AL-KHAYYĀL WA AL-TAJRIBAH AL-SUFIAH LADĀ SHIHĀB AL-DĪN AL-SUHRAWARDĪ MIN KHILĀL KITĀBUHU HIKMAH AL-‘ISHRĀQ

Abstract

This article deals with al-Suhraward’s attempt to reconcile between two different and incompatible systems of thought into his illumination philosophy; namely Sufism and philosophy. While Sufism trusts the mystical vision of the Sufas the legitimate path of knowledge, philosophy stresses the rational thought as the only acceptable method to attain knowledge. Al-Suhrawardis unification of Sufism and philosophy into his illumination philosophy finds its ground on both his ontology and epistemology. On the ontological level, he introduced a new world, the world of suspended forms (‘alam al-muth l al-mu’allaqah),as a real world which stands between the intelligible world and the material world. To the world of suspended forms he assigned the faculty of imagination as the perceiving faculty of its contents, suggesting that the objects of perception of the imaginative faculty enjoy a real existence in the outside reality. By introducing the world of suspended forms as a real world, al-Suhrawardi argued that what were revealed by the mystical vision of the Sufi are actually the contents of the world of suspended forms when they are perceived by the faculty of imagination.