The Islamic world · 1186 – present
Illuminationism & Transcendent Theosophy
Reality is a gradation of light (Suhrawardī), or of existence itself (Mullā Ṣadrā), and the most basic knowledge is the self’s direct presence to itself.
What is most real, and how do we know it without concepts?
By the 12th century Avicenna’s system dominated philosophy in Persia, but its definitions and its account of knowledge as abstraction left some unsatisfied. Suhrawardī turned to Plato and ancient Persian wisdom; four centuries later in Safavid Iran, Mullā Ṣadrā combined Avicenna, Suhrawardī and Ibn ʿArabī.
I know myself not through a concept of myself but by my own presence, so knowledge by presence comes before knowledge by representation. Mullā Ṣadrā went further: existence, not essence, is what is real, it comes in degrees, and things constantly change in their very substance.
- Self-knowledge is direct presence, not representation.
- Existence, not essence, is fundamentally real (Ṣadrā).
- Reality differs only by degrees of intensity.
Ṣadrā’s philosophy is still taught in Iranian seminaries and remains the main living school of Islamic philosophy.
Thinkers
1154–1191Shihāb al-Dīn SuhrawardīPersian founder of Illuminationism, executed in Aleppoc. 1571–1636Mullā ṢadrāSafavid philosopher of Shiraz, founder of Transcendent TheosophyKey texts
Where it came from
Reacted againstFalsafa (Arabic Aristotelianism)Suhrawardī began as an Avicennan but rejected the Peripatetic theory of definition and replaced abstraction with knowledge by presence.Borrowed from
PlatonismSuhrawardī honoured Plato as a master of intuition and recast the Forms as “lords of the species”, lights that govern each kind.Borrowed from
Sufi metaphysicsMullā Ṣadrā drew on Ibn ʿArabī’s vision of one reality appearing in many forms to build his doctrine of the gradation of existence.