Suhrawardi

First published Wed Dec 26, 2007; substantive revision Wed Apr 4, 2012

Trained in Avicennan Peripateticism, Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154–1191)

became the founder of an Illuminationist (ishraqi) philosophical tradition in the

Islamic East. Since none of his works were translated into Latin, he remained

unknown in the West; but from the 13th century onwards, his works were studied in

a number of philosophical circles in the Islamic East. In the mid-20th century,

Henry Corbin worked relentlessly to edit and study his writings, which led to

renewed interest in Suhrawardi's works and thought, especially in the later part of

the 20th century.

Suhrawardi provided an original Platonic criticism of the dominant Avicennan

Peripateticism of the time in the fields of logic, epistemology, psychology, and

metaphysics, while simultaneously elaborating his own epistemological (logic and

psychology) and metaphysical (ontology and cosmology) Illuminationist theories.

His new epistemological perspective led him to critique the Avicennan Peripatetic

theory of definition, introduce a theory of ‘presential’ knowledge, elaborate a

complex ontology of lights, and add a fourth ‘imaginal’ world.

1. Life and Works

o 1.1 Life

o 1.2 Works

o 1.3 Influences on Suhrawardi

2. Logic

o 2.1 Role of Logic

o 2.2 Definition

3. Physics

o 3.1 Psychology

o 3.2 Epistemology

4. Metaphysics

o 4.1 Essence and Existence

o 4.2 Ontology of Lights

o 4.3 Imaginal World

5. Politics and Ethics

6. Legacy of the Illuminationist Tradition

o 6.1 Post-Suhrawadian Traditions

o 6.2 Historiography

Bibliography

o Primary Sources: Editions, Translations, Commentaries

o Secondary Sources

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

Related Entries

1. Life and Works

1.1 Life

Biographical data on the life of Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi, the ‘master of

illumination’ (shaykh al-ishraq), is scarce. Born in the northwestern Iranian village

of Suhraward in 1154, he pursued his education in nearby Maraghah with Majd al-

Din al-Jili, one of the teachers of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d.1209). He then traveled to

Isfahan, where he studied with the logician Zahir al-Farisi with whom he read a text

on logic written by Ibn Sahlan al-Sawi (d.ca.1170). Suhrawardi then embarked on a

journey that led him to Anatolia. Shams al-Din al-Shahrazuri (d.ca.1288) identifies

this period as his quest for spiritual guidance, a period when he would have met a

number of Sufi masters, such as Fakhr al-Din al-Maridini (d.1198), and would have

sought patrons among the local rulers of Anatolia.

In 1183, Suhrawardi arrived in Aleppo, the year Saladin (d.1193) conquered that

city and handed it over to his son al-Zahir (d.1216). Suhrawardi, a Shafi‘i Sunni,

made a name for himself among religious scholars of the city, such as Iftikhar al-

Din. He eventually managed to secure an audience at the palace and to befriend al-

Zahir. In 1186, he completed his most important work, the Philosophy of

Illumination (hereafter, PI), at the age of thirty-three. Unfortunately, he also

succeeded in alienating the powerful religious elite of Aleppo on whom the

Ayyubids depended for the legitimacy of their rule over the city.

A combination of religious and political factors led to Suhrawardi's downfall. On

the one hand, he was accused of holding heretical beliefs, a vague charge easily

sustained with pre-Islamic Persian names and symbols that some of his works

contain, his claim to divine-like inspiration, and his questioning, in light of God's

omnipotence, the logical finality of Prophethood. On the other hand, his earlier and

close relationships with the rulers of the recently conquered Artuqids of southwest

Anatolia or with al-Zahir, the Ayyubid ruler, may have been interpreted as political

intrigue. In the end, Suhrawardi's fate was sealed with accusations of heresy (rather

than treason). Biographers and historians remain at odds over the exact charges and

course of events that led to his execution at the end of 1191 (or early1192)

(Marcotte 2001a).

1.2 Works

Suhrawardi's works are traditionally divided into four categories: several early

works, a number of mystical or allegorical texts, many written in Persian

(Suhrawardi 1976; 1993c; 1999b), minor works which often present Peripatetic

ideas and methods, but which also contain distinctive Illuminationist theses, e.g.,

his Temples of Light(Suhrawardi 1996), and, finally, his four major Arabic works

which Suhrawardi intended to be studied in the following order:

the Intimations (Suhrawardi, 2009 [logic, physics, metaphysics]; cf. Ibn Kammuna

2003, 2009), the Oppositions (Suhrawardi 1993a), the Paths and

Conversations (Suhrawardi 1993a), and the Philosophy of Illumination (Suhrawardi

1993b; 1999a; 1986). In the latter work, Suhrawardi developed his Illuminationist

philosophy in detail, wherein the symbolism of Light becomes central in his

reconfigurations of cosmology and ontology.

Needless to say, such a classification, as well as the theory of two distinct periods

in Suhrawardi's life and works — Peripatetic, followed by Illuminationist — poses

some difficulties. The classification may well be merely heuristic, as it fails to

account for a number of works that expound Peripatetic principles and methods and

yet include a number of Illuminationist principles, e.g., in his Tablets Dedicated to

‘Imad al-Din (Suhrawardi 1976: 99-116) and in his Temples of Light (Suhrawardi

1996; 1976: 139–47). Although Suhrawardi mentions that he was “once zealous in

defense of the Peripatetic path” (PI, 108.8–9), a period during which time he may

have written such works as the Flashes of Light (a précis of Avicennan Peripatetic

theses) whose attribution to a specifically identifiable ‘pre-inspiration’ period

remains problematic; TheFlashes of Light, however, mentions both

the Intimations and the Philosophy of Illumination as completed works (Suhrawardi

1993a: 70.3–7). Although Suhrawardi asserts that his Intimations was a work

written according to the Peripatetic tradition, the work contains some of his more

distinctive Illuminationist positions (Suhrawardi 1993a: 70–7 and 105–21).

Suhrawardi composed most of his treatises over a very short span of time, most

probably during the course of about ten years. The brevity of this period would not

have left him much time to undergo a radical transformation through two different

and successive stages in which he would have espoused two distinct styles and

modes of thought. For Suhrawardi, a great number of valid Peripatetic principles

remain necessary for understanding his Illuminationist Philosophy. Henry Corbin

(d.1978) noted that there may not have been a purely Peripatetic period, though

Suhrawardi confessed he once defended the Peripatetic approach. Very few of his

works can, in fact, be dated; whereas a number of his works were written

simultaneously.

Suhrawardi's works circulated mainly within the traditional philosophical circles of

learning of the Islamic East until the end of the 19th and the beginning of the

20thcenturies when, in the wake of the works of Carra de Vaux, Max Horten (1912),

Louis Massignon, Otto Spies and Khatak (1935), and Helmut Ritter, the French

Iranologist Henry Corbin began to study and edit a great number of his works. A

first volume, published in Istanbul in 1945, contained the metaphysics of

Suhrawardi's first three major Arabic works (Suhrawardi 1993a). In 1952, Corbin

then edited Suhrawardi's magnum opus, the Arabic Philosophy of

Illumination (Suhrawardi 1993b; 1999a; 1986), together with two minor works.

Corbin then went on to write his major study on Suhrawardi et les platoniciens de

Perse (Corbin 1971; cf. Abu Rayyan 1969). In 1970, Seyyed Hossein Nasr edited

fourteen of Suhrawardi's Persian texts (two attributed to him), many of which are

allegorical or mystical in nature (Suhrawardi 1993c).

1.3 Influences on Suhrawardi

Mapping Suhrawardi's intellectual trajectory and identifying the sources which he

may have used has proven exceedingly difficult (Walbridge 2000, 2001; cf. Gutas

2003). Suhrawardi was undoubtedly instructed in the Avicennan Peripatetic

tradition (in Maragha and Isfahan), but this would have also included the study of

the ideas of Aristotle, Plato and, most importantly, of the Neoplatonists and earlier

philosophers who wrote in Arabic. Avicenna's (d.1037) works were undoubtedly

central. Much work still needs to be done to assess the real significance of

Avicenna's Discussions (1992) and his Notes on Aristotle's De anima (1984) on

Suhrawardi, as well as the nature of the influence exerted on him by post-

Avicennan philosophers, in particular, Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi (d.ca.1150), the

original, yet eclectic critic of Avicenna's logic, psychology and metaphysics, and

the logician Ibn Sahlan al-Sawi.

The influence of both Plato and Aristotle remains readily identifiable in

Suhrawardi's works. Attempts have been made to trace the Greek influences of

such figures as Empedocles, Pythagoras, and the Stoics, an exercise which has led

to Suhrawardi being labeled a ‘Pythagoreanizing Neoplatonist’ (Walbridge 2000;

2001), but with more or less success (see Gutas 2003: 308). Notwithstanding

Suhrawardi's frequent appeals to the authority of Plato, another, more fruitful area

of research might rest with such works as the Arabic Theology of Aristotle (a

paraphrase of parts of Books IV-VI of Plotinus’ Enneads), in particular, the

passages it contains from EnneadsIV, 8.1, where the names of many philosophers

of the Greek tradition important to Suhrawardi are mentioned.

Charting Suhrawardi's intellectual journey and encounters with mysticism, ancient

Greek Gnosticism and Hermeticism, or ancient Persian Zoroastrian traditions, to

whose symbols he often appeals, remains exceedingly difficult. In addition, no one

has as yet fully explored the possible influences of Ismailism or Sufism on

Suhrawardi; his Illuminationist doctrine could have more affinity with Ismaili

thought (such as the hierarchical notion of being in the works of 10th century Abu

Ya‘qub al-Sijistani) than with the doctrines of classical Sufis whom he claims to be

following (Landolt 1987), although similarities with certain Sufi theories have been

noted (Landolt 2007). Medieval biographers, on the other hand, readily reported

Suhrawardi's mystical inclination, his association with mystics, his ascetic practices

and (hagiographic) wondrous deeds. Suhrawardi himself considered spiritual

exercises a necessary preparation for the advent of presential knowledge and vision

of the Lights. He often appealed to ancient Zoroastrian motifs, terminology and

mythical figures, even Mazdean theology, e.g., in his Invocations and

Prayers (Suhrawardi, 1976; cf. with occult and devotional works unearthed by

Walbridge, 2011). His appeal to angels as embodiments of the intellective

principles, for example, shares much with ancient Zoroastrian angelology (Corbin

1972: 111–3, 124–5), but also with the angelology found in Abu al-Barakat al-

Baghdadi's Considerations (1939, vol. 2: 157; cf. Pines 1979: 253–5), the latter,

however, being devoid of any ancient Persian symbolism. Without any clear

historical filiations to particular textual traditions, one can only rely on

Suhrawardi's own claims to having intended to provide a synthesis of these ancient

Western and Eastern intellectual traditions. Why Suhrawardi “presented himself as

following these ancient philosophers, and especially Plato, rather than Avicenna”

has yet to be elucidated and adequately explained (Gutas 2003: 309).

2. Logic

2.1 Role of Logic

Very little has been written about Suhrawardi's logical treatises or his logic in

general. Ziai (1990) provides perhaps the only general overview of Suhrawardi's

logic, his criticism of Peripatetic (Aristotelian) essentialist definitions and his own

elaboration of an Illuminationist theory of definition. While Suhrawardi includes

logical discussions in his major Arabic works, in his Philosophy of Illumination, he

ventures a criticism and a restructuring of some elements of Avicennan Peripatetic

logic.

The Philosophy of Illumination does not follow the customary Avicennan tripartite

division into logic, physics, and metaphysics which was standard in Post-

Avicennan Peripatetic works. Instead, Suhrawardi begins with a small number of

useful ‘Rules of Thought’ (PI, 14–105) that cover not only logic, but also elements

of physics and metaphysics which, according to his 13th century commentator

Shahrazuri, are rules derived from the Avicennan Peripatetic corpus (Ziai 1990:

41–76). Suhrawardi first introduces elements of semantics, where he discusses

problems of meaning, conception, assent and the nature, the definition and the

description of ‘reality’ (haqiqa), the latter being equated by Qutb al-Din Shirazi

(d.1311) with quiddity (mahiyya). Suhrawardi also discusses accidents, universals

(adopting a more or less nominalist position), innate (fitriyya) and non innate

human knowledge and the notion of definition and its elements (PI, 8.20–11.9). He

then proceeds with short discussions on the conditions of proofs, on defining

propositions, their classes and modalities, and includes a number of discussions on

contradiction, conversion, and some syllogisms (reductio ad absurdum and

demonstrative syllogisms). Suhrawardi identifies some errors of formal and

material logic with the logic of the Peripatetics (an epitome of theSophistical

Refutations). He even includes brief discussions on dialectics, rhetoric, and poetics

whose premises he considers non-scientific and thus part of non demonstrative

syllogisms (Ziai 1990: 41–74). He criticizes the Peripatetics’ understanding of

negation, as well as the second and third figures of the syllogism. He reduces all

types of propositions to necessary affirmative propositions and discusses some of

the differences between the Peripatetics and the Illuminationists regarding a

number of sophisms. Suhrawardi even revisits the classical theory of the ten

Categories which (as with the Stoics) he lumps together and reduces to five:

substance, quality, quantity, relation, and motion, of which the latter four are

accidental categories. The Categories now become ‘degrees of intensity’ (or

perfection) of light that entities possess and that they emit, rather than being merely

distinct ‘ontic entities’ (Ziai 2003: 452). As such, the degree of intensity (with its

corollary ‘weakness’) of light becomes a property of substances as well as of

accidents.

2.2 Definition

Suhrawardi criticizes the Peripatetic theory of definition and the inductive approach

it advocates as a foundation for scientific knowledge and demonstration. He uses

logical and semantic arguments to question ‘essentialist’ types of definitions

(Aristotelian) on which Avicenna's own ‘complete (essentialist) definition’

depends. He rejects the claims that it is possible to obtain a complete definition that

could encompass all the essential constituents needed to lead to the knowledge of

that which is previously unknown and in need of a definition (Ziai 1990: 77–114).

Suhrawardi writes that “it is clear that it is impossible for a human being to

construct an essential definition in the way the Peripatetics require—a difficulty

which even their master [Aristotle] admits. Therefore, we have definition only by

means of things that specify conjunction” (PI, 11.5–9). He insists that a definition

should enumerate, in some kind of unitary formula, all the essential elements of the

described object. He therefore includes elements of definition by extension

(enumeration of members of a ‘class’) and of definition by intension (enumeration

of defining property or properties), for example, that “the essence of man, which is

the truth underlying the symbol ‘man’, is recoverable only in the subject. The act of

‘recovery’ is the translation of the symbol to its equivalent in the consciousness or

the self of the subject” (Ziai 2003: 448–9). Suhrawardi explains his ‘conceptualist’

notion of definition at greater length in his Paths and Conversations(Ziai 1990:

110). His epistemological critique of the Peripatetic theory of definition is

undoubtedly inspired by Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi's own critical evaluation of

theIsagoge which was developed in his Considerations (1939: vol. 1, 55–7; cf. Ziai

1990: 183–4), but also by Suhrawardi's own understanding of the epistemic role of

self-knowledge.

Suhrawardi proceeds by introducing his reformulation of an Illuminationist theory

of definition that signals what some have identified as a ‘Platonic’ or ‘Neoplatonic’

turn (Ziai 1990: 114–128). Now, only direct experience guarantees acquisition of

true knowledge, such that epistemological considerations are at the heart of his

reconceptualization of the definition. Suhrawardi's theory of definition thus builds

on a Platonic epistemology. Knowledge of the reality of things occurs through the

direct apprehension of the intrinsic light-nature (the thing as it is) of all entities (see

metaphysics below). Direct knowledge occurs through ‘vision-illumination’, as a

person realizes that what is to be defined becomes available to one's self through

self-consciousness. At such time, the soul becomes directly aware of the reality of

that which is to be defined. The soul is then able to grasp directly these essences

whose elements can then be translated using proofs and demonstrations to develop

a discursive type of knowledge about that original apperception of reality.

Suhrawardi writes that, in and of itself, light is not in need of any definition,

because all that is required is for light to be experienced, as there is nothing more

evident than light. In his Paths and Conversations, Suhrawardi writes that to define

something is to actually ‘see’ the thing as it really is (Ziai 1990: 104–14).

Suhrawardi begins the second part of his Philosophy of Illumination by stating that

“anything in existence that requires no definition or explanation is evident. Since

there is nothing more evident than light, there is nothing less in need of definition”

(PI, 76), thereby establishing the centrality of the concept of light for his

Illuminationist ontology and epistemology. Suhrawardi argues that only direct

intuitive experience can lead to knowledge of the reality (haqiqa) of things, which

definitions can only attempt to describe and explain via a posteriori rational

investigations or demonstrations (Ziai 1990: 81). Qutb al-Din Shirazi noted that

Illuminationist epistemology relied on this type of personal and intuitive

knowledge, itself not in need of any definition (Ziai 1990: 133).

3. Physics

Suhrawardi's Intimations, Paths and Conversations, and Oppositions contain

substantial sections on physics, although all have remained unstudied. At present,

only the physics of the Intimations has been edited, together with a commentary by

Ibn Kammuna (2003). In the Philosophy of Illumination, Suhrawardi deals mainly

with some general principles of physics, but not with any kind of detail. With his

philosophy of lights, he manages, nonetheless, to reconfigure some elements of

physics. He criticizes, for example, the Peripatetic hylomorphic division of matter

and form, since hylomorphism becomes incompatible with the ontic luminosity of

reality. Immaterial entities and material bodies that are composed of varying

degrees of light remain ‘unitary concrete entities’. The physical world is composed

of dusky substances with dark accidents, while self-subsistent magnitude appears to

replace prime matter which, like a number of traditional physical notions, becomes

a mere mental concept that has no reality outside the mind. It is no longer the

perception of the form of objects, but their constitutive lights that becomes the true

object of knowledge (Walbridge 2000: 22–3).

3.1 Psychology

Suhrawardi equally revisits Avicenna's psychology. The soul remains an

immaterial, self-subsisting, living, knowing substance, capable of ruling over the

body, but now defined in terms of its luminosity. A relation of dominion and desire

is established between the luminous substance of the soul and the tenebrous

substance of the body. Between the two, the psychic pneuma functions as an

intermediary that is able to receive images, forms or ‘icons’ of metaphysical

realities that it then reflects and manifests into the soul.

Vision remains the most important sense. It is integrated into Suhrawardi's

Illuminationist theory of vision and incorporated into his theory of knowledge by

presence. Suhrawardi begins with a criticism and a rejection of the prevalent

‘extramissive’ and ‘intromissive’ theories of vision on account of the materialist

implications of the imprinting of forms in the material substratum of the eye.

Although mediated by a physical organ, vision remains primarily an activity of the

human soul, whereby the soul accesses directly the reality of the objects of vision.

In the Philosophy of Illumination, the vision of physical objects requires, first, a

‘presential’ face-to-face encounter of that which perceives, both the physical organ

and the human soul, and the illuminated object; second, the absence of obstacles

between subject and object, often described in mystical terms as the absence of

veils, whereby the soul becomes illuminated by the (substantial or accidental) light

of the object; and finally, the presence of light, the necessary condition for the

establishment of an Illuminationist relation. Vision thus unfolds simultaneously on

two different planes, physical visual perception being reduced to the soul's

perception or awareness of the intrinsic and essential light possessed by the object.

True vision does not require the presence and transmission of forms, but occurs

through the soul's ability to be aware of the essential light-reality of the object.

Physics and metaphysics thus merge, as objects have the ability to receive and emit

light, though only in an accidental manner, light being precisely what the light-soul,

the Isfahbad-light, is able to perceive, whether it be through the senses, the

intellect, intuition, or dreams (PI, 240.4–241.4).

Suhrawardi criticizes the localization of the internal faculties in different parts of

the brain, as their localization in a material organ again naturalizes the process of

representation. Internal faculties now become shadows (or functions) of the soul,

lumped together into a single faculty responsible for representation. The Isfahbad-

light principle accesses the supernal lights, rules over the active imagination, and

reflects onto it the lights it receives. The faculty of representation perceives

particulars, while the ruling light, the Isfahbad-light principle guaranteeing the

unity of the soul, perceives universals and immaterial entities. The new emphasis

on the totality of the soul, as the main perceiving entity, and the reduction of the

Avicennan faculties traditionally responsible for representation to a single faculty

could find their origin in Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Considerations (1939, vol.

2: 318-24; cf. Pines 1979: 227–31). As for recollection, Suhrawardi defines it in a

rather Platonic manner, whereby it becomes the retrieval of images (or concepts)

whose existence lies in the ‘world of memorial’, accessible only to the luminous

part of the soul.

Illumination becomes a metaphor for the intellective process. Illuminative relations

are established between metaphysical active light principles and the human soul.

Whereas only the (rational) Isfahbad-light part of the soul is immortal, Suhrawardi,

nevertheless, notes the possibility for the imaginative faculty of souls that have not

yet achieved perfection to perhaps survive, something that is required for the

experiencing of divine retribution and for the perfecting of souls in the afterlife.

The spheres of Ether and Zamharir, both situated below the Moon and associated

with the world of elements, are identified as possible ‘pneumatic’ substrata for the

posthumous activities of the imaginative faculties of those souls (Suhrawardi

1993c: 245.5–7). Suhrawardi attempted, therefore, to postulate the existence of an

independent eschatological realm with the assistance of which sensitive perceptions

could occur in the form of imaginal representations (Marcotte, 2011). Finally, he

does not appear to completely reject the possibility of some kind of transmigration

of souls, especially of miserable souls, in spite of the fact that he does not overtly

affirm it and that many other passages seem to deny it (Schmidtke 1999).

3.2 Epistemology

Suhrawardi's Illuminationist epistemology revolves around his theory of

‘presential’ (huduri) knowledge that one is able to achieve through intuitive

apprehension or contemplative vision (mushahada). Qutb al-Din Shirazi noted the

importance of continuous practice of spiritual exercises for the occurrence of such

intuitive and mystical aptitudes to access true reality. The ‘Plotinian’

(cf. Enneads V 3.6) Aristotle figure of Suhrawardi's famous dream-vision found in

his Intimations (cf. Walbridge 2000: 225–9) provides us with an illustrious

example of what constitutes, for Suhrawardi, real knowledge based on immediate

and intuitive knowledge. Whereas the Peripatetics had extolled intellection,

Suhrawardi brings direct intuition or mystical contemplation (heightened by ascetic

components) to the forefront, as an alternative — albeit more reliable — foundation

of certainty. Intuitive knowledge provides access to a priori truths of which

discursive knowledge can only be subsequently validated through a

posteriori demonstrations (Dinani 1985; Ha’iri Yazdi 1992; Aminrazavi 1997;

2003).

Suhrawardi explores some of the issues raised by the hypothetical example of the

‘suspended’ person found in Avicenna's Discussions and his Notes on

Aristotle's De anima, and his treatments of the soul in the Cure and the Salvation.

He analyzes the notions of apperception and self-awareness and alludes to a pre-

logical mode of perception that remains distinct from intellection. He discusses the

primary awareness of the soul's existence, its self-identity, the unmediated

character of this particular type of knowledge and issues of individuation. He

provides various arguments to demonstrate the existence of a type of knowledge

that is self-evident, a priori and unmediated through any type of abstraction and

representation of forms, whether it be through an image, a form, a notion or an

attribute of the self. The perception of pain becomes paradigmatic of self-

knowledge as unmediated perception, i.e., a non discursive, non-conceptual and

non-propositional type of knowledge that, nonetheless, does constitute a mode of

knowing distinct from discursive knowledge. Similar to pain, self-knowledge

provides yet another illustration of the type of epistemic process that Suhrawardi

considers being at the heart of intuitive knowledge. The unmediated nature of this

process characterizes both the soul's self-knowledge and the soul's knowledge of

supernal entities and the glimpses of the Light of Lights it may obtain (Marcotte

2006; see the more recent studies of Kaukua, 2011 and Eichner, 2011).

In Suhrawardi's ‘science of lights’, the object of perception — light — cannot be

known discursively, but only through an immediate presence or awareness of its

luminosity. Mystical vision and contemplation operate through this intuitive

process of knowing metaphysical lights. Individuals achieve such states through

spiritual and ascetic practices that enable them to detach themselves from the

darknesses of the world in their quest for the apperception of those lights. Intuitive

knowledge thus constitutes a superior means of accessing the luminous reality and

the divine realm of metaphysical truths.

Suhrawardi appears to spiritualize Avicenna's Peripatetic epistemology with a

greatly Platonic reading, now that the access to the ultimate reality is guaranteed

through divine photic illumination. His classification of learned men according to

their respective merits in discursive (philosophy) and intuitive (mystical)

knowledge is revealing. Direct intuition or mystical contemplation plays a

predominant role, even for prophets. Prophetic knowledge relies on the functions of

the faculty of imagination, i.e., its mimetic function and its role in the

particularization of universal truths. Prophecy becomes the ‘direct’ experience of

the world of lights. Suhrawardi also introduces an independent imaginal realm to

account for the ability of prophets and other gifted individuals to access divine

metaphysical realms where imaginal forms already exist. Such individuals are

either commissioned or uncommissioned to receive and transmit God's message,

the prophets being those who are among the privileged commissioned.

Direct intuition lies at the heart of Suhrawardi's prophetology, inasmuch as only the

most perfect sage who witnesses those truths, whether he be a prophet or not,

deserves God's viceregency, by being either a living proof or in occultation.

Individuals who have access to those metaphysical lights can be invested with the

viceregency of God, depending on the degree of their receptivity and the purity of

their hearts. On the whole, however, the epistemic process by which mystics such

as Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d.874), Sahl al-Tustari (d.896) and Hallaj (d.912), sages

such as Zarathustra and Empedocles, philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato, or

Suhrawardi himself have all had access to those metaphysical truths and divine

realms remains quite similar to the process by which prophets have accessed the

same divine and metaphysical truths. Liberated from the enslavement of the

material world, their Isfahbad-light souls become receptive to illumination and

perceive truths similar to those perceived by prophets. Prophetic and mystical

knowledge only occur once the human soul is able to conjoin with those

metaphysical lights. The soul is able to acquire a luminous and theurgic power,

mediated by the active imagination which existentiates images and forms that have

been reflected, in a mirror-like manner, onto it. It can imitate and reproduce forms

that it has received from non-sensible realms, as it short-circuits all incoming

external and sensible data. The faculty of active imagination then projects those

matters onto the ‘common sense’ which provides a sensible form to those divine

metaphysical realities that they did not originally possess.

4. Metaphysics

In his Philosophy of Illumination, Suhrawardi develops a complex metaphysic of

‘divine’ lights. Light, the lynchpin of his metaphysics, structures his ontology and

cosmology at the heart of which lies a spectrum of light and darkness that shapes

the whole of reality. In his Intimations (1993a: 2.11–3.16), philosophy is divided

into theoretical and practical components, where the practical includes ethics,

economics and politics, while the theoretical is concerned with immaterial realities,

the highest theoretical component being concerned with absolute being (wujud).

4.1 Essence and Existence

The concept of light manages to ‘disrupt’ classical Peripatetic ontology by

somehow rendering irrelevant the Avicennan distinction between essence and

existence in contingent beings (Rizvi 2000). Perhaps following Aristotle, Avicenna

favored the primacy of essence over existence, the latter considered an abstract

concept. Suhrawardi criticized and rejected the Peripatetic logical distinction

between the two concepts, insisting that the concept of existence is added to

quiddity in re, such that the general extension of the concept of existence remains a

mental predicate, not a real one. For Suhrawardi, concepts such as essence and

existence considered a prioriand real were “merely mental considerations (i‘tibari)

with no corresponding reality” (Rizvi 1999: 222).

The primacy of light signals a shift in the understanding of the very nature of the

‘essence’ of things. The degree or intensity of light of essences makes them distinct

from one another, although they all share in the same light whose origins remain

with the Light of Lights. Everything partakes in and of light, in an almost infinite

manner. The distinction between essence and existence no longer becomes

appropriate to assert contingency and only remains notional, since the difference

between necessary and contingent beings now depends on whether a being

possesses light in itself or light for other than itself (Rizvi 1999: 223). In

his Philosophy of Illumination (83.24–7), Suhrawardi writes: “Light is divided into

light of itself and in itself and light of itself but in another. You know that

accidental light is light in another. Thus, it is not a light initself although it is a

light of itself”.

Rizvi showed how later philosophers ascribed the ontological primacy of essence

(or quiddity) thesis to Suhrawardi and noted that he “clearly states that

quiddity/essence in itself is a conceptual and unreal a notion as existence” (Rizvi

1999: 224), Suhrawardi noting that “the quiddity of luminosity [i.e., the same as

light] is a mental universal” (PI, 92.4–5). But it is also true that Suhrawardi's

“phenomenological epistemology of eidetic vision” could easily imply a primacy of

essence (Rizvi 1999: 224). Suhrawardi's position, therefore, is greatly nominalist,

now that both existence and essence are considered mere mental concepts, reality

having been redefined with the new primacy of light. Light and essence cannot,

however, be synonymous. Both light and darkness exist: “light is the being of

things as their instantiating principle in concreto and not their essences” (Rizvi

1999: 224). By the same token, light is not identical with substance, since both dark

substances and accidental lights exist (Walbridge 2000: 24). Rizvi (1999: 224)

notes that entities grasped as essences through presential knowledge are “apparent

aspects of what one might regard as ‘light monads’”, an idea whose source appears

to be greatly Platonic.

For Suhrawardi, being is grasped through the (non-sensible) vision of lights that lie

beyond the essences, as even the existence of bodies depends upon incorporeal

lights (PI, 78.10–79.18). In his Philosophy of Illumination (79.19–22), Suhrawardi

writes that “Nothing that has an essence [dhat] of which it is not unconscious is

dusky, for its essence is evident to it. It cannot be a dark state in something else,

since even the luminous state is not a self-subsistent light, let alone the dark state.

Therefore, it is nonspatial pure incorporeal light”. Access to this ultimate reality of

beings is achieved through the direct experience of its ontic light reality, rendering

intuitive and non-discursive knowledge (logically) prior to any other type of

knowledge. Later, Mulla Sadra (d.1640) noted Suhrawardi's confusion between the

concept of existence and the reality of existence and replaced Suhrawardi's notion

of light with the notion of being, blending Avicenna's ontology of contingency with

Suhrawardi's Illuminationist hierarchy of lights (Rizvi 1999: 225).

4.2 Ontology of Lights

In the Niche of Lights (1998), Muhammad al-Ghazali (d.1111) discussed mystical

epistemology using Qur’anic light terminology, whereas Suhrawardi, in

his Philosophy of Illumination, developed a truly original light ontology. While

light always remains in itself identical, its proximity or distance from the Light of

Lights determines the ontic light reality of all beings. Light operates through the

activities of dominion of the higher ‘triumphal’ or ‘victorial’ lights, as well as the

desire of the lower lights for the higher ones, operating at all levels and hierarchies

of reality (PI, 97.7–98.11). Reality proceeds from the Light of Lights and unfolds

via the First Light and all the subsequent lights whose exponential interactions

bring about the existence of all entities. As each new light interacts with other

existing lights, more light and dark substances are generated. Light produces both

immaterial and substantial lights, such as immaterial intellects (angels), human and

animal souls. Light produces dusky substances, such as bodies. Light can generate

both luminous accidents, such as those in immaterial lights, physical lights or rays,

and dark accidents, whether it be in immaterial lights or in bodies (PI, 77.1–78.9).

Suhrawardi's metaphysics of lights rests on at least two central principles which

account for all the basic classes of beings (light and darkness, substance and state,

independent and dependent beings). A first principle, Walbridge notes, “is a form

of the principle of sufficient reason, ‘the principle of the most noble contingency’

[…] which asserts that nothing can exist without a cause of higher ontological

level” (PI, 90.1–92.25). A second principle is the Aristotelian “impossibility of an

ordered, actual infinity” which, with the first principle, guarantees that “there

cannot be an infinite number of levels of being and that there must be one being

whose existence is necessary in itself—Avicenna's ‘Necessary of Existence’ (wajib

al-wujud)”, the Light of Lights (Walbridge 2000: 24–5; PI, 87.1–89.8).

With the notion of intensity of light, Suhrawardi then develops his two-fold process

of light production. A vertical and a horizontal hierarchy of pure immaterial lights

structure his Illuminationist metaphysics. From the Light of Lights proceeds a first

vertical hierarchy of lights: from the Light of Lights proceeds a First Light

(following the classical principle that from the one only the one proceeds) from

which proceeds a Second Light and the all-encompassing barzakh (i.e., a ethereal

body), from the second a Third Light and the Second barzakh, or the Sphere of

Fixed Stars, and so forth. The first vertical hierarchy of lights mirrors the

Avicennan Peripatetic process of emanation of Intelligences. Suhrawardi, however,

increases the number of active principles, something that Averroes denounced in

Avicenna's Neoplatonic ontology. Suhrawardi's ‘triumphal’ or ‘victorial’ lights are

now as numerous as there are stars in the fixed heavens. While no longer limited to

the ten Peripatetic Intelligences and now indefinite in number, they are not infinite

(PI, 99.20–100.19).

The vertical hierarchy of lights interacts with a horizontal hierarchy of lights. This

second hierarchy of ‘ruling’ lights incorporates, amongst other things, ancient

angelologies (Semitic angelic hierarchies and Zoroastrian mythology) and some

type of Platonic Forms. Each of these horizontal lights becomes a ‘Lord of

Species’, i.e., a luminous self-subsisting and fixed species, whose function is

analogous to the Platonic Forms in so far as it ‘governs’ the species under it (rather

than being a mere universal), such as the species of bodies that move the celestial

spheres and all matters sublunar, including human souls. Out of the interaction of

the vertical and the horizontal lights, the bodies of the lower world are generated.

These horizontal or vertical lights are all structurally interrelated through the

principle of love that the lower lights have for the higher lights and the principle of

domination that the higher lights have over the lower ones (PI, 101.12–103.31).

The two dimensional hierarchy of lights introduces a new non linear notion of

metaphysical causation.

The multiplication of metaphysical entities serves to increase the ontological

distance that exists between the Light of Lights and the sublunar world, while

simultaneously providing a greater holistic view of reality, since light lies at its

core. Notions of intensity and gradation of light, together with notions of presence

and self-manifestation, are thus central to Suhrawardi's metaphysics. The intensity

of light corresponds to the degree of their self-awareness, such that the self-

awareness of the Light of Lights encompasses all of reality (in terms of intensity).

Later, Mulla Sadra (d.1640) takes up Suhrawardi's insight about the gradation and

intensity of light and develops an ontology based on the gradation of existence

(rather than light) of all beings, somehow reversing Suhrawardi's ontology with his

primacy of existence and his understanding of essence as a mental concept.

4.3 Imaginal World

About half a century earlier than Ibn ‘Arabi (d.1240), Suhrawardi introduced his

own independent ‘imaginal world’, what Corbin has called the mundus imaginalis,

a fourth ‘imaginal’ world, alongside the intelligible, the spiritual and the material.

This imaginal world, a substance made of shadows, operates like an ‘isthmus’ or an

intermediary realm between the world of pure light and the physical world of

darkness, lying somewhere between this physical world and the world of the

species and of Platonic Forms (the horizontal lights), perhaps at the lower threshold

of the world of souls.

In the imaginal world, entities somehow possess an existence of their own (some,

prior to their coming into existence in this world). The imaginal world contains

images that are not embedded in matter, a plane of “ghosts, of the forms in mirrors,

dreams, and worlds of wonder beyond our own” which light can existentiate

(Walbridge 2000: 26). The imaginal world provides the material for the miraculous.

It is where the ‘metahistorical’ (Corbin's term) visions of Imams occur, where

eschatological forms and images will perhaps be existentiated for the souls of the

deceased, so that they may continue to perfect their souls (PI, 148.29–150.17), as

well as where elements not fitting conveniently into the Aristotelian scheme of

forms in matter are found. Suhrawardi did not, however, systematically develop the

concept. This was left to his followers.

5. Politics and Ethics

Suhrawardi's Philosophy of Illumination carries a political dimension. Ziai (1992)

provides an overview of what he calls the ‘Illuminationist political doctrine’ which

establishes a connection between political authority, just rule, and the ruler's access

to divine light. This is particularly manifest in the Tablets Dedicated to ‘Imad al-

Din(Suhrawardi 1993c: 184.12–188.4) and the Book of Radiance (Suhrawardi

1998: 84–5), where Suhrawardi appeals to ancient Persian notions of royal glory

(kharrah) and of luminous divine light (farrah), two signs of the divine authority of

ancient kings of Iranian mythology, the divine lights that instructed Kay Khusraw

and Zarathustra (PI, 156.3–157.3).

Suhrawardi may, in fact, appeal to a somewhat ‘mythological’ genealogy of the

transmission of ancient Illuminationist philosophies from the Greek/West and the

Iranian/East which he claims to revive. Ziai speculates that Suhrawardi tried to put

into practice the political dimension of his Illuminationist philosophy (Ziai 1992:

337; cf. Walbridge 2000: 201–10), based mainly on passages from Suhrawardi's

works and the possible circumstances of his demise and execution. Historical data

supporting the thesis, Suhrawardi's relationship with his many patrons and the

purpose of passages relating to these Illuminationist political doctrines need further

examination.

The ethics underlying Suhrawardi's Illuminationist system has yet to be adequately

investigated, but the political doctrines can provide indications of the conditions

that would guarantee the reign of a just rule, thus providing some elements of an

Illuminationist political ethic. Suhrawardi's particularly Platonic understanding of

the mystic quaruler and his political role, coupled with the role of intuitive or

‘mystical’ access to the ‘divine’ lights by prophets, mystics and sages might,

however, not leave Suhrawardi immune to the same criticism Popper leveled

against Plato.

One needs to turn to Suhrawardi's eschatology and his discussions on the fate of the

soul in the afterlife to obtain a glimpse of what might constitute a ‘good’ and

ethical life in this world. In line with Avicenna's classification of souls in the

hereafter according to their worldly acquisition of practical and theoretical

knowledge, the moral qualities developed in this life determine the fate of souls in

the afterlife (PI, 148.27–150.17). In search of felicity, souls must attempt to detach

themselves from their tenebrous bodies and all that is worldly and material and to

access the world of immaterial lights. Souls engrossed in matter in this life partially

determine their fate in the afterlife and Suhrawardi, in this respect, does not depart

greatly from Peripatetic eschatology.

Prophets, saints and exceptionally gifted mystics are able to achieve conjunction

with the world of pure lights. Ascetic practices in this life become a means to attain

self-consciousness of the ontic luminosity of the soul. Some of Suhrawardi's

allegorical and mystical treatises, such as The Treatise of the Bird, A Tale of

Occidental Exile orA Day with a Group of Sufis (Suhrawardi 1982; cf. Landolt

1987), provide examples of the pedagogical role and instruction of the guide figure,

of the Lord of the human species, or of spiritual entities to the novice in his or her

quest for the immaterial world of lights in which salvation lies. The posthumous

life of individual souls and their ability to perceive the promised other-worldly

rewards and punishments become conditions for divine retribution.

6. Legacy of the Illuminationist Tradition

6.1 Post-Suhrawadian Traditions

The tragic end of Suhrawardi marked the birth of the Illuminationist tradition. By

the end of the 13th century, at least two of Suhrawardi's works were readily

available and studied in the major centers of learning of Syria (Damascus and

Aleppo), Iraq (Baghdad) and Iran (Maraghah), some of which circulated most

probably even before his death. Ziai (2003: 473–87) identifies at least two trends

within the Illuminationist tradition of the 13th century that were to shape later

developments: Ibn Kammuna (d.1284), on the one hand, emphasized the purely

discursive and the more systematically philosophical aspects of Suhrawardi's

Illuminationist philosophy, while Shahrazuri, on the other hand, focused and

expanded on the symbolic and the allegorical aspects of the tradition. Ibn

Kammuna, a Jewish philosopher greatly influenced by both Avicenna and

Suhrawardi is the first commentator (Langermann 2005: 297–301; Pourjavady and

Schmidtke 2006: 23–32). While in Baghdad, Ibn Kammuna (2003) wrote his

commentary on the physics and the psychology of Suhrawardi's Intimations (in

1268). Having resided in Aleppo, Ibn Kammuna could well be, with such works as

his al-Kashif (al-Jadid fi al-Hikma) completed in 1278, the link between

Suhrawardi and Shahrazuri (d.ca.1288) who wrote the earliest commentary on

the Philosophy of Illumination (Shahrazuri 1993; cf. Marcotte 2002) and whose

encyclopedic The Divine Tree (Shahrazuri, 2004 and 2005 [a better edition];

Marcotte 2001b) and his Book of Symbols (Privot 2004) can readily be labeled

Illuminationist works, although much work is needed to determine the extent of

Shahrazuri's contribution to the Illuminationist tradition. In 1295, Qutb al-Din

Shirazi wrote his own commentary on the Philosophy of Illumination (Shirazi

2001; Suhrawardi 1986), based on Shahrazuri's work (Walbridge 1992).

Authors that incorporated Illuminationist ideas include Muhammad Ibn Rizi

(fl.ca.1280), in his Life of Souls (Marcotte 2004); Athir al-Din al-Abhari (d.1242)

in hisUncovering of the Realities; Ibn Abi Jumhur Ahsa’i (d.1501) (Schmidtke

2000); the two theologians Jalal al-Din Dawwani (d.1501) and Ghiyath al-Din

Dashtaki (d.1541) who both wrote commentaries on Suhrawardi's Temples of

light (Dawwani 1953; Dashtaki 2003; Suhrawardi 1996); and Mir Damad (d.1631),

especially in his Spiritual Attractions (2001) and his Embers (1977). Mulla Sadra

(Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) (d.1640) was most interested in Suhrawardi's critique of

Avicennan Peripateticism (existence as a being of reason, the Platonic Forms, and

knowledge by presence) and wrote marginal glosses on Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi's

commentary on the Philosophy of Illumination (Mulla Sadra, 2010; cf. with

Suhrawardi 1986). Mulla Sadra positioned himself in opposition to what he

understood to be Suhrawardi's view that quiddity was primary, a view shared by

Mir Damad (d.1631), and instead held, such as Hadi Sabzawari (d.1873) after him,

that existence was primary.

During the same period, Suhrawardi's works entered the Turkish Ottoman and

Persian Indian philosophical traditions. In the Ottoman world, Isma‘il Ankaravi

(d.1631), a member of the Mevlevi Sufi order, translated and commented

Suhrawardi Temples of Light (Kuspinar 1996). In the 17th century, the enigmatic

Ahmad Ibn al-Harawi (probably from Herat) living in the Indian subcontinent,

translated into Persian the Philosophy of Illumination on which he wrote a

commentary (Harawi 1979). Azar Kayvan (d.ca.1615), a Zoroastrian high priest

from Fars who emigrated to Gujurat in Mughal India during the reign of Emperor

Akbar (ruled 1556–1605), started a Zoroastrian Illuminationist school (Walbridge

2001: 91–3). Even thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Muhammad Kazim

‘Assar, have been influenced by the Illuminationist tradition (Ziai 2003: 472).

Cataloguing and making accessible hundreds of philosophical works in Arabic and

Persian from the 12th-19th century, such as the recent publication of the Persian

work of Shihab al-Din Kumijani (d.1895), the Nur al-Fu'ad, or the Inner Light, are

bound to shed new light on the legacy of Suhrawardi's works. On the whole,

however, almost nothing has been written on the history of the philosophical legacy

of Suhrawardi's Philosophy of Illumination.

6.2 Historiography

Historiography of the Illuminationist tradition has been dominated by two main

schools of thought. The first, older and more prevalent school, views Suhrawardi as

the founder of a mystical, esoteric and ‘theosophical’ tradition. Its roots are found

in Corbin's mystical or ‘theosophical’ paradigm (Gutas 2002: 16–9). The adoption

of an ‘esoteric’ wisdom or ‘theosophy’ (Corbin), or even a philosophia

perennis approach (Nasr), to Suhrawardi's work often overemphasizes the mystical

at the expense of the philosophical and somehow blurs the distinction between

philosophy, theology and mysticism. Proponents of this approach highlight

Suhrawardi's aim to expound on Avicenna's incomplete project to develop an

‘Eastern’ (not ‘illuminative’) philosophy of Khurasan (mashriqiyya), in spite of the

fact that Avicenna's ‘Eastern’ philosophy was not a mystical enterprise, but merely

a philosophical tradition distinct from the one of the school of Baghdad (Gutas

2000). More generally, the proponents of the mystical approach interpret

Illuminationist philosophy as a break or a departure from Avicennan Peripateticism

(Mehdi H. Yazdi, Hossein Nasr, Ashtiyani), rather than seeing it as its extension

and critique. Scholars have often overlooked the fact that Suhrawardi's major works

are largely devoted to technical philosophical questions, of which his allegorical or

minor works are not devoid.

Some, such as Fakhry (1982), have gone so far as to question the originality of

Suhrawardi's Philosophy of Illumination, deeming it a mere transposition of

Avicennan philosophy into a light terminology. Izutsu (1971) was one of the first to

explore the analytical aspect of Suhrawardi's work, followed especially by Ziai

(1990), but also by Walbridge (2000, 2001) who have focused on some of the

analytical and philosophical elements of Suhrawardi's Philosophy of Illumination.

While some, such as Henry Corbin and Mohammad Mo’in, have viewed

Suhrawardi as the reviver of some ancient form of Persian philosophy, others, such

as Ziai (2003: 443), are more skeptical and note the absence of textual evidence for

such an independent Persian philosophical tradition. Similarly, Gutas (2003) notes

the absence of textual evidence to support the claim that Suhrawardi attempted to

revive ancient Western Greek, Gnostic and Hermetic traditions. Research should

perhaps focus on the reasons why Suhrawardi appealed to the authority of the

‘Ancients’, East and West, rather than on trying to find ‘real’ historical filiations to

sources to which Suhrawardi might have had access.

More studies are needed on the works of authors who belonged to, or who were

influenced by the Illuminationist tradition (see e.g., Schmidtke 2000; Pourjavadi &

Schmidtke 2006). This will provide the much needed accounts of the complex

historical and philosophical developments of the Illuminationist tradition. Although

recent scholarship highlights Suhrawardi's critique of Avicennan Peripatetic logic,

epistemology and metaphysics (Ziai 1990) and even psychology, more studies are

needed that explore specific logical, epistemological, physical, and metaphysical

issues found in Suhrawardi's four major Arabic texts and that compare

systematically Suhrawardi'sPhilosophy of Illumination with Avicenna's major

works, such as the Cure. This will undoubtedly provide new insight into

Suhrawardi's greatly Platonic reworking of Avicennan Peripateticism, what Gutas

(2002) has identified as Suhrawardi's Illuminationist Avicennism.

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