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Mystical philosophy in
Islam
Mystical philosophy has
an intimate connection with the mainstream of Islamic philosophy. It
consists of several main strands, ranging from Isma'ili thought to the
metaphysics of al-Ghazali and Ibn al-'Arabi, and with a continuing powerful
presence in the contemporary Islamic world. Although mystical thinkers were
aware that they were advocating an approach to thinking and knowledge which
differed from much of the Peripatetic tradition, they constructed a
systematic approach which was often continuous with that tradition. On the
whole they emphasized the role of intellectual intuition in our approach to
understanding reality, and sought to show how such an understanding might
be put on a solid conceptual basis. The ideas that they created were
designed to throw light on the nature of the inner sense of Islam.
Mystical
philosophy as Islamic philosophy
It is important at the
outset to ask what is meant by mystical philosophy in the context of the
Islamic philosophical tradition. The term in Arabic closest to the phrase
'mystical philosophy' would perhaps be al-hikmat al-dhawqiyya, literally
'tasted philosophy or wisdom', which etymologically corresponds exactly to
sapience from the Latin root sapere, meaning to taste. As understood in
English, however, the term 'mystical philosophy' would include other types
of thought in the Islamic context, although al-hikmat al-dhawqiyya was at
its heart. Al-hikmat al-dhawqiyya is usually contrasted with discursive
philosophy, or al-hikmat al-bahthiyya. Mystical philosophy in Islam would
have to include all intellectual perspectives, which consider not only
reason but also the heart-intellect, in fact primarily the latter as the
main instrument for the gaining of knowledge. If this definition is
accepted, then most schools of Islamic philosophy had a mystical element,
for there was rarely a rationalistic philosophy developed in Islam which
remained impervious to the distinction between reason and the intellect (as
nous or intellectus) and the primacy of the latter while rejecting altogether
the role of the heart-intellect in gaining knowledge.
This entry concentrates
on those schools which not only include but emphasize noesis and the role
of the heart-intellect or illumination in the attainment of knowledge. We
shall therefore leave aside the Peripatetic school, despite the mystical
elements in certain works of al-Farabi, the 'oriental philosophy' of Ibn
Sina (Nasr 1996b) and the doctrine of the intellect adopted by the Muslim
Peripatetics (mashsha'un) in general. Instead, the discussion will
concentrate primarily upon the Isma'ili philosophy so closely connected
with Hermetic, Pythagorean and Neoplatonic teachings, the school of
Illumination (ishraq) of al-Suhrawardi and his followers, certain strands
of Islamic philosophy in Spain and later Islamic philosophy in Persia and
India. However, it would also have to include the doctrinal formulations of
Sufism and its metaphysics from al-Ghazali and Ibn al-'Arabi to the
present.
Isma'ili
and Hermetic philosophy
Isma'ili philosophy was
among the earliest to be formulated in Islam going back to the Umm al-kitab
(The Mother of Books) composed in the second century ah (eighth century
ad). It expanded in the fourth century ah (tenth century ad) with Abu Hatim
al-Razi and Hamid al-Din Kirmani and culminated with Nasir-i Khusraw
(Corbin 1993, 1994). By nature this whole philosophical tradition was
esoteric in character and identified philosophy itself with the inner,
esoteric and therefore mystical dimension of religion. It was concerned
with the hermeneutic interpretation (ta'wil) of sacred scripture and saw
authentic philosophy as a wisdom which issues from the instructions of the
Imam (who is identified on a certain level with the heart-intellect), the
figure who is able to actualize the potentialities of the human intellect
and enable it to gain divine knowledge. The cosmology, psychology and
eschatology of Isma'ilism are inextricably connected with its Imamology and
the role of the Imam in initiation into the divine mysteries. All the different
schools of Isma'ili philosophy, therefore, must be considered as mystical
philosophy despite notable distinctions between them, especially, following
the downfall of the Fatimids, between the interpretations of those who
followed the Yemeni school of Isma'ilism and those who accepted Hasan
al-Sabbah and 'The Resurrection of Alamut' in the seventh century ah
(thirteenth century ad).
Two of the notable
philosophical elements associated with Shi'ism in general and Isma'ilism in
particular during the early centuries of Islamic history are Hermetism and
Pythagoreanism, the presence of which is already evident in that vast
corpus of writings associated with Jabir ibn Hayyan, who was at once
alchemist and philosopher. The philosophical dimension of the Jabirian
corpus is certainly of a mystical nature, having incorporated much of
Hermeticism into itself, as are later works of Islamic alchemy which in
fact acted as channels for the transmission of Hermetic philosophy to the
medieval West. When one thinks of the central role of Hermeticism in
Western mystical philosophy, one must not forget the immediate Islamic
origin of such fundamental texts as the Emerald Tablet and the Turba
Philosophorum, and therefore the significance of such works as texts of
Islamic mystical philosophy. Obviously, therefore, one could not speak of
Islamic mystical philosophy without mentioning at least the Hermetical
texts integrated into Islamic thought by alchemists as well as philosophers
and Sufis, and also Hermetic texts written by Muslim authors themselves. It
should be recalled in this context in fact that the philosopher Ibn Sina
had knowledge of certain Hermetic texts such as Poimandres and the Sufi Ibn
al-'Arabi displays vast knowledge of Hermeticism in his al-Futuhat
al-makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) and many other works (Sezgin 1971).
As for Pythagoreanism,
although elements of it are seen in the Jabirian corpus, it was primarily
in the Rasa'il (Epistles) of the Ikhwan al-Safa' in the fourth century ah
(tenth century ad), who came from a Shi'ite background and whose work was
wholly adopted by later Isma'ilism, that one sees the full development of
an Islamic Pythagoreanism based upon the symbolic and mystical
understanding of numbers and geometric forms (Netton 1982) (see Ikhwan
al-Safa'). What is called Pythagorean number mysticism in the West had a
full development in the Islamic world, and was in fact more easily
integrated into the general Islamic intellectual framework than into that
of Western Christianity (see Pythagoreanism).
Illuminationist
philosophy
Perhaps the most
enduring and influential school of mystical philosophy in Islam came into
being in the sixth century ah (twelfth century ad) with Shihab al-Din
al-Suhrawardi, who founded the school of ishraq or Illumination.
Al-Suhrawardi's basic premise was that knowledge is available to man not
through ratiocination alone but also, and above all, through illumination
resulting from the purification of one's inner being. He founded a school
of philosophy which some have called theosophy in its original sense, that
is, mystical philosophy through and through but without being against logic
or the use of reason. In fact, al-Suhrawardi criticized Aristotle and the
Muslim Peripatetics on logical grounds before setting about expounding the
doctrine of ishraq. This doctrine is based not on the refutation of logic,
but of transcending its categories through an illuminationist knowledge
based on immediacy and presence, or what al-Suhrawardi himself called
'knowledge by presence' (al-'ilm al-huduri), in contrast to conceptual
knowledge (al-'ilm al-husuli) which is our ordinary method of knowing based
on concepts (Ha'iri Yazdi 1992).
In his masterpiece
Hikmat al-ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination), translated by the
foremost Western student of al-Suhrawardi, Henry Corbin, as Le Livre de la
Sagesse Orientale (The Book of Oriental Wisdom), the Master of Illumination
presents an exposition of a form of mystical philosophy which has had a
following up to the present day. Based upon the primacy of illumination by
the angelic lights as the primary means of attaining authentic knowledge,
the school of ishraq in fact was instrumental in bestowing a mystical
character upon nearly all later Islamic philosophy, which drew even closer
to Islamic esotericism or Sufism than in the earlier centuries of Islamic
history without ever ceasing to be philosophy. Although the wedding between
philosophy and mysticism in Islam is due most of all to the gnostic and
sapiential nature of Islamic spirituality itself, on the formal level it is
most of all the school of Illumination or ishraq which was instrumental in
actualizing this wedding, as eight centuries of later Islamic philosophy
bears witness (see Illuminationist philosophy).
Philosophy
in the Maghrib and Spain
The rise of
intellectual activity in the Maghrib and, especially, Andalusia was
associated from the beginning with an intellectual form of Sufism in which
Ibn Masarra was to play a central role. Most of the later Islamic
philosophers of this region possessed a mystical dimension, including even
the Peripatetics Ibn Bajja and Ibn Tufayl. The former's Tadbir
al-mutawahhid (Regimen of the Solitary), far from being a political
treatise, deals in reality with man's inner being. Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn
Yaqzan (Living Son of the Awake), interpreted by many in the West in
naturalistic and rationalistic terms, is a symbolic account of the wedding
between the partial and universal intellect within the human being, a
wedding which results consequently in the confirmation of revelation that
is also received through the archangel of revelation, who is none other
than the objective embodiment of the universal intellect. Moreover, this
mystical tendency is to be seen in its fullness in less well-known figures
such as Ibn al-Sid of Badajoz who, like the Ikhwan al-Safa', was devoted to
mathematical mysticism, and especially the Sufi Ibn Sab'in, the last of the
Andalusian philosophers of the seventh century ah (thirteenth century ad),
who developed one of the most extreme forms of mystical philosophy in Islam
based upon the doctrine of the transcendent unity of being (wahdat
al-wujud) (Taftazani and Leaman 1996). Andalusia was also the home of the
greatest expositor of Sufi metaphysics, Ibn al-'Arabi (see §6).
Illuminationist
thought in the East
In eastern lands of the
Islamic world and especially Persia, which was the main theatre for the
flourishing of Islamic philosophy from the seventh century ah (thirteenth
century ad) onward, primarily mystical philosophy was dominant during later
centuries despite the revival of the discursive philosophy of the
mashsha'is, such as Ibn Sina, by Khwajah Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and others.
It was in the East in the seventh and eighth centuries ah (thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries ad) that the doctrines of ishraq with its emphasis on
inner vision and illumination were revived by al-Suhrawardi's major
commentators, Shams al-Din al-Shahrazuri and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, who
was also a master of Ibn Sinan philosophy. The next three centuries saw
mystical ideas and doctrines become ever more combined with the
philosophical theses of the earlier schools, and figures such as Ibn Turkah
Isfahani sought consciously to combine the teachings of Ibn Sina,
al-Suhrawardi and Ibn al-'Arabi.
This tendency
culminated in the tenth century ah (sixteenth century ad) with the
establishment of the School of Isfahan by Mir Damad and the foremost
metaphysician of later Islamic thought, Mulla Sadra, in whom the blending
of ratiocination, inner illumination and revelation became complete (Corbin
1972). In this school the most rigorous logical discourse is combined with
illumination and direct experience of ultimate reality, as seen so amply in
Mulla Sadra's masterpiece al-Asfar al-arba'ah (The Four Journeys). This
later Islamic philosophy is certainly mystical philosophy, relying as it
does on 'experiential' knowledge and direct vision of ultimate reality and
the angelic worlds, a vision that is associated with the eye of the heart
('ayn al-qalb orchism-i dil). However, it is also a philosophy in which the
categories of logic are themselves seen as ladders for ascent to the world
of numinous reality in accordance with the Islamic perspective, in which
what would be called Islamic mysticism from a Christian perspective is of a
gnostic ('irfani) and sapiental nature, Islamic mysticism being essentially
a path of knowledge of which love is the consort, rather than a way of love
exclusive of knowledge.
In any case it was this
type of philosophy, associated especially with the name of Mulla Sadra,
that has dominated the philosophical scene in Persia during the past few
centuries and produced major figures such as Hajji Mulla Hadi al-Sabzawari
and Mulla 'Ali Zunuzi in the thirteenth century ah (nineteenth century ad),
both of whom were philosophers as well as mystics. It is also this type of
philosophy that continues to this day and has in fact been revived during
the past few decades. Nearly all philosophers in Persia associated with the
school of Mulla Sadra, which is also known as al-hikmat al-muta'aliya
(literally the 'transcendent theosophy'), have been and remain at once
philosophers and mystics.
In India likewise,
Islamic philosophy began to spread only after al-Suhrawardi and during the
past seven centuries most Islamic philosophers in that land have been also
what in the West would be called mystics. It is not accidental that the
school of Mulla Sadra spread rapidly after him in India and has had
expositors there to this day. Perhaps the most famous of Muslim
intellectual figures in India, Shah Waliullah of Delhi, exemplifies this
reality (see Shah Wali Allah). He was a philosopher and Sufi as well as a
theologian, and his many writings attest to the blending of philosophy and
mysticism. It can in fact be said that Islamic philosophy in India is
essentially mystical philosophy, despite the attention paid by the Islamic
philosophers there to logic and in some cases to natural philosophy and
medicine.
Sufism
and the Akbarian tradition
No treatment of
mystical philosophy in Islam would be complete without a discussion of
doctrinal Sufism and Sufi metaphysics, although technically speaking in
Islamic civilization a clear distinction has always been made between
philosophy (al-falsafa or al-hikma) and Sufi metaphysics and gnosis
(al-ma'rifah, 'irfan). However, as the term 'mystical philosophy' is
understood in English, it would certainly include Sufi metaphysical and
cosmological doctrines which were not explicitly formulated until the sixth
and seventh centuries ah (twelfth and thirteenth centuries ad) although
their roots are to be found in the Qur'an and hadith and the sayings and
writings of the early Sufis. The first Sufi authors who turned to an
explicit formulation of Sufi metaphysical doctrines were Abu Hamid Muhammad
al-Ghazali in his later esoteric treatise such as Mishkat al-anwar (The
Niche of Lights) and al-Risalat al-laduniyya (Treatise on Divine
Knowledge), and 'Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani who followed a generation after him.
The writings of these
great masters were, however, a prelude for the vast expositions of the
master of Islamic gnosis Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-'Arabi, perhaps the most
influential Islamic intellectual figure of the past seven hundred years.
Not only did he profoundly influence many currents of Sufism and establish
an 'Akbarian tradition' identified with such later masters as Sadr al-Din
Qunawi, 'Abd al-Rahman Jami and, in the last century, Amir 'Abd al-Qadir
and Shaykh Ahmad al-'Alawi. He and his school also influenced formal
philosophy to such an extent that a figure such as Mulla Sadra would not be
conceivable without him. The Ibn al-'Arabian doctrines of the transcendent
unity of being, the universal man, the imaginal world and eschatological
realities are not only esoteric and mystical doctrines of the greatest
significance in themselves for the understanding of the inner teachings of
Islam, but are also sources of philosophical meditation for generations of
Islamic philosophers to the present day, who have cultivated diverse and
rich schools of mystical philosophy during the past eight centuries and
brought into being currents of philosophical thought that are still alive
in the Islamic world. One need only think of such fourteenth century ah
(twentieth century ad) figures as 'Alalamah Tabataba'i in Persia and 'Abd
al-Halim Mahmud in Egypt to realize the significance of the wedding between
philosophy and mysticism in the Islamic intellectual tradition, not only
over the ages, but as part of the contemporary Islamic intellectual scene
(see Islamic philosophy, modern).
See also: Gnosticism; Ibn al-'Arabi;
Illuminationist philosophy; Mysticism, history of; Mysticism, nature and
assessment of; al-Suhrawardi
SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR
Copyright © 1998, Routledge.
References and further reading
Chittick, W. (1989) The Sufi Path of Knowledge,
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (The standard account of
the nature of mystical knowledge.)
Chittick, W. (1994) Imaginal Worlds: Ibn
al-'Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity, Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press. (An analysis of the concept of the mundus imaginalis.)
Chodkiewicz, M. (1993) Seal of the Saints -
Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn 'Arabi, trans. L.
Sherrard, Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society. (Close account of the key
concepts of prophecy and sainthood.)
* Corbin, H. (1972) En Islam iranien (On Persian
Islam) Paris: Gallimard. (The most important collection of sources of
Persian philosophy.)
Corbin, H. (1980) Avicenna and the Visionary
Recital, trans. W. Trask, Houston, TX: Spring Publications. (Ibn Sina's
account of mystical perception.)
* Corbin, H. (1993) The History of Islamic
Philosophy, in collaboration with S.H. Nasr and O. Yahya, trans. P.
Sherrard, London: Kegan Paul International. (The first history to lay
proper emphasis on Persian philosophy.)
* Corbin, H. (1994) Trilogie ismaélienne
(Isma'ili Trilogy), Paris: Verdier. (Discussion of some of the most
important Isma'ili texts.)
Cruz Hernández, M. (1981) Historia del
pensamiento en el mundo islámico (History of Thought in the Islamic World),
Madrid: Alianza Editorial. (Excellent general account of Islamic
philosophy.)
* Ha'iri Yazdi, M. (1992) The Principles of
Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy - Knowledge by Presence, Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press. (The best account of 'ilm al-huduri,
knowledge by presence.)
Knysh, A. (1993) 'The Diffusion of Ibn 'Arabi's
Doctrine', in S. Hirtenstein and M. Tiernan (eds) Muhyiddin ibn 'Arabi - A
Commemorative Volume, Shaftesbury: Element, 307-27. (Discussion of the
influence of Ibn al-'Arabi.)
Nanji, A. (1996) 'Isma'ili Philosophy', in S.H.
Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge,
ch. 9, 144-54. (Examination of Isma'ili philosophy including the influence
of Neoplatonism.)
Nasr, S.H. (1975) Three Muslim Sages, New York:
Delmar. (Excellent introductions to Ibn Sina, al-Suhrawardi and Ibn
al-'Arabi.)
Nasr, S.H. (1978) Islamic Life and Thought,
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (General introduction to
the role of mysticism in Islamic culture.)
Nasr, S.H. (1996a) 'Ibn Sina's Oriental
Philosophy', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic
Philosophy, London: Routledge, 247-51. (Argument for the existence and
importance of the 'oriental philosophy'.)
* Nasr, S.H. (1996b) The Islamic Intellectual
Tradition in Persia, Richmond: Curzon Press. (Deals with the Persian
contribution to philosophy and mysticism.)
* Netton, I. (1982) Muslim Neoplatonists: An
Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity, London: Allen &
Unwin. (The standard account of the Ikhwan al-Safa'.)
* Sezgin, F. (1971) Geschichte des arabischen
Schrifttums (History of Arabic Literature), vol. 4, Leiden: Brill. (Sources
on Hermetism in Islamic literature.)
* al-Suhrawardi (1154-91) Hikmat al-ishraq (The
Philosophy of Illumination), trans H. Corbin, Le livre de la sagesse
orientale, Paris: Verdier, 1986. (Very important illuminationist text.)
* Taftazani, A. and Leaman, O. (1996) 'Ibn
Sab'in', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic Philosophy,
London: Routledge, 346-9. (Discussion of the significance of the thought of
Ibn Sab'in.)
Ziai, H. (1990) Knowledge and Illumination,
Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. (Very clear account of the links between
illuminationist philosophy and epistemology.)
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