Other important Muslim mystics carry the name SuhrawardiSuhrawardi or al-Suhrawardi is a name that may refer to:* Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi , Iranian philosopher * Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi , Iranian Sufi, founder of Suhrawardiyya order of Sufism...
, particularly Abu 'l-Najib al-Suhrawardi
and his paternal nephew Abu Hafs Umar al-SuhrawardiAbu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi fixme was an Iranian Sufi from Choresmia.He expanded the Sufi order of Suhrawardiyya, that had been created by his uncle Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi, obtaining the support of the caliph....
.
"Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash as-Suhrawardī was an
IranicThe Iranian peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly on the Iranian plateau and beyond in central, southern, and southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. As a group of people, they are predominantly defined along linguistic lines as speaking the Iranian...
philosopher, a
SufiSufism or ' , also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ' , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals...
and founder of the
Illuminationist philosophyIlluminationist philosophy is an Iranian philosophy and Islamic philosophy first developed by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi , the famous Persian philosopher....
or "Oriental Theosophy", an important school in Islamic
mysticismMysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or...
that drew upon
ZoroastrianA Zoroastrian is an adherent to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion that is based on the teachings and philosophies of Zoroaster....
and
PlatonicPlato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called "platonic" or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole....
ideas. The "Orient" of his "Oriental Theosophy" symbolises spiritual light and knowledge.
Other important Muslim mystics carry the name SuhrawardiSuhrawardi or al-Suhrawardi is a name that may refer to:* Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi , Iranian philosopher * Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi , Iranian Sufi, founder of Suhrawardiyya order of Sufism...
, particularly Abu 'l-Najib al-Suhrawardi
and his paternal nephew Abu Hafs Umar al-SuhrawardiAbu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi fixme was an Iranian Sufi from Choresmia.He expanded the Sufi order of Suhrawardiyya, that had been created by his uncle Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi, obtaining the support of the caliph....
.
"Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash as-Suhrawardī was an
IranicThe Iranian peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly on the Iranian plateau and beyond in central, southern, and southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. As a group of people, they are predominantly defined along linguistic lines as speaking the Iranian...
philosopher, a
SufiSufism or ' , also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ' , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals...
and founder of the
Illuminationist philosophyIlluminationist philosophy is an Iranian philosophy and Islamic philosophy first developed by Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi , the famous Persian philosopher....
or "Oriental Theosophy", an important school in Islamic
mysticismMysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or...
that drew upon
ZoroastrianA Zoroastrian is an adherent to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion that is based on the teachings and philosophies of Zoroaster....
and
PlatonicPlato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called "platonic" or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole....
ideas. The "Orient" of his "Oriental Theosophy" symbolises spiritual light and knowledge. He is sometimes given the honorific title
Shaikh al-Ishraq or "Master of Illumination" and sometimes is called
Shaikh al-Maqtul, the "Murdered Sheikh", referring to his execution for
heresyHeresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established opinion of scholars of that belief such as canon. It is sometimes confused with apostasy which is disaffiliation from orthodoxy and blasphemy which is...
.
Life
Suhraward or
Suhrabard was a Kurdish village located between the present-day towns of
ZanjanZanjan is the capital of Zanjan Province in northwestern Iran. It lies 298 km north-west of Tehran on the main highway to Tabriz and Turkey and approximately 125 km from the Caspian Sea....
and
BijarBijar is a city located in Kurdistan Province of Iran. Its estimated population as of 2006 is 46,156. With an elevation of 1883.4 meters, Bijar is called the Roof of Iran....
where Suhrawardi was born in 1155CE. This
KurdishThe Kurds are an Ethnic-Iranian ethnolinguistic group mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
inhabited region in present-day northwestern
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
was controlled by the Kurds up to the 10th century CE, and its inhabitants were mainly heretics.
He learned wisdom and jurisprudence in
MaraghehMaragheh is a city in Northern Iran on the bank of the river Safi Chay. It is located in East Azerbaijan Province at , 130 km from Tabriz and has a population of 151,486....
(located today in the
East Azarbaijan ProvinceEast Azerbaijan or East Azarbaijan is one of the 30 provinces of Iran. It is in the northwest of the country, bordering Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the provinces of Ardabil, West Azerbaijan, and Zanjan...
of
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
). His teacher was Majd al-Din Jaili who was also Imam Fakhr Razi’s teacher. He then went to
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
and
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
for several years and developed his knowledge while he was there.
His life spanned a period of less than forty years during which he produced a series of highly assured works that established him as the founder of a new school of philosophy, sometimes called "Illuminism" (
hikmat al-Ishraq). According to
Henry CorbinHenry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France....
, Suhrawardi "came later to be called the Master of Oriental theosophy (Shaikh-i-Ishraq) because his great aim was the renaissance of ancient Iranian wisdom".
He was executed in 1191 in
AleppoAleppo is a city in northern Syria, the second largest Syrian city and the capital of the Aleppo Governorate; the Governorate extends around the city for over 16,000 km² and has a population of 4,393,000, making it the largest Governorate in Syria by population...
on charges of cultivating
BatiniBatiniyya is a pejorative term to refer to those groups, such as Alevism, Ismailism, and often Sufism which distinguish between an inner, esoteric level of meaning in the Qur'an, in addition to the outer, exoteric level of meaning Zahiri...
teachings and philosophy by the order of al-Malik al-Zahir, son of
SaladinṢalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was a Kurdish Muslim who became the Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He led Islamic opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...
.
Teachings
Arising out of the peripatetic philosophy as developed by Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Suhrawardi's illuminationist philosophy is critical of several of his positions and radically departs from him in the creation of a symbolic language (mainly derived from ancient Iranian culture or
Farhang-e Khosravani) to give expression to his wisdom (
hikma).
Suhrawardi taught a complex and profound emanationist
cosmologyEsoteric cosmology is cosmology that is an intrinsic part of an esoteric or occult system of thought. It almost always deals with at least some of the following themes: emanation, involution, evolution, epigenesis, planes of existence or higher worlds , hierarchies of spiritual beings, cosmic...
, in which all creation is a successive outflow from the original Supreme Light of Lights (
Nur al-Anwar). The fundamental of his philosophy is pure immaterial light, than which nothing is more manifest, that unfolds from the
light of lights in a descending order of ever-diminishing intensity and, through complex interaction, gives rise to a "horizontal" array of lights, similar in conception to Platonic forms, that governs the species of mundane reality.
Suhrawardi elaborated the neo-Platonic idea of an independent intermediary world, the imaginal world (
alam-e mithal). His views have exerted a powerful influence down to this day, particularly through
Mulla SadraṢadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā (c...
’s combined peripatetic and illuminationist description of reality.
Influence
Suhrawardi's Illuminationist project was to have far-reaching consequences for Islamic philosophy in Shi'ite Iran. His teachings had a strong influence on subsequent esoteric Iranian thought and the idea of “Decisive Necessity” is believed to be one of the most important innovations of in the history of logical philosophical speculation, stressed by the majority of
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
logicians and philosophers. In the seventeenth century it was to initiate an Illuminationist Zoroastrian revival in the figure of
Azar KayvanĀzar Kayvān , was a Zoroastrian high priest of Istakhr and native of Fars who emigrated to the Gujarat in Mughal India during the reign of the Emperor Akbar and became the founder of a Zoroastrian school of ishraqiyyun or Illuminationists...
.
Suhrawardi and pre-Islamic Iranian Thought
Suhrawardi uses pre-Islamic Iranian gnosis, synthesising it with Greek and Islamic wisdom. He believed that the ancient Persians' wisdom was shared by Greek philosophers such as Plato as well as by the Egyptian Hermes and considered his philosophy of illumination a rediscovery of this ancient wisdom. According to Nasr, Suhrawardi provides an important link between the thought of pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Iran and a harmonious synthesis between the two.
In the
Alwah Imadi he offers an esoteric intrepretation of Ferdowsi's
Epic of Kings (
Shah Nama) in which figures such as Fereydun, Zahak, Kay Khusraw and Jamshid are seen as manifestations of the divine light. Seyyed Hossein Nasr states: "Alwah 'Imadi is one of the most brilliant works of Suhrawardi in which the tales of ancient Persia and the wisdom of gnosis of antiquity in the context of the estoteric meaning of the Quran have been synthesized.".
In the
Partwa Nama he makes extensive use of Zoroastrian symbolism and his elaborate anegeology is also based on Zoroastrian models. The supreme light he calls both by its Quranic and Mazdean names,
al-nur al-a'zam (the Supreme Light) and
Vohuman (
Bahman). Suhrawardi refers to the hukamayi-fars (Persian Philosophers) as major practitioners of his
Ishraqi wisdom and to Zoroaster, Jamasp, Goshtasp, Kay Khusraw, Frashostar and Bozorgmehr as possessors of this ancient wisdom.
Among symbols and concepts used by Suhrawardi are: minu (incorporeal world), Giti (Corporeal World), Surush (messenger, Gabriel), Farvardin (the lower world), Gawhar (Pure sessense), Bahram, Hurakhsh (the Sun), Shahriyar (archetype of species), Isfahbad (Light in the body), Amordad (Zoroastrian Angel), Shahrivar (Zoroastrian Angel), and the Kiyyani Khwarnah. According to Suhrawardi: "Once the soul becomes illuminated and strong through the rays of divine light, it reachers the throne of Kiyani and becomes fully grounded in power and prosperity".
Persian Writings
- Partaw Nama ("Treatise on Illumination")
- Hayakal al-Nur" al-Suhrawardi [Sohravardi, Shihaboddin Yahya] (1154-91) Hayakil al-nur (The Temples of Light), ed. M.A. Abu Rayyan, Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tijariyyah al-Kubra, 1957. (The Persian version appears in oeuvres vol. III.)
- Alwah-i imadi ("The tablets dedicated to Imad al-Din")
- Lughat-i Muran ("The language of Termites")
- Risalat al-Tayr ("The treatise of the Bird")
- Safir-i Simurgh ("The Calling of the Simurgh
Simurgh , also spelled simorgh, simurg or simoorg, also known as Angha , is the modern Persian name for a fabulous, benevolent, mythical flying creature...
")
- Ruzi ba jama'at Sufiyaan ("A day with the community of Sufis")
- Fi halat al-tifulliyah ("Treatise on the state of the childhood")
- Awaz-i par-i Jebrail ("The Chant of the Wing of Gabriel")
- Aql-i Surkh ("The Red Intellect")
- Fi Haqiqat al-'Ishaq ("On the reality of love")
- Bustan al-Qolub ("The Garden of the Heart")
Arabic Writings
al-Suhrawardi [Sohravardi, Shihaboddin Yahya] (1180?-1191)
oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques, vol. I:
La métaphysique: I.
Kitab al-talwihat.
- Kitab al-moqawamat.
- Kitab al-mashari' wa'l-motarahat, Arabic texts edited with introduction in French by H. Corbin, Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, and Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1976; vol II: I. Le Livre de la Théosophie oriental
- (Kitab Hikmat al-ishraq). 2. Le Symbole de foi des philosophes. 3. Le Récit de l'Exil occidental, Arabic texts edited with introduction in French by H. Corbin, Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, and Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1977; vol III: oeuvres en persan, Persian texts edited with introduction in Persian by S.H. Nasr, introduction in French by H. Corbin, Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, and Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1977. (Only the metaphysics of the three texts in Vol. I were published.) Vol. III contains a Persian version of the Hayakil al-nur, ed. and trans. H. Corbin, L'Archange empourpré: quinze traités et récits mystiques, Paris: Fayard, 1976, contains translations of most of the texts in vol. III of oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques, plus four others. Corbin provides introductions to each treatise, and includes several extracts from commentaries on the texts. W.M. Thackston, Jr, The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi, London: Octagon Press, 1982, provides an English translation of most of the treatises in vol. III of oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques, which eschews all but the most basic annotation; it is therefore less useful than Corbin's translation from a philosophical point of view.)
al-Suhrawardi [Sohravardi, Shihaboddin Yahya] (1180?-91)
Mantiq al-talwihat, ed. A.A. Fayyaz, Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1955. (The logic of the Kitab al-talwihat (The Intimations).
al-Suhrawardi [Sohravardi, Shihaboddin Yahya] (1186-91)
Kitab hikmat al-ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination), trans H. Corbin, ed. and intro. C. Jambet,
Le livre de la sagesse orientale: Kitab Hikmat al-Ishraq, Lagrasse: Verdier, 1986. (Corbin's translation of the Prologue and the Second Part (The Divine Lights), together with the introduction of Shams al-Din al-Shahrazuri and liberal extracts from the commentaries of Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and Mulla Sadra. Published after Corbin's death, this copiously annotated translation gives to the reader without Arabic immediate access to al-Suhrawardi's illuminationist method and language.)
External links