarian View: Al-Naẓẓām's Theory of the Leap (Ṭafra)

The Mu'tazilite theologian Ibrahim al-Naẓẓām rejected the standard atomist model. He argued that matter was infinitely divisible, which exposed him to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. His solution was the Theory of the Leap (Ṭafra): a moving body does not traverse every point in space but "leaps" from a starting point to an end point, skipping all intermediate locations. This discontinuous motion, while widely ridiculed, represents an early attempt to reconcile continuum mathematics with the physics of motion in discrete time.

IV. Philosophical Reactions and Syntheses in Islamic Thought

The theological atomism of the Kalām school provoked sophisticated counter-arguments from the Islamic Peripatetic philosophers (falāsifa) and later led to a groundbreaking synthesis in the School of Isfahan.

A. Avicenna's Metaphysical Refutation

Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) found the atomists' physical proofs for God's existence vulgar and philosophically unsound. He rejected their method of arguing from the world's temporal beginning. Instead, he formulated the Burhān al-Ṣiddīqīn (Proof of the Truthful), which proceeds from metaphysics alone.

• The Argument from Contingency: Avicenna divides all of reality into the Contingent (Mumkin al-Wujūd)—that which can either exist or not exist (the entire universe)—and the Necessary (Wājib al-Wujūd)—that which must exist by its very essence.
• The Refutation: Since the universe is contingent, it requires an external, non-contingent cause to bring it into and sustain its existence. This cause must be the Necessary Being (God). This proof works even if the universe is eternal, thereby sidestepping the entire Kalām debate about its temporal origin. Avicenna thus replaces the atomists' "God of the Gaps" with a God who is the logical anchor of all existence.

B. Mulla Sadra's Process Metaphysics: Substantial Motion

Mulla Sadra (Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī) synthesized the insights of atomism, Avicennan philosophy, and Sufi mysticism to create a new process-based metaphysics. He overturned the long-standing Aristotelian rule that motion is forbidden in the category of substance.

• The Doctrine of Substantial Motion (al-Ḥaraka al-Jawhariyya): Sadra argued that the very essence, or substance, of a thing is in constant flux. The world is not a collection of static things with changing properties, but a single, continuous process of intensification (Ishtidād). Existence is a "verb," not a "noun."
• The Primacy of Existence (Aṣālat al-Wujūd): For Sadra, Existence is the sole reality, appearing in a graded spectrum (Tashkīk al-Wujūd) from weak (matter) to intense (spirit).
• Evolution of the Soul: This framework allows for a naturalistic evolution. The soul originates as a potential within matter and, through substantial motion, intensifies its being, evolving from mineral to plant, animal, human, and ultimately to pure intellect. As Sadra stated, "The soul is bodily in its origin but spiritual in its survival."

In Sadra’s system, the ancient atom is neither a static brick nor a divinely recreated snapshot, but a dynamic, unfolding wave in the continuous river of being.

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The Atomos and the Void: A Metaphysical History of Atomism from Phoenicia to Persia

Introduction: From Physical Particle to Metaphysical Principle

The concept of the atom, so central to modern science, did not begin in a laboratory. It originated as a profound metaphysical construct, born from a synthesis of ancient religious intuition and rigorous philosophical reasoning. Before it was a particle to be split, the atomos—that which cannot be cut—was a principle to be understood, a key that promised to unlock the fundamental nature of reality itself.

This monograph traces the intellectual and spiritual evolution of atomism across civilizations. Our narrative arc begins with its purported, semi-legendary origins in pre-Hellenic Phoenicia, follows its codification within the rich philosophical soil of classical Greece, and culminates in its radical transformation at the hands of Islamic theologians and philosophers in Persia and beyond. We will journey from the indivisible metaphysical unit of Pythagoras to the materialist mechanics of Democritus, and from there to the divinely willed moments of Kalam theology and the fluid, ever-becoming substance of Mulla Sadra.

The central thesis of this work is that the history of atomism is far more than a prelude to physics; it is a history of humanity's enduring struggle to define the relationship between unity and multiplicity, being and non-being, necessity and will, and matter and spirit. In tracing the life of this single idea, we trace the contours of metaphysics itself.

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The Greek Conception of the Indivisible

Primordial Origins: The Phoenician Legend and the Pythagorean Monad

The earliest intimations of atomic theory emerge from a blend of legend and philosophical intuition, serving as a vital precursor to the later materialist schools. Ancient tradition points to a pre-Hellenic origin for the concept, a feature of Hellenistic historiography likely intended to grant Greek philosophy the credentials of ancient "Oriental wisdom." Thinkers like Posidonius and Strabo attribute the first atomic doctrine to a Phoenician sage named "Mochus," who is said to have lived even before the Trojan War. Though this attribution is unsupported by primary Phoenician texts and remains legendary, it establishes the historical stage for the Greek articulation of the indivisible.

Within the conceptual lineage of indivisibility, but standing apart from atomism itself, is Pythagoras of Samos. To conflate his thought with that of the materialist atomists is a historical error; indeed, these were distinct and often opposing schools. For Pythagoras, the indivisible was not a physical particle but a metaphysical point he called the Monad. The Monad was the ultimate, immaterial unity—the primordial "seed of number" from which all reality unfolds as a mathematical and harmonic principle. It represented the vertex where infinite extension and absolute oneness meet.

In stark contrast to modern notions of fission, the Pythagorean Monad symbolized sovereign, unchanging perfection. Pythagoras termed it a "seminal principle," a seed of power that generates number and form through its own internal logic. In this aggregation, the phenomena of the world come into being, yet the Monad remains a principle of unity, not a physical component. This metaphysical vision of a perfect, indivisible unit would exist in tension with the physical universe later constructed by the Greek materialists.

The Classical Framework: Leucippus, Democritus, and a Universe of Necessity

The pivotal shift from metaphysical principle to physical entity occurred with the Ionian thinkers Leucippus and his student Democritus. They took the abstract concept of indivisibility and used it to construct the first complete, self-contained cosmology that required no divine intervention. The strategic importance of this development cannot be overstated: it was an attempt to explain the totality of existence through a small set of foundational physical principles.

Leucippus and Democritus established the foundational binary of the universe, a duality of "something" and "nothing" that together constituted everything:

• Ens (Being): The atom itself. Atoms were described as solid, eternal, indestructible, and infinite in number. They were the ultimate substance of reality.
• Non-Ens (Non-Being): The vacuum or void. The void was conceived as infinite in extent and was absolutely necessary, for without this negative environment, atoms would have no medium in which to move.

Yet, a universe of inert atoms and empty space remains static. The Greeks observed ceaseless change and reasoned that a primordial agent must compel motion. This agent was Necessity (Anankē). Far from being a blind, chaotic force, Necessity was an immutable and intending law. Plato memorably characterized it as the "spindle of necessity," a cosmic principle of order that governs the patterns of atomic interaction. In this view, Necessity acts as a form of Providence, ensuring that the universe unfolds according to determined, lawful patterns rather than descending into randomness.

While all atoms were composed of a single, uniform essence, Democritus argued that they differed in two key respects: magnitude (size) and form (shape). These physical distinctions determined their behavior. Through collisions, deflections, and mechanical interlocking determined by their respective forms, their unique shapes caused them to aggregate into complex structures or rebound and continue on their path. It was through these simple mechanical interactions, governed by the overarching law of Necessity, that the entire manifold reality of the visible world was constructed from invisible, eternal blocks. This elegant mechanical model, however, was not limited to inanimate matter; its explanatory power was soon extended to the phenomena of life itself.

The Atomic Soul: Explaining Life, Mind, and the Gods

The strategic ambition of the Greek atomists was to create a totalizing theory, one capable of explaining not only the physical world but also the biological and psychological realms. Their materialism was comprehensive, extending the principles of atomic aggregation to account for the very nature of life, consciousness, and even the soul.

In this framework, life is a dynamic process of atomic exchange and accumulation; a living being constantly takes in new atoms to replenish its structure. Death, conversely, is simply the cessation of this process of replenishment, leading to the dispersal of the atomic compound.

The soul, mind, and emotions were not seen as immaterial phenomena but as aggregates of finer, more subtle atoms. According to the ancient conception, these refined atomic structures permeate the coarser atoms of the physical body, coexisting within the same space in the same way that water permeates sand without displacing it. This allowed for a material yet mystical foundation for consciousness, where the soul was a distinct entity capable of surviving the dissolution of the body. This logic extended even to the divine:

Even the gods were viewed as "beings composed of more refined, subtle atoms, possessing superior intellect and abiding in regions of space incomprehensible to grosser sensory faculties."

The atomists drew a critical distinction between orderly atomic unfolding (natural growth) and violent, instantaneous release (atomic fission). They held a profound dread for the latter, believing that the sudden dissolution of an atom violated the sacred boundary between "thing" and "nothing," risking total annihilation by reversing the process of creation.

This mechanical cosmology eventually evolved under Platonic influence, which sought to derive teleology from mechanism. Philosophers began to speculate that the endless friction of atomic existence might generate a "plus factor"—the emergence of a normative principle from a purely descriptive physical system. In this final transmutation, the cosmic struggle of particles in the void was elevated into a purposeful journey of spiritual growth, where mechanical necessity ultimately gives rise to what Socrates termed "The Good." From these philosophical heights, the concept of the atom would journey eastward, where it would be received and radically transformed within the intellectual crucible of the Islamic world.

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The Islamic Transformation of the Atom

The Theological Atom: Kalam, Occasionalism, and Divine Will

When the atomic theory entered the world of Islamic speculative theology (Kalam), it was fundamentally repurposed. The goal was no longer to explain a self-sustaining, eternal universe governed by natural law. Rather, the strategic aim of the Mutakallimūn (theologians) was to refute the Aristotelian doctrine of the "Eternity of the World," thereby proving the world's absolute need for a creator God who is constantly and directly involved in its existence. The atom of Democritus was a brick in a mechanical cosmos; the atom of the Kalam theologians was a testament to the ceaseless action of the divine will.

The following table contrasts the core tenets of the Greek and Islamic models, highlighting the profound theological shift:

Feature	Greek Atomism (Democritus)	Islamic Atomism (Kalam)
Origin of Atoms	Eternal and uncreated.	Created by God at every instant.
Source of Motion	Natural Law ("Necessity").	God's direct and continuous will.
Nature of Reality	Continuous, self-sustaining process.	Discontinuous series of re-created moments.
Causality	Natural cause and effect.	Denied; God is the only true cause (Occasionalism).
Goal of Theory	To explain a self-sustaining Nature.	To prove the world's absolute dependence on God.

To achieve their theological aim, Kalam thinkers developed the doctrine of Occasionalism. They argued that an atom, or substance (jawhar), and its properties, or "accidents" (’arāḍ), cannot endure for two consecutive moments. In order for the world to persist, God must actively recreate the entire universe—every jawhar and every ’arāḍ—in every single instant. This doctrine, known as Tajaddud al-amthal (the renewal of likenesses), posits a fundamentally discontinuous reality. The universe is a cinematographic series of static frames, flashed into being by the divine will so rapidly that it creates the illusion of continuity.

The theological consequence of this view is the complete negation of natural causality. Fire, by its own nature, does not burn cotton. Rather, God creates the accident of "burning" in the cotton on the "occasion" of its contact with fire. God is the sole and direct cause of all events. This radical conclusion served the theologians' ultimate purpose: to demonstrate the world's absolute and unceasing dependence on God for its very existence, moment by moment. This theologically potent but philosophically controversial model inevitably provoked powerful critiques from within the Islamic intellectual tradition.

Philosophical Dissent: The Leap, Contingency, and Substantial Motion

The orthodox Kalam model of the atom inspired a rich and sophisticated philosophical debate, as thinkers sought to reconcile faith, reason, and the nature of physical reality. These critiques were strategically vital, pushing Islamic metaphysics beyond the particulars of physics and toward a pure ontology of being.

One of the most radical dissents came from the Mu'tazilite theologian al-Naẓẓām, who rejected indivisible atoms, arguing for the infinite divisibility of matter. This immediately confronted him with Zeno's paradox, a problem vividly illustrated in Kalam debates through the example of a spinning millstone: how can a point on the rim travel a greater distance than a point near the hub in the same indivisible instant? Al-Naẓẓām's solution was the theory of the Leap (Ṭafra). He posited that bodies do not move continuously but instead "leap" from one point to another, occupying a series of discrete positions without traversing any of the intermediate space.

A more systematic assault on the entire Kalam methodology came from the philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā). He found the theologians' atomic proof for God philosophically "vulgar" because it depended on physics—specifically, on the contested premise that the world had a temporal beginning. He proposed a far more powerful alternative, the "Proof of the Truthful," which shifts the argument from physics to pure metaphysics. Avicenna distinguished between the Contingent (Mumkin al-Wujūd)—the universe and everything in it, which by its own essence could either exist or not exist—and the Necessary (Wājib al-Wujūd)—God, whose very essence is existence and whose non-existence is a logical impossibility. The entire contingent cosmos, whether eternal or not, requires the Necessary Being as its ultimate ontological anchor.

This intricate debate reached its philosophical climax centuries later with Mulla Sadra's doctrine of Substantial Motion (al-Ḥaraka al-Jawhariyya). For over a millennium, Aristotelian philosophy held that substance must be static for change to occur. Sadra radically violated this taboo, claiming that existence itself is motion—a "fluent and renewing existence" (wujūd sayyāl mutajaddid). For Sadra, a thing's identity is its process of becoming. Reality is not a collection of bricks (Democritus) or a series of static snapshots (Kalam), but a fountain. It is a ceaseless flow of intensification (Ishtidād), a dynamic process where things are constantly evolving from lower to higher states of being. With this, the indivisible unit was no longer a particle or a point, but a moment in a river of being.

The Enduring Quest for the Ultimate Unit

The intellectual journey of the atom is a testament to the power of a single concept to shape and reflect the metaphysical assumptions of entire civilizations. We have traced its lineage from the metaphysical Monad of Pythagoras, a principle of numeric unity, to the materialist particle of Democritus, a brick in a clockwork universe governed by Necessity. We then saw it transformed into the divinely-willed, momentary creation of Kalam theology, designed to prove God's absolute immanence, before it was finally liquefied into the flowing, ever-becoming substance of Mulla Sadra's process metaphysics.

Throughout this long history, the theory of the ultimate, indivisible unit has been a vessel for humanity's most persistent philosophical questions. It has forced us to confront the nature of reality itself, to debate the basis of causality, to ponder the relationship between parts and wholes, and to seek a reconciliation between the starkly material world and our deepest intuitions of a spiritual or moral purpose. The atom began as a metaphysical principle, and in many ways, it remains one. This ancient concept, in its myriad forms, continues to resonate in our ongoing quest to understand the fundamental fabric of existence.

C. Comparative Ontology of Change

Tradition	Status of Substance (Jawhar)	Mechanism of Change	Metaphor
Greek Atomism	Immutable Solid	Local Motion in Void	Lego Bricks: The bricks are eternal; the castle changes.
Avicennan Peripatetics	Static Essence	Accidental Motion (color, size, place)	Mannequin: The doll stays the same; the clothes change.
Kalam Occasionalism	Discontinuous (Recreated)	Divine Renewal (Tajaddud)	Cinema: Static frames flashed rapidly to simulate motion.
Sadrian Theosophy	Fluid Process	Substantial Motion (Ishtidād)	Growing Flame: The fire is constant, yet the flame is new at every moment.