Suhrawardi and the Philosophy of Illumination (Ishraq)

Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi (c. 1154–1191) was a Persian philosopher who founded the school of ishrāq, "illumination", one of the most influential currents of later Islamic thought. In his Philosophy of Illumination he described reality as a hierarchy of lights flowing from the Light of Lights, and he argued that true knowledge is a direct presence of the thing known to the knower. Executed in Aleppo at the age of about 37, he is remembered as al-Maqtūl, "the slain one", and as Shaykh al-Ishrāq, the Master of Illumination.

The Life and Death of the Master of Illumination§

Suhrawardi was born in the small town of Suhraward, near Zanjan in north-western Iran, around 1154. He studied philosophy and jurisprudence at Maragha with Majd al-Dīn al-Jīlī, who also taught the theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and continued his education in Isfahan, where he immersed himself in the philosophy of Avicenna. He then wandered through Anatolia and Syria, practising asceticism and frequenting Sufis, and enjoying the patronage of Seljuk princes.

Around 1183 he came to Aleppo, where he won the friendship of the young governor al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, son of Saladin. Local jurists accused him of teachings contrary to religion; some sources say he was charged with claiming that God could create a prophet after Muhammad. At their urging, and at a moment of military crisis during the Third Crusade, Saladin ordered his son to have him put to death, and Suhrawardi died in prison in 1191. The precise charges, and whether political suspicion played a part, remain uncertain. He should not be confused with two Sufi namesakes, Abū'l-Najīb al-Suhrawardī and his nephew Shihāb al-Dīn 'Umar al-Suhrawardī, after whom the Suhrawardiyya order is named.

The Writings: Treatises and Visionary Tales§

Suhrawardi wrote prolifically in his short life, in Arabic and Persian. His works fall into several groups. Three large Arabic treatises, al-Talwīḥāt (The Intimations), al-Muqāwamāt (The Opposites) and al-Mashāriʿ wa'l-muṭāraḥāt (Paths and Havens), engage closely with the Peripatetic philosophy of Avicenna, criticising and reworking it. Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, finished in 1186, sets out his own system. Shorter works, such as Hayākil al-nūr (The Temples of Light), present it more simply.

He also wrote symbolic narratives, mostly in Persian, that recount the soul's journey in allegorical form. In The Red Intellect (ʿAql-i surkh) a captive falcon meets a radiant old man; in The Sound of Gabriel's Wing (Āvāz-i par-i Jibraʾīl) a seeker learns that the visible world is the shadow of the angel's dark wing; in The Tale of the Western Exile the soul, imprisoned in a well in the city of Qayrawan, escapes towards its eastern home. These tales, which recall Avicenna's visionary recitals and the earlier Hermetic and Neoplatonic myths of the soul, are among the finest prose of medieval Persian.

Light and Darkness: The Ishraqi System§

Suhrawardi's metaphysics rests on one idea: being is light. Light, for him, is that which is evident in itself and makes other things evident. Everything that exists is either light or darkness (the barzakh, "barrier", that is, a body which needs light to be seen), and lights differ only in their intensity, not in kind.

At the summit stands the Light of Lights (nūr al-anwār), which is God. From it proceeds a first Light, and from that, through relations of illumination and love, an immense series of lights in two orders. The "longitudinal" order descends in a vertical chain of ever weaker lights; the "latitudinal" order consists of lights on the same level, which Suhrawardi calls the "lords of species" (arbāb al-anwāʿ). Each species of thing in the world, a plant, a mineral, the human race, is governed by its lord, which resembles a Platonic Form but is a living, conscious light. Below these come the "managing lights" which govern individual bodies: the human soul is one of them.

Angels and the Ancient Persian Names§

Suhrawardi identified these lights with angels and gave several of them names taken from Zoroastrian religion. The lord of water he calls Khurdād and the lord of plants Murdād, echoing the Avestan Amesha Spentas Haurvatat and Ameretat, and he speaks of the royal "light of glory" (khurra) of the ancient kings of Iran. This fusion of philosophy and angelology made his work a bridge between Greek metaphysics and the Islamic belief in angels described in Angels in Islam.

Knowledge by Presence and the Critique of Avicenna§

Suhrawardi's illuminationism was also a sharp critique of the reigning Peripatetic school, described in Islamic Philosophy: Falsafa. He argued that Aristotelian definitions by genus and difference can never capture the essence of a thing, since they only multiply further terms that need defining. More basic is "knowledge by presence" (al-ʿilm al-ḥuḍūrī): the immediate awareness that the self has of itself, without any mental image standing in between. Self-awareness, for Suhrawardi, is itself light, and knowledge in general is a form of illumination in which the object is present to the knower.

He also questioned the Avicennan distinction between essence and existence, arguing that "existence" is a mental concept added to things rather than something real in them. Later philosophers would reverse this position, but the debate he started dominated Persian philosophy for centuries. Suhrawardi claimed his system had come to him partly through vision; he recounts a dream in which Aristotle appeared to him and spoke of the soul's knowledge of itself.

The Leaven of the Ancients: Plato, Hermes and the Sages of Persia§

Suhrawardi saw himself not as an innovator but as the reviver of an ancient wisdom. He traced it through a double lineage: a western line of Greek sages, including Hermes Trismegistus, Empedocles, Pythagoras and Plato, and an eastern line of Persian sage-kings and priests such as Kayumarth, Faridun and Kay Khusraw, the wise men among the Magi of ancient Persia. Through Sufis such as al-Bisṭāmī and al-Ḥallāj this "leaven" passed into Islam. Modern scholars, notably John Walbridge, have shown how much of his picture of Greek philosophy derives from late antique sources, and how much his Persian lineage reflects the literary memory of the Shāhnāma.

Commentators and the Ishraqi Legacy§

The Philosophy of Illumination was commented on by Shams al-Dīn Shahrazūrī in the thirteenth century and by Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, whose commentary of 1295 became the standard teaching text. Illuminationist ideas shaped the School of Isfahan under the Safavids, where Mīr Dāmād and Mulla Sadra (d. 1640) combined them with Avicenna and with the mysticism of Ibn 'Arabi. Ishraqi texts were also read in Ottoman Anatolia and Mughal India, and they left a mark on the Zoroastrian sage Āzar Kayvān and his circle, who moved from Iran to India around 1600.

In the twentieth century the French scholar Henry Corbin edited Suhrawardi's works and presented him as the restorer of an Iranian "theosophy of light" and of the imaginal world (ʿālam al-mithāl), the realm of autonomous images between the intellect and the senses. Corbin's reading inspired many students of comparative mysticism. Other scholars, such as Hossein Ziai and John Walbridge, have emphasised instead his logic and epistemology, seeing him first of all as a rigorous philosopher reforming the Avicennan tradition. Both portraits capture something real in a thinker who was at once a logician, a visionary and a poet.

Frequently asked questions§

What does ishraq mean?§

Ishrāq means "illumination" and also "rising", as of the sun in the East. Suhrawardi used the double sense to suggest both a philosophy of light and the wisdom of the East, especially ancient Persia.

Why was Suhrawardi executed?§

He was accused by the jurists of Aleppo of heretical teaching, possibly including claims about prophecy, and Saladin ordered his death in 1191. The exact charges are not known, and political concerns during the Crusades may have contributed.

Is Suhrawardi the same as the founder of the Suhrawardiyya Sufi order?§

No. The order is named after Abū'l-Najīb al-Suhrawardī and his nephew 'Umar al-Suhrawardī of Baghdad. The philosopher is distinguished as al-Maqtūl, "the slain".

Sources and further reading§

• The Philosophy of Illumination — Suhrawardi, trans. John Walbridge and Hossein Ziai, 1999
• The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Suhrawardi — trans. W. M. Thackston, 1982
• Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna, Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi — Seyyed Hossein Nasr, 1964
• Knowledge and Illumination: A Study of Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-Ishraq — Hossein Ziai, 1990
• The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the Greeks — John Walbridge, 2000
• Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi'ite Iran — Henry Corbin, 1977