Table Of ContentHenry Corbin
Inside Iranian Islam
Spritual and Philosophical Aspects
Volume II
Suhraward(cid:238) and the Persian Platonists
"In many ways, the monumental opus of Corbin which summarizes his life-time
work is En Islam Iranien, in which over forty years of research and meditation upon
Sh(cid:238)’ism,Su(cid:28)sm,IslamicphilosophyandtherelationbetweenIslamicesoterictradition
andesotericismintheWestasmanifestedinsuchformsasthelegendoftheHolyGrail
and many other concerns are brought together. Without doubt this work is one of
the most outstanding achievements of Western scholarship concerning the Islamic and
particularlyPersianworlds,astudywhichhasalreadyexercisedarichin(cid:29)uenceandis
bound to remain as one of Corbin’s most enduring achievements. Many of the themes
discussedinhisnumerousearlierworks,havefoundtheirmostmatureorchestrationin
this four volume opus of monumental dimensions". (Hossein Nasr, in Henry Corbin:
The Life and Works of the Occidental Exile in Quest of the Orient of Light, in Sophia
Perennis 3, 1977, p. 102.)
2
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In Iranian Islam - II
Contents
Summary of Books I and II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1 A Life’s Grandiose Plan 9
Life and Martyrdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Ascendance of the Ishr(cid:226)q(cid:238)yßn or Oriental Theosophers . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 Oriental Theosophy 27
Hieratic Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Oriental Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The Hierarchy of Spirituals and the Mystical Pole. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3 The Mazdean Light of Glory (Xvarnah) and Angelology 53
The Light of Glory as Oriental Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Visions of Kay Khusraw and Zoroaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
The Archangelic Lights and the Platonic Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
The Hierarchy of the Archangelic Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Psalms to the Archangel of the Sun and to the Perfect Nature. . . . . . . . . 80
4 The Light of Glory and the Holy Grail 91
Hermetica and Mithraica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
The Manifestational Forms and the Lineage of Xvarnah and the Holy Grail . 102
Kay Khusraw and Parcifal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
The Oriental Finality as the Completion of the Heroic Epic in the Mystical
Epic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
The Grail Recital of a Khusraw(cid:226)n(cid:238) Mystic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5 The Recital of the Crimson Archangel and the Iranian Mystical Gesture 133
Finality of the Recital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
The Preface of the Recital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
The Seven Themes of the Recital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
From the birth of Z(cid:226)l to the Death of Esfandy(cid:226)r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Translation of the Recital of the Crimson Archangel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
6 The Recital of the Occidental Exile and the Gnostic gesture 163
The History of the Gnostic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Analysis of the Recital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Translation of the Recital of Occidental Exile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
The Gnostic at the Meeting with the Angel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
The Secret of the Personal City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
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7 The Oriental Tradition 211
The Spiritual Legacy of the Royal Way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Oriental Posterity in Iran and India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
The Religion of the Trans(cid:28)gured Eros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
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Summary of Books I and II
1
The Islamicworldisnotmonolithic. Itsconceptofreligionisnotidenti(cid:28)ablewithanyArab
conceptofpolitics. ThereisanIranianIslam, justasthereisaTurkish, Indian, Indonesian,
or a Malaysian Islam.
While curious readers have plenty of literature at their disposal to delve into Iranian
archaeology or art, both from before and since the birth of Islam, there are unfortunately
but a few books that answer questions about the "motivations" of the formation of such an
Iranian consciousness.
Since its very beginning inside the Islamic community, the Iranian world has formed a
structure whose characteristic traits and talents only become obvious if one considers the
spiritual Iranian universe as a complete entity, both from before and since the coming of Is-
lam. Islamic Iran has been the primary place for Islam’s greatest philosophers and mystics;
for them speculative thought was never isolated from its fruition and its practical conse-
quences, never from what we nowadays call a social perspective, it was always concerned
with the concrete totality that feeds man from its very own substance, beyond the limits of
this present life, what is his spiritual world.
Keeping to this position, the author has constructed a monument that he here presents
in seven books and four volumes, the result of twenty years of research, carried out in Iran
itself, in its libraries as well as privately with Iranian friends, and combined with a teaching
experience, both in Paris and Teheran. Its method is essentially phenomenological, without
attaching itself to any one particular phenomenological school. This all has to do with the
encounter of the religious fact, while showing its object, as it shows itself to those who are
aware of it. Hence this work has an important subtitle: spiritual and philosophical aspects.
Bysayingaspects,thispresupposesaspectator,butherethespectator,thephenomenologist
himself,mustbecomethespiritualhostofthosetowhomthisobjectshowsitselfandassume
their care. Every historical consideration will thus remain immanent to this object without
imposingsomestrangeexternalcategory,likeadialecticorsomething. Underthiscondition
the paths suggested by the author in the text are synchronously possible, because they
concern variations on the same object.
The (cid:28)rst two volumes contain books 1 and 2 of this work.
Book 1 seeks to show some of the basic tenets of Twelver Sh(cid:238)’ism, or Im(cid:226)mism, (cid:28)rmly
rootedinIranfromitsverybeginning,andtheo(cid:30)cialreligionsincethe16thcentury. These
traits are isolated and analyzed, starting with what the author has already proposed that
it be called the "phenomenon of the Book," as it occurred among those whom the Koran
calls the Ahl al-Kit(cid:226)b, the "community of the Book," encompassing Judaism, Christianity
and Islam. Interpretations of the Bible and the Koran face similar problems and tasks in
each of these branches of the Abrahamic tradition: the discovery of the true meaning of the
Book. In one way or another, the search for the real meaning, the spiritual meaning hidden
underneath a literal appearance, developed similar ways for the discovery of the esoteric,
i.e., interior meaning of divine Revelation. The "phenomenon of the Book" is at the root of
ahermeneutics,thatis,an"understanding."Itisverylikelythattheesoterichermeneutists
of the Bible and the Koran have still much to show philosophers, who nowadays appear to
be so occupied precisely with hermeneutics itself.
The technical term that refers to the esoteric hermeneutics of the Koran is the word
ta’w(cid:238)l, meaning "to lead something back" to its origin, to its archetype. Sh(cid:238)’ite metaphysics
isdominatedbytheideaofanunknowableandunaccessibleGod,unnamableinhisessence,
and by the idea of his epiphany in the pleroma of the Fourteen entities of Light, manifested
on earth in the persons of the "Fourteen Immaculate Ones" (the Prophet, his daughter
Fatima and the twelve Holy Im(cid:226)ms). The esoteric meaning that Sh(cid:238)’ite ta’w(cid:238)l extracts from
1Notesbythetranslatoraremarkedwith[trans.].
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SummaryofBooksIandII 5
the literal data of the Koran is mostly concerned with this pleroma of the Fourteen. By
this same token it also illustrates the Sh(cid:238)’ite idea of prophetology, which comes down to
the fact that Sh(cid:238)’ism refuses to have already resolved its future. In contrast to the Sunni
majorityofIslam, forwhomhumanityhasnothingelsetolearnsincethemissionofthelast
prophet,Sh(cid:238)’ismkeepsthefutureopenbyprofessingthatevenafterthecomingofthe"Seal
of the Prophets" something must still be learned, be extracted from, the manifestation of
thespiritualsenseoftherevelationsofthegreatprophets. Suchisthehermeneutictaskthat
theHolyIm(cid:226)mshavetakenuponthemselves,andtheirteaching(cid:28)llsvolumes. However,this
spiritual intelligence will not be complete until the end of this Aion, with the parousia of
the 12th Im(cid:226)m, the Im(cid:226)m presently hidden and the mystical pole of this world.
Thus this hermeneutics has it own perception of the temporal order, which it expresses
in a division of history into periods: into the time of the mission of the prophets, followed
by the time of spiritual initiation. In similar fashion, Sh(cid:238)’ite prophetology intersects anew
with the aspirations of the Joachimite movement in the West and its proclamation of the
reign of the Spirit. In fact, this periodization is now a metahistory, because its essentially
eschatological dimension deconstructs history.
As with hermeneutics, so also Im(cid:226)mology has placed Sh(cid:238)’ite thinkers before the same
problems that Christology has posed to its own, but Sh(cid:238)’ites have tended to resolve these in
ways always rejected by o(cid:30)cial Christology. Perhaps this is why Sh(cid:238)’ite prophetology was
safely kept from every form of laicization that leads to social Messianism.
Sh(cid:238)’itemetaphysicsandspiritualityareeachother’ssubstance. Factsexclusivelylimited
tothoseoftheSunnimajorityhavehaditfortoolongthatSu(cid:28)smisIslam’sspirituality. In
fact, Sh(cid:238)’ite spirituality goes well beyond Su(cid:28)sm. Certainly, there are Sh(cid:238)’ite congregations
that are Sß(cid:28), just as the genealogical branch of many tar(cid:238)qat, or congregations, does lead
back to one of the Im(cid:226)ms. However, Sh(cid:238)’ite esotericism presently does exist, in a state
of being the Way (the tar(cid:238)qat), without the need for the practitioner to belong to any Sß(cid:28)
congregation,atthesummitofmysticalSinai,withtheknowledgeoftheIm(cid:226)masapersonal
guide to self-knowledge.
Book 22 is entirely dedicated to another equally fundamental and characteristic aspect
of Iranian Islamic philosophy and spirituality, one that immediately joins forces with the
Sh(cid:238)’ismofmanyIranianthinkers. Thisisanaspectthatispre-eminentlytypi(cid:28)edbytheterm
ishr(cid:226)q, meaning the rising of the Sun (aurora consurgens), its "orient." Likewise, the phi-
losophy of Ishr(cid:226)q, as the theosophy of the Light, is the "oriental" theosophy and ishr(cid:226)q(cid:238)yßn
philosophersarethe"oriental"philosophers,inthemetaphysicalsenseoftheword"orient."
Theseareoftendesignatedas"Platonists,"inoppositiontoIslamicPeripatetics. Theorigins
oftheseIslamic"PlatonistsofPersia"weretheheroice(cid:27)ortsofayoungphilosophicalgenius,
Shih(cid:226)budd(cid:238)n Yahy(cid:226) Suhraward(cid:238), born in northwestern Iran, who died a martyr to his cause
(1191) in Aleppo, Syria, when he was only 36 years old. His works themselves clearly state
his intent: to revive the Wisdom of ancient Persia, the philosophy of Light and Darkness;
to repatriate the Hellenized Magi into Islamic Persia based on a hermeneutics (ta’w(cid:238)l) that
Islamic spirituality made available to him.
Some three centuries before the great Byzantine philosopher George Gemistus Plethon,
the work of an Iranian philosopher brought about a conjunction of the names of Plato and
Zoroaster/Zarathustra as heralds of the same "oriental" tradition, going all the way back
to Hermes, the father of all Sages. The Platonic Ideas are now reinterpreted in terms of a
Zoroastrianangelology. Thishermeneuticsofexistencelaidclaimtoathirdworld,forwhich
the philosophers of the concept were incapable of creating an ontology: between the world
of the intellect and that of the senses there is a mundus imaginalis, a world perfectly real
andnotatall"imaginary,"towhichourownexotericphilosophiesarereduced,aworldthat
2Aspects spirituels et philosophiques; Sohraward(cid:238) et les Platoniciens de Perse, Paris, Gallimard, 1971.
TheEnglishtranslationcontainstheindexentriesforvol. 2,whichProf. Corbinplacedinvol. 4.[trans.].
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mustbedesignatedbyitsownterm: theimaginal. Suhraward(cid:238)waswellawarethatthrough
his ontology of a "third world" he was laying the foundation for an objective reality of the
revelations of the prophets, of the visions of the mystics, and of the events of revelation, a
theme that will remain current during the long centuries of Iranian thought.
It is characteristic of this metaphysics of Light that it identi(cid:28)es the primordial Source
of this Light with what Zoroastrian theosophy designates as Xvarnah, or the "Light of
Glory." The angelic hierarchies proceed from this same source. They have a structure that
correspondstoasynthesisofZoroastrianangelologyandthecelestialhierarchiesofProclus’s
Neoplatonism. This same motif of Xvarnah o(cid:27)ers an inexhaustible well-spring of resources
and extensions. Earlier research has homologated the forms of its manifestation with that
of the Holy Grail in our own Western traditions. In any case, the theme of the Grail, of the
mysticalchalice,themirror-of-the-world,ispre(cid:28)guredintheheroicepicsofancientIran,and
it is present in Suhraward(cid:238)’s own works, where it typi(cid:28)es the passage from the heroic to the
mysticalepic,afactofcapitalimportanceintheculturalhistoryofIran. Thissamepassage
is proclaimed in a series of short initiatory tales, nearly all written in Persian, and whose
wealth of symbols allows Suhraward(cid:238) to lead his reader to the object of all of their desires,
evenbetterthanhisgreatsystematicworks. Theauthorisespeciallyemphaticabouttwoof
these spiritual tales, one of which is placed in the context of a gesture of Iranian mysticism
and the other in that of general Gnosticism.
Suhraward(cid:238)’s "oriental" tradition has remained alive in Iran until the present; it had a
great in(cid:29)uence in India on the epoch of the religious reforms of Sh(cid:226)h Akbar.
These (cid:28)rst two books of this work therefore present a dual aspect that is essential to
IslamicGnosisasitstructuredthespiritofIranianIslam. Atthistime, whenrecentdiscov-
erieshavegivennewimpetustoGnosticstudies,especiallyintheareaofancientGnosticism
and also of Jewish Gnosis, this indeed represents timely research.
Volume 3 will contain book 3 of this work (The Devotees of Love) and book 4 (Sh(cid:238)’ism
and Su(cid:28)sm). 3
Volume4willcontainbook5(The School of Isfahan); book6(The Shaikist School)and
book 7 (The Twelfth Im(cid:226)m and Spiritual Chivalry), as well as a general index. 4
3Aspects spirituels et philosophiques; Les (cid:28)dŁles d’amour,Paris,Gallimard,1973[trans.].
4Aspects spirituels et philosophiques; Sh(cid:238)’isme et Sou(cid:28)sme; Oevres en Prose; PoŁmes retrouvØs, Paris,
Gallimard,1973[trans.].
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SummaryofBooksIandII 7
Book II
Suhraward(cid:238) and the Persian Platonists
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