The Science of Mystic Lights: Qutb al-Din Shirazi and the Illuminationist Tradition in Islamic Philosophy (review) (original) (raw)
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'Concept of Light in Ismaili Philosophy'
Light as an archetype, is used in most traditions and faiths as it is in Islam, where the most prevailing representations are in relation to Muḥammad’s prophetic appearance. Within classical Shiʿi texts, this is linked to the light of leadership –nur al-imama. The paper draws on the teachings of early imams on intellect, light, love and ru’yat Allah in select Shiʿi texts including the Ikhwan al-Safa’ and Fatimid scholars. The experience of hearts perceiving the vision of light is unique to each individual, being a journey that needs a guide. Ibn Sina concedes to this in his later life, referring to it as the hikmat al-mashriqiyya which becomes fully developed under Suhrawardi, the founder of al-Ishrāq –the school of illumination. In this school, the guide is the angel of humanity, known to the philosophers as the active intelligence and recognised by al-Naysaburi as the universal intellect.
Present study aims at asserting the philosophical mysticism of Shihab al-Din Yahya Suhrawardi (1154-1191 A.D.), the philosopher-mystic and the founder of the School of Illumination (Ishraqi), who is universally known as Shaykh al-Ishraqi. This paper also highlights the origin of the theory of Illumination (Ishraqi), its' nature and role towards the philosophical sufi's thought. Additionally, it concludes with stating the influential necessity of this doctrine in the present world to revive and purify our soul to accomplish the success in this life and hereafter with the critical evaluation of others. The methodologies applied in the study are critical and analytical.
Suhrawardi and His Philosophical Sufism: A Critical Study on the School of Illumination (Ishraqi)
Asian Academic Research Journal of Multidisciplinary
The main objective of this paper is to study the philosophical mysticism on the basis of Shihab Al-Din Yahya Suhrawardi's (1154-1191 A.D.) contribution to this field with special attention to his school of Illumination (Ishraq). The paper discusses the concept of the theory of Illumination (Ishraq), its‟ origin, nature and role in developing the philosophical sufi's thought. The methodologies applied in the study are critical and analytical on the basis on available secondary sources. It finds that the thought developed by Suhrawardi is very much essential in the contemporary era to develop our spirituality and purify the soul in order to be success in both worlds such as life in this world and Hereafter. Keywords: Suhrawardi, Ishraqi, Mysticism, Philosophy, Light.
In this paper, a comparison is made between the rationalistic and phenomenological approaches to understanding of Islamic philosophy of illumination. The analysis shows that the rationalistic bias implicit in translations causes a misunderstanding of Suhrawardī’s argument and a subsequent misinterpretation of the key terms. The Islamic philosophy of illumination is especially vulnerable to rationalistic mis-translations due to the intuitional-eidetic character of its epistemology. Opposite to rationalism, the new phenomenological ontologies provide an adequate framework for reading Suhrawardi. A parallel is made between Suhrawardī’s treatment of the central principle, nūr mujarrad, and Husserl’s epoché and phenomenological reduction. In the absence of such comparison, nūr mujarrad is translated as a symbolic, metaphoric term referring to an ideal entity. However, the closeness of Husserl’s and Suhrawardiīs views on consciousness, and the phenomenological nature of evidence in the Part 2 of Hikmat-al Ishrāq, proves that nūr mujarrad refers to the pure subjectivity of consciousness, which is lived reality available in presentive intuition. Consequently, the term nūr mujarrad is not metaphorical, but descriptive, referring in its reified meaning to the pure awareness as the self-effulgence of consciousness-being, an ontological principle by which all selves and things in existence are “there” for us.
The Philosophy of Illumination: Esotericism in Shihāb ad-Dīn Suhrawardī’s Sufism
Esensia: Jurnal Ilmu-Ilmu Ushuluddin, 2022
Discussing Suhrawardī, certainly, cannot be separated from his concept of thinking about illumination (ḥikmat ishrāqiyyat), which has contributed to the foundation of human knowledge and awareness. The research question in this paper is how esotericism in Shihāb ad-Dīn Suhrawardī's Sufism relates to the philosophy of Illumination. The discussion of this study is based on qualitative library research. In each section, this paper is supplemented with an explanation using the methods of description, interpretation, and data analysis to build a consistent and thorough understanding. This paper found that, according to Suhrawardī, knowledge is the presence of an object to know. Knowledge can only be attained by the mystic into the inner sanctum of higher visionary experiences (mushāhadat wa mukāshafat), not merely through logical reasoning. To achieve the truth of implicit knowledge, the philosophy of illumination suggested the combination of reason and intuition, which are complementary to one another. Regarding esotericism, in this case, the soul is interpreted as a part of the realm of light, but it is trapped in darkness, so spiritual training must be carried out in the spirit of soul-giving. Suhrawardī believes that only a clean soul can be connected to the divine light, wherein at that level, one can get intuitive wisdom, or in Sufism, it is called the laduni knowledge.
NETSOL: New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences, 2019
L.W.C. Van Lit covers a rarely studied topic of Islamic theology, eschatology. The book hovers around a single statement written by medieval Islamic scholar Suhrawardi in his magnum opus, Hikmat al-Ishraq [The Philosophy of Illumination, 1186]: “Whoever sees that place is certain of the existence of another world different from the [world of] bodies, in which are suspended images” (p. 1). Van Lit points out that the whole book can be considered as one giant explanation of this quote. By analyzing the works of previous scholars, starting with the famous polymath Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, Van Lit paints a detailed and elaborate picture of a once infamous idea within the Islamic world and systematically traces its progression and development up to the current age in Shia Islamic thought. Before doing so, he walks the reader through the technical terminology and intricate methodology in his introduction. In this first chapter, he introduces the prominent scholars covered in the text and provides a brief outline of his work. Despite all the explanations, some concepts and lines of logic might be challenging for novice readers of this topic.
Diskurs über die Seele in der späteren islamischen Philosophie
Synthesis Philosophica, 2017
Despite the significance of later Islamic philosophical tradition, it has remained a neglected area of study. In this article, the evolution of the concept of the soul from its Avicennian context to post-Avicennian philosophical tradition is discussed. While the author knows of no Islamic philosopher who rejected the Peripatetic notion of the soul, post-Avicennian philosophers have added much to the discourse on the soul. Beginning with Al-Ghazzālī, we see a gradual gnosticization of the concept of the soul that reaches its zenith in the writings of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī. Having traced Suhrawardī's illuminationist (ishrāqī) doctrine of the soul, we proceeded to discuss the views of some of the ishrāqī figures on the subject matter and then explored how the concept of the soul changed in Mullā Sadrā's School of Transcendent Philosophy (al-Ḥikmat al-Mutiʻalliyah). The article ends with a general overview of the modern commentators of later philosophical tradition in Islam and those that have been influential in shaping the evolution of the concept of the soul in modern Islamic philosophical discourse.
2018
This dissertation aims primarily at presenting the critical edition of two works: AlWāridāt wa’l-Taqdīsāt and Sharḥ al-Asmā’ al-Arba‘īn. The first text is for the first time published in its entirety. Some of its disparate fragments (around the third of the entire size in total) have been already printed in original Arabic or in Persian and French translations but were not subjected to serious critical editing based on more than one original manuscript. As far as the second is concerned, which has the character of a free form and multiple variants extant in the numerous manuscripts I cannot exclude the possibility that some of them could 7 have been issued uncritically under another title, however I do not own any substantial knowledge in that matter, except the single prayer (Du‘ā’ Idrīs) that is the base of the commentary and was published at least three times. What I hope is that for the first time various variants of the commentary (Sharḥ) have been presented simultaneously and in the form of critical edition. This dissertation contains also the critical edition of additional seven short texts of Al-Suhrawardī that are found in the manuscripts related to Al-Wāridāt wa’l-Taqdīsāt