Suhrawardi, a Phenomenologist:
Ipseity
jad hatemI
Suhrawardî is a philosopher and a mystic, a man from a faraway time
(the twelfth century) and a thinker who belongs to an outdated
intellectual context. Hence, his philosophy requires of us that we
engage with it in an active manner. To call him a phenomenologist is
a way of creating a link. If our approach is lively enough, we can avert
the risks of anachronism.
There is already a convergence between Suhrawardî’s philosophy of
illumination and phenomenology, in that they both originate from the
notion of manifestation. I suggest that our understanding of his
intuitions could benefit from the insights of Michel Henry’s material
phenomenology.
Suhrawardî claims that a being is divided into light and non-light.
Light is self-sufficient [ghanî]; it rests in itself. When it is not a quality
for something other than itself, light is separate [mujarrad] and pure.
When it is a quality for something other than itself, it is becoming [nûr
‘ârid]. As for what is not light in itself, it is either not a quality for
something other than itself, in which case it is called ‘dark sub stance’
[ghâsiq]^1 that does not exist in itself (H, §111)^2 ; or, alternatively, it is a
quality for another than itself, in which case it is called obscurity
[zulmâniyyat]. Bodies [barzakh]^3 are what remain even when light has
withdrawn. They are dark by essence, although in some cases, for
1. The word is from the Koran and connotes evil: “min sharri ghâsiq idhâ waqaba.”
(113:3).
2. Kitâb Hikmat al-ishrâq, in Suhrawardî, Opera metaphysica et mystica, II, ed. H.
Corbin, Tehran-Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, Téhéran-Paris, 1952.
3. Another Koranic word (23:100; 25:53; 55:20) which means, in context, barrier,
interval, or isthm.