Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al- (Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-Suhrawardi) (Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash as-Suhrawardī) (Sohrevardi) (Shihāb ad-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥabash ibn Amīrak as-Suhrawardī) (al-Maqtūl) (Shaykh al-Ishrāq) (Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash ibn Amirak Abul Futuh Suhrawardi) (b. c. 1153/1155, Suhraward, near Zanjān, Iran - d. 1191, Ḥalab, Syria). Mystic theologian and philosopher. His best known work is called Knowledge of Illumination, in which he develops the Neoplatonic theory of light, which serves as a symbol of emanation but at the same time is regarded as the fundamental reality of things. He was also the founder of a sect, called “the Illuminates”. Suspected of pantheism, he was put to death (in Arabic, al-maqtul) in Aleppo in 1191 by Saladin’s son al-Malik al-Zahir.
Suhrawardi, known as Shaikh al-Ishraq (“the master of illumination”) as well as al-Maqtul (“the Martyr”), was a Persian Muslim philosopher who founded the School of Illumination (ishraq). Because of his controversial ideas, at the age of thirty-eight he was put to death by the order of Salah al-Din Ayyubi, Saladin the Great, Syrian commander and sultan of Egypt.
Suhrawardi was born in a village near Zanjan, a northern Iranian city. His full name is Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash ibn Amirak Abul Futuh Suhrawardi.
At an early age, he went to the city of Maragheh, where he studied hikmat with Majd al-Din Jili, and he then traveled to Isfahan, where he studied philosophy with Zahir al-Din al-Farsi and the Observations (al-Basa’ir) of ‘Umar ibn Salah al-Sawi. He then set out upon a long journey through the Islamic lands to meet the Sufi masters, while practicing asceticism and withdrawing for long spiritual retreats. He tells us that he had looked for a companion with spiritual insight equal to his, but he failed to find one.
Since Suhrawardi persisted in advocating a type of wisdom which was inconsistent with the views of the orthodox jurists, the jurists finally asked Malik Zahir, son of Saladin, to put Suhrawardi to death for advocating heretical ideas. When Malik Zahir refused they signed a petition and sent it to Saladin, who ordered his son to have him killed. Malik Zahir reluctantly carried out his father’s order and Suhrawardi was killed in the year 1191.
In light of the above factors, one can view Suhrawardi as a Persian who inherited a rich culture with Zoroastrian elements in it, a philosopher well-versed in Peripatetic (Aristotelian) philosophy, and a mystic who tried to demonstrate that at the heart of all the divinely revealed traditions of wisdom there is one universal truth.
Suhrawardi lived at a time when the two schools of philosophy and mysticism were perceived to be irreconcilable. In fact, the influence of discursive philosophy had been somewhat curtailed following the conversion of al-Ghazali from a philosopher to a mystic. Suhrawardi argued that mysticism and philosophy are not irreconcilable and that the validity of the immutable principles of philosophy can be verified through the illumination of the intellect.
Suhrawardi argued that discursive reasoning is the necessary condition for the attainment of illumination. Toward this end, Suhrawardi composed many treatises commenting on a wide range of traditional topics pertaining to Peripatetic philosophy. On the whole, where he speaks as a philosopher, Suhrawardi is a Peripatetic whose opinion are similar to those of Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
As to the most important debate in Islamic philosophy, the distinction between existence (wujud) and essence (mahiyyah), Suhrawardi departs from the traditional Peripatetic understanding of them. Suhrawardi argues that the discussion concerning the principality of existence over essence neglects the fact that essence is a degree of existence.
Suhrawardi also criticizes Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism, arguing that corporeal beings are combinations of form and matter. Suhrawardi defines matter as a simple substance that is capable of accepting the forms of species. He then reduces physical features into qualities which can be expressed in terms of their ontological status.
Finally, Suhrawardi rejects the existing theories of vision that were held in the Middle Ages and proposes his own. He maintains that vision can occur when an object is lit. The soul of the observer then surrounds the illuminated object, and the illumination (ishraq) of the soul (nafs) that then takes place through light emanated from the Light of Lights (nur al-anwar) is vision.
Suhrawardi criticizes the traditional Aristotelian notion of categories and reduces them to four. He then criticizes the Peripatetics’ concept of “definition” as that which provides us with the knowledge of what a thing is. He rejects the Peripatetics’ claim that there is an essential nature of the human being indicated by the definition of the human being as a rational animal. Suhrawardi argues that other attributes of the human being are as important as rationality. Since there is no definition that can adequately disclose all the attributes of the human being, the definition as such remains an inadequate means of understanding. Suhrawardi demonstrates that empiricism and rationalism also fail and that their applications in epistemology are limited.
How a human being comes to know is a mystery, which despite his meditations Suhrawardi could not resolve. In a dream vision Suhrawardi sees Aristotle, who resolves the mystery of how the self comes to know by telling Suhrawardi that to know anything one has to first know oneself.
Suhrawardi then argues that the fundamental principle of knowledge is that before the self is to know an object, it has to know itself. The self knows itself through a direct and immediate relationship known as “Knowledge by Presence” (‘Ilm al-huduri).
Suhrawardi departs from traditional Islamic ontology by arguing that the source of being is not simply being but light. Assuming that light is necessary since the cognition of everything else requires it, beings in the world are therefore defined in terms of their ontological status and the degree of their luminosity. The beings closer to the Light of Lights are more transparent and ontologically superior. Light, as an axiomatic truth and thereby self-evident, is made up of an infinite succession of contingent lights, and each light is the existential cause of the light below it. The ultimate light, which is the same as the Necessary Being (wajib al-wujud), is for Suhrawardi the Light of Lights, the ultimate cause of all things. As the ontological distance between the object and the Light of Lights grows, darkness prevails until the object in question becomes impenetrable to light. Suhrawardi identifies the world of such objects with the corporeal world in which we live.
For Suhrawardi, just as light has degrees of intensity, so does darkness. Although he classifies light in accordance with the extent to which light exists by necessity, his criterion for determining the ontological status of beings is whether they are conscious of themselves or not. Self-awareness is absent when a being is impenetrable to light.
Relying on his ontological system, Suhrawardi reduces quantity to quality. According to him, it is not the case that a two-foot stick of wood is “longer” than a one-foot stick. For Suhrawardi, this relation should be expressed in terms of “more” or “less.” Therefore, it is the case that a two-foot stick is “more” than the one-foot stick. This “more” or “less” becomes meaningful within the context of a hierarchical ontology. The closer a being is to the Light of Lights, the more it “is.” Some beings therefore “are” more than others, depending on the degree of their closeness to the Light of Light. Applying this concept to human beings, Suhrawardi argues that those who have mastered discursive philosophy and intellectual intuition and have practiced asceticism are more “luminous,” in the metaphysical sense of light, and are therefore closer to the Light of Lights.
Having used the symbolism of light and darkness, Suhrawardi goes on to develop an elaborate angelology based on a Zoroastrian theory of angels. Thereby, once again, he joined two religious universes, those of Islam and Zoroastrianism.
All beings, according to Suhrawardi, are the illuminations of the Light of Lights, which has left its vice-regent in each domain. The lordly light (nur ispahbad), which is the viceregent of the Light of Lights in the human soul, accounts for the joy of human beings when they see fire or the sun.
Between the Light of Lights and its opposite pole, the corporeal world, there are levels and degrees of light, which Suhrawardi identifies with the various levels of angelic order. Suhrawardi’s use of Zoroastrian symbolism is partly done in the spirit of his ecumenical philosophy in order to demonstrate that since the inner truth of all religions is the same, some concepts of a religious tradition can often be used to interpret and clarify the concepts of another tradition.
From the Light of Lights comes the “longitudinal” angelic order, which Suhrawardi identifies with a masculine aspect such as dominance, whereas contemplation and independence give rise to a “latitudinal” order. Suhrawardi identifies the latitudinal angelic order with Platonic ideas. From the feminine aspect of the longitudinal order comes into being the Heaven of fixed stars.
For Suhrawardi there exists a veil between each level of light, which acts as a “purgatory” or Barzakh and allows the passage of only a certain amount of light. The primordial, original, and all-encompassing nature of this system, through which Suhrawardi expresses a number of esoteric doctrines, is such that he calls it al-ummahat (“the mother”), since all that exists originates from this hierarchy and, therefore, contains within itself the “ideas” (a‘yan thabita) whose unfolding is the world.
Angelology in Suhrawardi’s philosophy is a two-fold concept: first, it is an attempt to map out the world. Second, through the use of angelic symbolism, the correspondence between the human being as the microcosm and the universe as the macrocosm is further demonstrated.
This new philosophy of angels changes the traditional view of angels as the sustainers of the universe. According to Suhrawardi, angels serve a number of functions, the most important of which is their intermediary role between the Light of Lights and humanity. For instance, the “lordly light” (al-nur al-isfahbodi) is defined by Suhrawardi as that wich is “within the soul of man.”
Suhrawardi relies heavily upon the psychology of Ibn Sina. In fact, his classification of the faculties of the soul is greatly influenced by Ibn Sina, as evidenced by Suhrawardi’s depiction of the soul as being divided into three parts, the vegetative soul (al-nafs al-nabatiyyah), the animal soul (al-nafs al-hayawaniyyah), and the intellectual soul (al-nafs natiqah).
Suhrawardi argues that, in addition to the five external senses, the human being possesses five internal senses that serve as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world. The internal senses, according to Suhrawardi are: sensus communis, fantasy, apprehension, imagination, and memory.
In putting forth his views on physics, Suhrawardi begins with a discussion regarding the nature of the universe, which from his point of view is pure light. The views of the ‘Asharite atomists, who were one of the predominant intellectual schools of the time, were based on the principality of form and matter and, therefore, the study of physics for them became the study of matter. Suhrawardi argues against them by saying that since material bodies are constituted of light, the study of physics is the study of light.
Having defined the nature of things as light, Suhrawardi goes on to classify things according to the degree of their transparency. For example, all those objects that allow light to pass through them, such as air, are in a different ontological category from those that obstruct light, such as earth.
In explaining meteorological phenomena, Suhrawardi follows Ibn Sina and Aristotle, but he rejects their views concerning change within things. For example, whereas Aristotle argues that the boiling of water is caused by the atoms of fire coming into contact with water, Suhrawardi states that boiling depends on a quality in water such that when water comes close to fire the potentiality for boiling is actualized. He argues that when water boils in a jug of water placed over a fire, the fire does not come in contact with the water nor does the volume of water change. Suhrawardi draws the conclusion that there exists a special quality or attribute within water which is receptive to the influence of heat.
It is obvious that such a theory has implications not only for the field of physics but also as an esoteric doctrine that seeks to explain how the association of different things may create qualitative changes within beings. This principle is one of the crucial elements in the development of spiritual alchemy, which appears in Islamic esoteric writings.
Suhrawardi contends that the Peripatetic argument for the subsistence of the soul is weak and insufficient. Using his ontological scheme based on light and darkness, Suhrawardi argues that all souls, depending on the degree of their perfection, seek unity with their origin, the Light of Lights. The degree of one’s purification in this world determines the ontological status of the soul in the other world. According to Suhrawardi, the goal of the human being is to become illuminated and return to its origin in the other world. The other world is only a continuation of this one, and the status of the soul in the other world depends on the degree to which a person is purified here and now.
Suhrawardi identifies three groups of people according to the degree of their purity and illumination and establishes a causal connection between their purity and their ontological status in the other world. These three groups are:
1. Those who remain in the darkness of ignorance (‘Ashqiya’),
2. Those who purify themselves to some extent (Sudad), and
3. Those who purify themselves and reach illumination (muta ‘allihun).
Suhrawardi, who adhered to the notion of Philosophia Perennis, or what he called Hikmat al-Ladunniyah or Hikmat al-‘Atiqah, maintains that the eternal truth has existed always among the followers of divinely revealed religions. For Suhrawardi, philosophy is identified with Sophia Perennis, the perennial wisdom, rather than with rationalizing alone. From an Ishraqi point of view, Hermes (Prophet Idris, Enoch, or Khidr) is the father of wisdom who initiated Sophia Perennis. From him two chains of transmission branch off; one branch is preserved and transmitted through the Persian masters and the other one through Greco-Egyptian masters, until Suhrawardi, who considers himself to be the reviver of perennial wisdom.
For Suhrawardi there are four types of people within the hierarchy of knowledge:
1. The hakims, who have mastered both discursive philosophy and gnosis.
2. The class of philosophers who are masters of practical wisdom and do not involve themselves with discursive philosophy.
3. The philosophers who know discursive philosophy but are alien to gnosis, such as al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd.
4. The seekers of knowledge who have not mastered either of the two branches of wisdom, rationalist or practical philosophy.
Suhrawardi’s philosophy was a turning point in the history of Islamic philosophy in that it presents the first serious attempt at a rapprochement between mysticism and rationalist philosophy. Suhrawardi’s methodology of reconciling discursive reasoning with intellectual intuition remained the cornerstone of Islamic philosophy, especially in the eastern part of the Islamic world.
Suhrawardi’s philosophy gave rise to the School of Isfahan during the Safavid era in Persia when such notable masters of the ishraqi doctrine as Mulla Sadra, who propagated Suhrawardi’s doctrine with substantial modifications, established a philosophical paradigm on its foundations.
Ishraqi philosophy is a living a philosophical tradition in many parts of the Islamic world, in particular, in Iran, Pakistan, and India.
The primary concern of Suhrawardi’s entire philosophy is to demonstrate the complete journey of the human soul towards its original abode. Having mastered rationalist philosophy, one should then follow the teachings of a master who can direct the disciple through the maze of spiritual dangers. It is only through a combination of practical and theoretical wisdom that one reaches a state where spiritual knowledge can be obtained directly without mediation.
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 Sadra’s combined peripatetic and illuminationist description of reality.
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 logicians and philosophers. In the seventeenth century it was to initiate an Illuminationist Zoroastrian revival in the figure of Azar Kayvan.
Suhrawardi left over 50 writings in Persian and Arabic. His Persian writings include:
* Partaw Nama ("Treatise on Illumination")
* Hayakal al-Nur
* 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")
* 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")
Suhrawardi's Arabic writings include:
* Kitab al-talwihat
* Kitab al-moqawamat
* Kitab al-mashari' wa'l-motarahat
* Kitab Hikmat al-ishraq
* Mantiq al-talwihat
* Kitab hikmat al-ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination)
As-Suhrawardī wrote voluminously. The more than 50 separate works that were attributed to him were classified into two categories: doctrinal and philosophical accounts containing commentaries on the works of Aristotle and Plato, as well as his own contribution to the illuminationist school; and shorter treatises, generally written in Persian and of an esoteric nature, meant to illustrate the paths and journeys of a mystic before he could achieve ma ʿrifah (“gnosis,” or esoteric knowledge).
Influenced by Aristotelian philosophy and Zoroastrian doctrines, he attempted to reconcile traditional philosophy and mysticism. In his best-known work, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq (“The Wisdom of Illumination”), he said that essences are creations of the intellect, having no objective reality or existence. Concentrating on the concepts of being and non-being, he held that existence is a single continuum that culminates in a pure light that he called God. Other stages of being along this continuum are a mixture of light and dark.
As-Suhrawardī also founded a mystical order known as the Ishrāqīyah. The Nūrbakhshīyah order of dervishes (itinerant holy men) also traces its origins to him.
Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs 'Umar Suhrawardi see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-Suhrawardi see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash as-Suhrawardī see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Sohrevardi see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash ibn Amirak Abul Futuh Suhrawardi. see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shaykh al-Ishrāq see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Suhrawardi, known as Shaikh al-Ishraq (“the master of illumination”) as well as al-Maqtul (“the Martyr”), was a Persian Muslim philosopher who founded the School of Illumination (ishraq). Because of his controversial ideas, at the age of thirty-eight he was put to death by the order of Salah al-Din Ayyubi, Saladin the Great, Syrian commander and sultan of Egypt.
Suhrawardi was born in a village near Zanjan, a northern Iranian city. His full name is Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash ibn Amirak Abul Futuh Suhrawardi.
At an early age, he went to the city of Maragheh, where he studied hikmat with Majd al-Din Jili, and he then traveled to Isfahan, where he studied philosophy with Zahir al-Din al-Farsi and the Observations (al-Basa’ir) of ‘Umar ibn Salah al-Sawi. He then set out upon a long journey through the Islamic lands to meet the Sufi masters, while practicing asceticism and withdrawing for long spiritual retreats. He tells us that he had looked for a companion with spiritual insight equal to his, but he failed to find one.
Since Suhrawardi persisted in advocating a type of wisdom which was inconsistent with the views of the orthodox jurists, the jurists finally asked Malik Zahir, son of Saladin, to put Suhrawardi to death for advocating heretical ideas. When Malik Zahir refused they signed a petition and sent it to Saladin, who ordered his son to have him killed. Malik Zahir reluctantly carried out his father’s order and Suhrawardi was killed in the year 1191.
In light of the above factors, one can view Suhrawardi as a Persian who inherited a rich culture with Zoroastrian elements in it, a philosopher well-versed in Peripatetic (Aristotelian) philosophy, and a mystic who tried to demonstrate that at the heart of all the divinely revealed traditions of wisdom there is one universal truth.
Suhrawardi lived at a time when the two schools of philosophy and mysticism were perceived to be irreconcilable. In fact, the influence of discursive philosophy had been somewhat curtailed following the conversion of al-Ghazali from a philosopher to a mystic. Suhrawardi argued that mysticism and philosophy are not irreconcilable and that the validity of the immutable principles of philosophy can be verified through the illumination of the intellect.
Suhrawardi argued that discursive reasoning is the necessary condition for the attainment of illumination. Toward this end, Suhrawardi composed many treatises commenting on a wide range of traditional topics pertaining to Peripatetic philosophy. On the whole, where he speaks as a philosopher, Suhrawardi is a Peripatetic whose opinion are similar to those of Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
As to the most important debate in Islamic philosophy, the distinction between existence (wujud) and essence (mahiyyah), Suhrawardi departs from the traditional Peripatetic understanding of them. Suhrawardi argues that the discussion concerning the principality of existence over essence neglects the fact that essence is a degree of existence.
Suhrawardi also criticizes Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism, arguing that corporeal beings are combinations of form and matter. Suhrawardi defines matter as a simple substance that is capable of accepting the forms of species. He then reduces physical features into qualities which can be expressed in terms of their ontological status.
Finally, Suhrawardi rejects the existing theories of vision that were held in the Middle Ages and proposes his own. He maintains that vision can occur when an object is lit. The soul of the observer then surrounds the illuminated object, and the illumination (ishraq) of the soul (nafs) that then takes place through light emanated from the Light of Lights (nur al-anwar) is vision.
Suhrawardi criticizes the traditional Aristotelian notion of categories and reduces them to four. He then criticizes the Peripatetics’ concept of “definition” as that which provides us with the knowledge of what a thing is. He rejects the Peripatetics’ claim that there is an essential nature of the human being indicated by the definition of the human being as a rational animal. Suhrawardi argues that other attributes of the human being are as important as rationality. Since there is no definition that can adequately disclose all the attributes of the human being, the definition as such remains an inadequate means of understanding. Suhrawardi demonstrates that empiricism and rationalism also fail and that their applications in epistemology are limited.
How a human being comes to know is a mystery, which despite his meditations Suhrawardi could not resolve. In a dream vision Suhrawardi sees Aristotle, who resolves the mystery of how the self comes to know by telling Suhrawardi that to know anything one has to first know oneself.
Suhrawardi then argues that the fundamental principle of knowledge is that before the self is to know an object, it has to know itself. The self knows itself through a direct and immediate relationship known as “Knowledge by Presence” (‘Ilm al-huduri).
Suhrawardi departs from traditional Islamic ontology by arguing that the source of being is not simply being but light. Assuming that light is necessary since the cognition of everything else requires it, beings in the world are therefore defined in terms of their ontological status and the degree of their luminosity. The beings closer to the Light of Lights are more transparent and ontologically superior. Light, as an axiomatic truth and thereby self-evident, is made up of an infinite succession of contingent lights, and each light is the existential cause of the light below it. The ultimate light, which is the same as the Necessary Being (wajib al-wujud), is for Suhrawardi the Light of Lights, the ultimate cause of all things. As the ontological distance between the object and the Light of Lights grows, darkness prevails until the object in question becomes impenetrable to light. Suhrawardi identifies the world of such objects with the corporeal world in which we live.
For Suhrawardi, just as light has degrees of intensity, so does darkness. Although he classifies light in accordance with the extent to which light exists by necessity, his criterion for determining the ontological status of beings is whether they are conscious of themselves or not. Self-awareness is absent when a being is impenetrable to light.
Relying on his ontological system, Suhrawardi reduces quantity to quality. According to him, it is not the case that a two-foot stick of wood is “longer” than a one-foot stick. For Suhrawardi, this relation should be expressed in terms of “more” or “less.” Therefore, it is the case that a two-foot stick is “more” than the one-foot stick. This “more” or “less” becomes meaningful within the context of a hierarchical ontology. The closer a being is to the Light of Lights, the more it “is.” Some beings therefore “are” more than others, depending on the degree of their closeness to the Light of Light. Applying this concept to human beings, Suhrawardi argues that those who have mastered discursive philosophy and intellectual intuition and have practiced asceticism are more “luminous,” in the metaphysical sense of light, and are therefore closer to the Light of Lights.
Having used the symbolism of light and darkness, Suhrawardi goes on to develop an elaborate angelology based on a Zoroastrian theory of angels. Thereby, once again, he joined two religious universes, those of Islam and Zoroastrianism.
All beings, according to Suhrawardi, are the illuminations of the Light of Lights, which has left its vice-regent in each domain. The lordly light (nur ispahbad), which is the viceregent of the Light of Lights in the human soul, accounts for the joy of human beings when they see fire or the sun.
Between the Light of Lights and its opposite pole, the corporeal world, there are levels and degrees of light, which Suhrawardi identifies with the various levels of angelic order. Suhrawardi’s use of Zoroastrian symbolism is partly done in the spirit of his ecumenical philosophy in order to demonstrate that since the inner truth of all religions is the same, some concepts of a religious tradition can often be used to interpret and clarify the concepts of another tradition.
From the Light of Lights comes the “longitudinal” angelic order, which Suhrawardi identifies with a masculine aspect such as dominance, whereas contemplation and independence give rise to a “latitudinal” order. Suhrawardi identifies the latitudinal angelic order with Platonic ideas. From the feminine aspect of the longitudinal order comes into being the Heaven of fixed stars.
For Suhrawardi there exists a veil between each level of light, which acts as a “purgatory” or Barzakh and allows the passage of only a certain amount of light. The primordial, original, and all-encompassing nature of this system, through which Suhrawardi expresses a number of esoteric doctrines, is such that he calls it al-ummahat (“the mother”), since all that exists originates from this hierarchy and, therefore, contains within itself the “ideas” (a‘yan thabita) whose unfolding is the world.
Angelology in Suhrawardi’s philosophy is a two-fold concept: first, it is an attempt to map out the world. Second, through the use of angelic symbolism, the correspondence between the human being as the microcosm and the universe as the macrocosm is further demonstrated.
This new philosophy of angels changes the traditional view of angels as the sustainers of the universe. According to Suhrawardi, angels serve a number of functions, the most important of which is their intermediary role between the Light of Lights and humanity. For instance, the “lordly light” (al-nur al-isfahbodi) is defined by Suhrawardi as that wich is “within the soul of man.”
Suhrawardi relies heavily upon the psychology of Ibn Sina. In fact, his classification of the faculties of the soul is greatly influenced by Ibn Sina, as evidenced by Suhrawardi’s depiction of the soul as being divided into three parts, the vegetative soul (al-nafs al-nabatiyyah), the animal soul (al-nafs al-hayawaniyyah), and the intellectual soul (al-nafs natiqah).
Suhrawardi argues that, in addition to the five external senses, the human being possesses five internal senses that serve as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world. The internal senses, according to Suhrawardi are: sensus communis, fantasy, apprehension, imagination, and memory.
In putting forth his views on physics, Suhrawardi begins with a discussion regarding the nature of the universe, which from his point of view is pure light. The views of the ‘Asharite atomists, who were one of the predominant intellectual schools of the time, were based on the principality of form and matter and, therefore, the study of physics for them became the study of matter. Suhrawardi argues against them by saying that since material bodies are constituted of light, the study of physics is the study of light.
Having defined the nature of things as light, Suhrawardi goes on to classify things according to the degree of their transparency. For example, all those objects that allow light to pass through them, such as air, are in a different ontological category from those that obstruct light, such as earth.
In explaining meteorological phenomena, Suhrawardi follows Ibn Sina and Aristotle, but he rejects their views concerning change within things. For example, whereas Aristotle argues that the boiling of water is caused by the atoms of fire coming into contact with water, Suhrawardi states that boiling depends on a quality in water such that when water comes close to fire the potentiality for boiling is actualized. He argues that when water boils in a jug of water placed over a fire, the fire does not come in contact with the water nor does the volume of water change. Suhrawardi draws the conclusion that there exists a special quality or attribute within water which is receptive to the influence of heat.
It is obvious that such a theory has implications not only for the field of physics but also as an esoteric doctrine that seeks to explain how the association of different things may create qualitative changes within beings. This principle is one of the crucial elements in the development of spiritual alchemy, which appears in Islamic esoteric writings.
Suhrawardi contends that the Peripatetic argument for the subsistence of the soul is weak and insufficient. Using his ontological scheme based on light and darkness, Suhrawardi argues that all souls, depending on the degree of their perfection, seek unity with their origin, the Light of Lights. The degree of one’s purification in this world determines the ontological status of the soul in the other world. According to Suhrawardi, the goal of the human being is to become illuminated and return to its origin in the other world. The other world is only a continuation of this one, and the status of the soul in the other world depends on the degree to which a person is purified here and now.
Suhrawardi identifies three groups of people according to the degree of their purity and illumination and establishes a causal connection between their purity and their ontological status in the other world. These three groups are:
1. Those who remain in the darkness of ignorance (‘Ashqiya’),
2. Those who purify themselves to some extent (Sudad), and
3. Those who purify themselves and reach illumination (muta ‘allihun).
Suhrawardi, who adhered to the notion of Philosophia Perennis, or what he called Hikmat al-Ladunniyah or Hikmat al-‘Atiqah, maintains that the eternal truth has existed always among the followers of divinely revealed religions. For Suhrawardi, philosophy is identified with Sophia Perennis, the perennial wisdom, rather than with rationalizing alone. From an Ishraqi point of view, Hermes (Prophet Idris, Enoch, or Khidr) is the father of wisdom who initiated Sophia Perennis. From him two chains of transmission branch off; one branch is preserved and transmitted through the Persian masters and the other one through Greco-Egyptian masters, until Suhrawardi, who considers himself to be the reviver of perennial wisdom.
For Suhrawardi there are four types of people within the hierarchy of knowledge:
1. The hakims, who have mastered both discursive philosophy and gnosis.
2. The class of philosophers who are masters of practical wisdom and do not involve themselves with discursive philosophy.
3. The philosophers who know discursive philosophy but are alien to gnosis, such as al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd.
4. The seekers of knowledge who have not mastered either of the two branches of wisdom, rationalist or practical philosophy.
Suhrawardi’s philosophy was a turning point in the history of Islamic philosophy in that it presents the first serious attempt at a rapprochement between mysticism and rationalist philosophy. Suhrawardi’s methodology of reconciling discursive reasoning with intellectual intuition remained the cornerstone of Islamic philosophy, especially in the eastern part of the Islamic world.
Suhrawardi’s philosophy gave rise to the School of Isfahan during the Safavid era in Persia when such notable masters of the ishraqi doctrine as Mulla Sadra, who propagated Suhrawardi’s doctrine with substantial modifications, established a philosophical paradigm on its foundations.
Ishraqi philosophy is a living a philosophical tradition in many parts of the Islamic world, in particular, in Iran, Pakistan, and India.
The primary concern of Suhrawardi’s entire philosophy is to demonstrate the complete journey of the human soul towards its original abode. Having mastered rationalist philosophy, one should then follow the teachings of a master who can direct the disciple through the maze of spiritual dangers. It is only through a combination of practical and theoretical wisdom that one reaches a state where spiritual knowledge can be obtained directly without mediation.
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 Sadra’s combined peripatetic and illuminationist description of reality.
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 logicians and philosophers. In the seventeenth century it was to initiate an Illuminationist Zoroastrian revival in the figure of Azar Kayvan.
Suhrawardi left over 50 writings in Persian and Arabic. His Persian writings include:
* Partaw Nama ("Treatise on Illumination")
* Hayakal al-Nur
* 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")
* 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")
Suhrawardi's Arabic writings include:
* Kitab al-talwihat
* Kitab al-moqawamat
* Kitab al-mashari' wa'l-motarahat
* Kitab Hikmat al-ishraq
* Mantiq al-talwihat
* Kitab hikmat al-ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination)
As-Suhrawardī wrote voluminously. The more than 50 separate works that were attributed to him were classified into two categories: doctrinal and philosophical accounts containing commentaries on the works of Aristotle and Plato, as well as his own contribution to the illuminationist school; and shorter treatises, generally written in Persian and of an esoteric nature, meant to illustrate the paths and journeys of a mystic before he could achieve ma ʿrifah (“gnosis,” or esoteric knowledge).
Influenced by Aristotelian philosophy and Zoroastrian doctrines, he attempted to reconcile traditional philosophy and mysticism. In his best-known work, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq (“The Wisdom of Illumination”), he said that essences are creations of the intellect, having no objective reality or existence. Concentrating on the concepts of being and non-being, he held that existence is a single continuum that culminates in a pure light that he called God. Other stages of being along this continuum are a mixture of light and dark.
As-Suhrawardī also founded a mystical order known as the Ishrāqīyah. The Nūrbakhshīyah order of dervishes (itinerant holy men) also traces its origins to him.
Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs 'Umar Suhrawardi see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-Suhrawardi see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash as-Suhrawardī see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Sohrevardi see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shahab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash ibn Amirak Abul Futuh Suhrawardi. see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
Shaykh al-Ishrāq see Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-
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