Iranian Utopia: Suhrawardī and the Concept of ‘no-where’ in “The Chant of Gabriel’s Wings” and “The Crimson Intellect”

Abstract

It is accepted that for the first time in 1516, Thomas More introduced the concepts of an ideal place in his Utopia; however, centuries before him in 1154 Shahāb al-Din al-Suhrawardī, a Persian philosopher, introduced the term Nā-kujā-ābād, which literally means utopia. This word was initially used in literature for defining an ideal society, which simultaneously bears the meaning of a non-existing or probably never-existed society. Accordingly, this article analyses the perennial Idealism in Suhrawardī’s Nā-kujā-ābād (no-where) by which he amalgamates the discourse of idealism with the perfect nature of human beings during the twelfth century. Nā-kujā-ābād is a prototypical term that illustrates the transcending world and portrays the ultimate perception of the living soul in utopia. The twofold essence of this term has always been at the center of the argument; a self-contradictory word, holding two opposite meanings at the same time: the spiritual world (Ālam-i Mesāl) and the material world (Ālam-i Nāsūt). This article aims to reconstruct Suhrawardī’s treatises through the textual analysis illuminating the interpretation of no-where through the utopian angle in treatises of The Chant of Gabriel’s Wings (Āwāz-i Par-i Jabraʾīl) and The Crimson Intellect (Aql-i Surkh) and finally concludes that Suhrawardī’s utopia is the true self of human beings apart from political and social issues.