The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri, and Beyond

Abstract

Reviewed by: The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri, and Beyond Oliver Leaman The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri, and Beyond. Reprint edition. S.I., 2018. Edinburgh University Press, 256 pp., £ 24.99. ISBN: 978-1-4744-4123-0 (pbk). This is in every way an excellent book, in a series that looks very interesting. Van Lit is basically following an idea in the Hikmat al-ishraqby Suhrawardi where the latter mentions what he calls suspended images and develops an entirely novel ontology and epistemology. This was taken up with alacrity by a succession of later thinkers and becomes an intriguing and highly creative response to how to account for punishment and reward in the next life without straying too far from the literal understanding of scripture. Van Lit does a very thorough job discussing how a variety of thinkers worked with this idea, which as he says, originally came—like so much in Islamic philosophy—from Ibn Sina. Shahrazuri is the real creator of the idea of a world of images, and Corbin is quite rightly ticked off for not having entirely grasped that it is not there precisely in that form in Suhrawardi, but I thought this was a bit of an easy point. Suhrawardi does not use the precise expression but the idea is there in his work and Corbin is the person who really put it on the map. Moreover, Corbin tackled bravely with the philosophical implications of the concept of the world of images while van Lit seems to prefer a more historical approach to how images developed in Islamic philosophy. Both approaches are important, of course, and Corbin is often flawed, but these are the flaws of someone who identified a whole new subject of study, something which should never be forgotten. In Shiʿi thought the notion of the world of images played a role in explaining the barzakh, and although it was modified by Mulla Sadra, it came to play a significant role for centuries in the school of Isfahan. There is nothing especially Shiʿa about the idea, of course, but it has such interesting epistemological implications that lead many Iranian intellectuals to use it. Often they had little idea of its origins in Suhrawardi, and it is only really now that we can see the fairly complete history of the idea. One of the achievements of the book is to lay out clearly for the first time the way in which an intellectual tradition over many centuries developed a concept and ran with it, often in very [End Page 504]different directions and with varying purposes. To my mind the most interesting part of the book is the very clear discussion of the precise differences on the issue between Mulla Sadra on the one hand, and Suhrawardi and Shahrazuri on the other. This is a fine piece of analysis and really gets to grips with the different ways of applying the notion in a variety of contexts. Van Lit also quite rightly criticizes some of the major commentators for their lack of subtlety in responding to what was actually argued at the time. This was a very successful blend of history and philosophy. On the other hand, it would have been interesting to have spent a bit more time looking at how the idea of imagination—which really lies at the core of the discussion—can be extended and understood in such a variety of ways. For Mulla Sadra the imagination is immaterial, while Suhrawardi insists on a physical aspect. For the former, the suspended images appear in the immaterial and there is no need for spiritual bodies to contain them. Imagination is that sort of an epistemological concept: it has its feet both in the world of experience and in the world of ideas. It really is a concept linked with the barzakhbetween these different ways of approaching knowledge, and Mulla Sadra refers to the barzakh al-mithali, reinforcing the idea of the role of imagination as an intermediary. In philosophy often the most interesting ideas are those that represent something in the middle, and imagination is clearly...