Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥya ibn Ḥabash Suhrawardī, also known as Shaikh al-Ishrāq, the “Master of Illumination,” was a Persian philosopher of the 12th century. His boldness in disseminating his divine and metaphysical philosophy, known as the “Philosophy of Illumination,” led to his execution in Aleppo when he was only thirty-eight years old. The most distinctive feature of his philosophy is that it draws upon Zoroastrian and Platonic ideas. Another important feature is the belief in the compatibility between philosophical thought and spiritual experience. Suhrawardī claims that philosophy has to lead to spiritual experience: any other philosophy, with any other purpose, is just pointless. Likewise, spiritual experience has to rely on philosophical training. He believes that the ultimate wisdom is nothing but a spiritual vision, which in the Islamic tradition was transmitted to humanity by the Archangel Gabriel. In Islam, Gabriel was sent by God to make revelations to various prophets, including Muhammad. In the Islamic mystical tradition, philosophy (especially Greek philosophy) is in contraposition with religious training and mysticism. However, the unity of philosophical wisdom and spiritual vision in Suhrawardī’s philosophy demonstrates that prophets and philosophers are united in the effort to acquire knowledge. Suhrawardī left more than 50 writings in Persian and Arabic. Some of them are symbolic and describe his meetings with the archangel of vision, during which he learned about the material world and the world that exists beyond it. These meetings took place in a hypothetical world located between material and spiritual realms. The name of this hypothetical world varies in Suhrawardī’s writings, but he often refers to it using the following expressions: ideal world, the world of spirit, the eighth kingdom, the never-never land. This paper provides a thorough interpretation of Suhrawardī’s spiritual meetings with the archangel of vision. Symbolic expressions have been analyzed to show how the philosopher’s wisdom coincides perfectly with the archangel’s spiritual teachings.

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