The Role of Cosmological Metaphors in the Tales of Initiation by Šihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī

Abstract

The treatises of Iranian philosopher Šihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī (1154/55–1191), who was the creator of one of the five main streams of Islamic classical philosophy (ishraqism, or “the philosophy of illumination” (ḥikmat al-išrāq)), contain a special category of texts that can be characterized as a unique genre of the Islamic philosophical literature — tales of initiation. In form, these texts can be considered as fictional ones but its main purpose is not to entertain the reader, but to symbolically describe the mystical religious experience of the author, i.e. “illumination” (išrāq) itself, that express al-Suhrawardī’s epistemology. Through this description the esoteric knowledge (maʻrifah) about the structure of the Universe and the nature of God had to be transmitted. There is need of such form because transcendent knowledge acquired through mystical insight cannot be presented in the strictly logical language of the Islamic peripatetic tradition. In these tales the author uses symbolic language reflecting various philosophical ideas. These metaphors can be divided into several groups. One of these groups consists of cosmological metaphors, which are the subject of this article. The objects of our research are the tales of initiation by al-Suhrawardī such as Āwāz-i parr-i Ǧabrāʼīl (“The Sound of Gabriel’s Wings”), ‘Aql-i surx (“The Crimson Angel”) and Rūz-ī bā ǧamā‘ati ṣufīyān (“One day with a group of Sufis”), in which the symbolic description of the Universe structure through artistic images takes a significant place. The purpose of proposed article is to determine their role both in the ensemble of al-Suhrawardī’s initiation tales and his philosophical system. In other words, we have to answer the question: why does the Šayẖ of Illumination use such extensive cosmological metaphors in his mystical-oriented works?