Shahab al-Din Yahya as-Suhrawardi (from the Arabicشهاب الدين يحيى سهروردى, also known as Sohrevardi) (born 1155 in Suhravard in North-West-Iran; died 1191 in Aleppo) was a Iranian philosopher and Sufi, founder of School of Illumination, one of the most important doctrines in islamic Philosophy.

Other important Sufis from the same period cary the name Suhrawardi: Abu 'l-Najib al-Suhrawardi and his paternal nephew Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi.

Life

His life spanned a period of less than forty years in the middle of twelfth century AD, produced a series of highly assured works that established him as the founder of new school of philosophy, the school of Illumination (hikmat-al-Ishraq).

He learnt wisdom and jurisprudence in Maragheh (located today in the East Azarbaijan Province of Iran).

His teacher was Majd al-Din Jaili who was also Imam Fakhr Razi’s teacher. Then he went to Iraq and Syria for several years and developed his knowledge in there.

He was executed in 1191 on charges of cultivating Batini teachings and philosophy, by the order of al-Malik al-Zahir, son of Saladin, and sometimes is called Maqtul, the slain.

Teachings

Suhrawardi was unique in his deep insight into the origins of Iranian and Greek philosophy as well as Islamic teachings. He renewed Eshraq philosophy which had an ancient root.

Also arising out of the peripatetic philosophy developed by Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi's illuminationist philosophy is critical of several of the positions taken by Ibn Sina, and radically departs from the latter through the creation of a symbolic language (which is manly derived from ancient Iranian culture or Farhang-e-Khosravani) to give expression to his hikma.

The fundamental constituent of Suhrawardi’s philosophy is pure immaterial light, of which nothing is more manifest, and which unfolds from the light of lights in emanations through the descending order of the light of ever diminishing intensity; through complex interaction, then in turn give rise to horizontal arrays of lights, similar in concept to Platonic Forms, which govern the species of mundane reality.

Suhrawardi also elaborated the 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 adoption of his concept of intensity and gradation to existence, wherein he (Mulla Sadra) combined peripatetic and illuminationist description of reality.

He is sometimes given the honorific title shaykh al-ishraq or "Master of illumination".

Suhrawardi has been called "the Master of Oriental Theosophy”. In his writings, he attempted a synthesis of Zoroastrian, Platonic, and Islamic ideas. The "Orient" of his "Oriental Theosophy" is the symbolic Orient, the East and the dawn as the symbol of Spiritual Light and Knowledge.

Suhrawardi taught a complex and profound emanationist cosmology, according to which all creation is a successive outflow from the original supreme Light of Lights (Nur al-Anvar).

His teachings had a strong influence on subsequent esoteric Iranian thought, and there is a saying that this Oriental Theosophy is to philosophy what Sufism is to scholastic and legalistic theology.

We can say that the idea of “Decisive Necessity” is believed to be one of the most important innovations of Suhrawardi in the history of logical philosophical speculation, which has been stressed by the majority of Moslem logicians and philosophers.

Writings

• Ishraq School
• Word of Sufism
• Song on Gabriel
• A day with Sufis
• Epistle of red wisdom

References

• Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination, by Mehdi Amin Razavi
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

External links

• Biography

Persian philosophers | Iranian scientists | Muslim philosophers | Muslim scientists | 1153 births | 1191 deaths | History of Azerbaijan | History of Iran | Islamic history

Suhrawardi | Sohraŭardi | شهاب‌الدین سهروردی