Suhrawardi

Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi was a Persian philosopher, born in Suhraward in northwest Iran, who founded the Illuminationist (Ishraqi) school. Criticising parts of Avicenna's Peripatetic system, he built a metaphysics of light and degrees of luminosity, and an epistemology centred on knowledge by presence: the self knows itself directly, without any mediating concept or representation. He was executed in Aleppo in 1191 while still in his thirties, and his ideas deeply influenced later Persian philosophy, including Mulla Sadra.

Key ideas

• Self-knowledge is knowledge by presence (ʿilm ḥuḍūrī), not knowledge through a representation.
• Reality is a hierarchy of lights differing in intensity, from the Light of Lights downward.
• Definitions in the Peripatetic manner cannot yield knowledge of essences; direct acquaintance is needed.
• Philosophy should unite rigorous reasoning with disciplined spiritual experience.

Major works

• The Philosophy of Illumination (Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, 1186)
• The Intimations (al-Talwīḥāt)
• The Temples of Light (Hayākil al-nūr)

In the conversation

• Question Is there a film theory that starts from ma, rasa or the imaginal world rather than from Paris? Rin Matsuda · 6 replies
• Discussion Knowledge by presence: does Suhrawardi show why experience resists description? Parisa Moghaddam · 5 replies
• Discussion Bullough’s fog at sea, seen from an edit suite in Tehran Parisa Moghaddam · 4 replies
• Question If I know myself “by presence”, why am I so bad at knowing my own motives? Suhrawardi meets psychology Elif Yıldız · 5 replies
• Discussion Wujūd, brahman, dao: are these even answers to the same question? Reza Tehrani · 4 replies