On Suhrawardī’s Illuminationist Project and the Nature of Illuminationism

Abstract

Modern scholars hold very different views about how to interpret Suhrawardī’s Illuminationism: some read it as oriental theosophy, some as Illuminationist Avicennism, and others as a novel philosophical construction that is neither mysticism nor Avicennism. This article aims to establish the third position by analyzing and reconstructing Suhrawardī’s Illuminationist project. By examining Suhrawardī’s four Peripatetic-style works and Hikmat al-Ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination), this article argues that these works together form one single Illuminationist project. The four Peripatetic-style works criticize, correct, and reconstruct Avicennism by merely using the rational“investigation” (bahth) approach, of which the result is entry-level Illuminationism, differing fundamentally from Avicennism on many significant philosophical issues. Hikmat al-Ishraq presents the full-blown Illuminationism based on the supra-rational “deification” (ta’alluh) approach, namely, “presential knowledge” (‘ ilm hu dūrī), and also by resorting to the rational “investigation” approach. Thus, the resulting Illuminationism is a perfect fusion of “deification” and “investigation” (rather than mysticism or Avicennism). Therefore, the Illuminationist project itself is sufficient to establish the third position, showing that Illuminationism is a rigorous and original philosophy. Suhrawardī’s Illuminationism is highly impactful in the history of Arabic philosophy.