El hombre de luz en el sufismo iranio

by Henry Corbin, María Tabuyo (Translator), Agustín López Tobajas (Contributor)

«Quienes hayan tenido el privilegio de asistir a una conferencia de Henry Corbin habrán sido testigos de su talento y habilidad para permitirnos experimentar pensamientos procedentes de otra lengua y otra cultura como si pertenecieran a nuestro propio corazón.» James Hillman Henry Corbin (1903-1978) dedicó toda su vida al estudio del Islam y, en particular, de la gnosis chiíta. Pronto se toparía con la obra excepcional del filósofo y místico persa Sohravardî, que marcaría su trayectoria al descubrir su inmensa tarea de revivificar la fuente oriental de las doctrinas y símbolos místicos de los sabios de la antigua Persia preislámica. Así, nos abrimos paso hacia una metafísica de la luz a través de la lectura de los textos de autores como Sohravardî, Kobrâ, Râzî o Semnânî, en donde la realidad no es sino luz en distintos grados de intensidad y la posición ontológica de todos los seres viene determinada por una mayor o menor aproximación a la Luz de luces. Henry Corbin desarrolla magistralmente el tema de una fisiología del hombre de luz que comprende el estudio de los sentidos interiores y los órganos del cuerpo sutil, formando un itinerario místico de la metamorfosis del hombre y del universo, en donde la luz y el ser se identifican.

Genres: Spirituality, Islam, Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism, Nonfiction, Iran

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Henry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work. Although he was Protestant by birth, he was educated in the Catholic tradition and at the age of 19 received a certificate in Scholastic philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris. Three years later he took his "licence de philosophie" under the great Thomist Étienne Gilson. In 1928 he encountered the formidable Louis Massignon, director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne, and it was he who introduced Corbin to the writings of Suhrawardi, the 12th century Persian mystic and philosopher whose work was to profoundly affect the course of Corbin’s life. The stage was then set for a personal drama that has deep significance for understanding those cultures whose roots lie in both ancient Greece and in the prophetic religions of the Near East reaching all the way back to Zoroaster. Years later Corbin said “through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed. Platonism, expressed in terms of the Zoroastrian angelology of ancient Persia, illuminated the path that I was seeking.”
Corbin is responsible for redirecting the study of Islamic philosophy as a whole. In his Histoire de la philosophie islamique (1964), he disproved the common view that philosophy among the Muslims came to an end after Ibn Rushd, demonstrating rather that a lively philosophical activity persisted in the eastern Muslim world – especially Iran – and continues to our own day.

Reviews

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a demanding but worthwhile read. Corbin analyzes the Sufi mystical experience in academic terms, but he also does his best to describe something that transcends words and to nourish the reader's intuitive understanding. He has his own political and religious agenda, but instead of steering him into a blinkered mindset, his beliefs serve as a creative springboard. He does tend to be repetitive, but this is probably necessary in order to maintain the reader's concentration. This is a quirky and brilliant book, and it falls into the same general milieu as work by Louis Massignon and Gershom Scholem. I highly recommend it!

[Mana Ravanbod · Rating 3 out of 5]

کربن آدم خاصی‌ست و یک نظام فلسفی قوی پشت کارهاش هست، که می‌شود یکجاهایی‌ش را البته از سر شور و وجد، حالا، نپذیرفت. ولی اینکه سه ستاره دادم چون ترجمه این کتاب بد است. مترجمی که سکس و یوگا ترجمه کند و در مقدمه‌ی کتاب، کربن را کنار جبران خلیل جبران و کاستاندا بگذارد نباید هم بداند دارد چکار می‌کند. وقتی شیخ را و عارف را "استاد" ترجمه می‌کند و فهمش از عرفان و این مباحث کربن در حد کاستاندا باشد انتظاری هم ندارم. وقتی در مقدمه هم برای این ترجمه‌ی خودش دلیل بتراشد قضیه دردناک می‌شود که نتوانی کتابی را که دوست داری بدون غرولند بخوانی. هی مداد دست بگیری و برابرنهادها را تصحیح کنی تا بفهمی قضیه چیست. اینقدر این مترجم در کار خودش پیاده است که ترجمه یک آینه از قران در آستانه‌ی کتاب و در پانویس صد صفحه بعد به دو شکل کاملن متفاوت ثبت می‌کند و اصلن نمی‌داند ربط این آیه مشهور نور به متن کتاب و ساختار کتاب چیست که شرق و غرب را در این آیه خاوری و باختری ترجمه کرده است و نه آنجا که سایه تسلط دارد و آنجا که نور تسلط دارد، به ترجمه‌ی بیژن الهی "سایه‌سو" و "آفتاب‌سو".‏
طرح جلد بد، حروف چینی خام و بقیه موارد را بی‌خیال.‏
اگر کسی بخواهد اشراف کربن را در فلسفه، در زبان عربی و فرانسه و در طرح بحث، به فارسی برگرداند باید کسی باشد که هم مبحث را بداند، هم فرانسه را و هم فارسی را. کسی مثل دکتر کوهکن که کتاب "اسلام ایرانی" را برگردانده و نه کس دیگری در این سالهای ایران.‏
این هم رفت در قسمت کتاب‌های غیرقابل استناد...‏

[Cameron Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting but possibly the densest book I have ever read, possibly due to the fact that he uses established terms in an ideosyncratic way; eg anthropology to mean the physiological makeup of an individual. It takes a long time to figure out what he means and then you realise you are not worthy to read his book until you are an established Sufi scholar. Ah...French academics....

[Gavin White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of my first encounters with the Sufi tradition and although it contains much of interest the book as a whole is rather hard work. Firstly the language employed by the author at times reads like a philosophical treatise using an array of terms totally unfamiliar to most readers, which, combined with numerous unwieldy constructions makes the book difficult to read and at times difficult to understand. A second factor that makes it hard work is the penchant of French intellectuals to try and combine style with content to create an informative work of literature, it may well work in the original French but it generally doesn't translate very well - and this is sadly the case here.
Nevertheless the book does contain much of interest that is not available elsewhere concerning the esoteric conception of the soul in the Sufi tradition and especially the symbolism of colours. For that, and much more, it is worth an effort to get to grips with. I will, no doubt, return to it and examine some sections in greater detail.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Corbin is the very best interpretor of the Great Sheikh Ibn Arabi and other heavy Sufi thinkers. In The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, he explores the impact of Zoroastrianism on burgeoning Persian Sufism. Among topics covered are the roots of Illuminism, encountering one's Perfect Nature or Holy Guardian Angel, and a study of the role of color in visionary experience. Yes, this can be slow going but it rewards the smart, patient reader in unexpected ways.

[Jasbeer Musthafa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corbin is one among those authors/philosophers whom I had real difficult to comprehend. This book was one among those titles that made me work hard between lines. This book is a dense analysis of Persian luminaries of mysticism- Suhrawardi, Semnani, Najmuddhin al Kubra et al. This is a recommendable title to anyone who seeks knowledge on esoteric significance. You may find it bit tricky to understand but you will be fascinated!

[Gabriel Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense. Very, very dense. Like a neutron star of scholarly mysticism. As with the previous book by Corbin I’ve read, the parallels between the ‘coloured lights’ of Sufi esotericism and the colour scales of the Western Mysteries are striking.

[Bardon Kaldian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corbin, the foremost French (and, in all probability, world) authority on Sufism and Shiite esotericism, discusses in his familiar baroque and stream-of-consciousness erudite style three Iranian sages-mystics: Suhrawardi (the martyred founder of Ishraqi/Illuminative school of Islamic esotericism ), Kubra (the founder of an influential Sufi order) and Simnani (an orthodox Sufi master who left behind a voluminous corpus of esoteric writings). What do these men have in common ?

At least, two things:

They all developed variants of highly imaginative multilayered metaphysics (especially Suhrawardi) and set up "theoretical" framework which was later used to interpret spectacular (one might blasphemously say "Cecildemillean" or LSD-like) visionary experiences.

Another common "trademark" is the Man of Light , the "inner man" who is the projection of (Arch)Angel Gabriel, or Supreme Spirit (Ar-Ruh al-Qudsi), or the Perfect Nature: in short, everyone's "True" or Higher Self.

One might add that the three mystics have been differentiated-dualists (therefore, alien to Ibn Arabi's monist Wahdat-al-Wujud doctrine), and that the latter duo (in sharp contrast to the extravagant and highly original visionary genius of mutilated Suhrawardi ) remained impeccably orthodox. Their originality lies in the development of Islamic version of esoteric physiology: latifa, the supposed organs/subtle centers of suprasensory perception, are essentially Kubra's and Simnani's spiritual legacy.

Ironically, the central image of the entire opus comes not from Iran, or Sufism of any variety- but from the heterodox Gnostic writings of the 3rd century C.E. Greek- Egyptian alchemist Zosimos & a few other Gnostic scriptures, including Mary the Prophetess' sayings; a parable on two brothers: Prometheus Phos, the Light and Knowledge radiating Neoplatonized Prometheus from Hesiod and Plato- just transformed from a Titanic personality to a Titanic principle, and his twin brother Epimetheus, the latter succumbing to the pleasures of this world which envelop and hypnotize him into stupor, sexuality and dream. Brothers are presented as polar forces or quasi- beings of diverging energies inhabiting the nuclear spiritual self, the Man of Light passing through the Odyssey of physical incarnation. Prometheus Phos is, in his battle for individual entity's spiritual destiny, aided by the Nous, the true Self whose radiance or "ray" he is. In Arabic Hermetic texts from the 10th and the 11th centuries C.E., this "Higher Self" (modern, New Age parlance) is called al-tiba' al-tamm; in other traditions related to the Gnostic and Hermetic worldviews - Nous, Pneuma (Pagan Greek), Christ, the Son (Neoplatonic Christianity), Ar-Ruh Al- Qudsi, Nur-i- Muhammadi (variants of Islamic Sufism), Adam Kadmon (Lurianic Kabbalah in Judaism) or the triple principle Yechida-Chaya-Neshama. Other portions of the book include Green Light, Heavenly witness, supra-sensory organs of perception, Goethean science on "physiological colors" (dated and wacky) etc. Corbin's presentation is replete with examples from Zoroastrian mythology and mythic psychology, Gnostic Christian and Hermetic traditions.

This is what differentiates Gnosis from other forms of spiritual psychologies that go beyond the psyche. In Advaita and in Zen/Ch'an, you have only the Self which is equal to the Being. In more nuanced doctrines of Philosophia Perennis, you encounter both self, which is the entity, and the Self, which is the source of that entity. So, in the Vajrayana Buddhism, you have shes-pa and rig-pa or in Sanskrit, vijnana/the principle of consciousness & the Buddha Nature/Buddhata; in the Rhineland school of Neoplatonic Christianity, you have "scintilla animae" or fuenklein/spark & inner Christ Logos; in the Neo-Confucian/Taoist synthesis, this is the case with shen/spirit or "pearl" & the Original Nature/Hsin; in Hermetism, it is the Man of Light (Photeinos Anthropos) & the Perfect Nature (Natura Perfecta, in Greek Mind/Nous); in non-Advaita variants of Vedanta, it is jiva & Atman; in Christian Gnosticism it is the spiritual seed/sperme pneumatike and Angel Christ/Angelos Christos ...

Advice: the central chapter is 2, the rest may be only cursorily read.

[Jimmy Ele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Pun intended.

[Shaarzad_]

بدترین، افتضاح‌ترین و غلط انداز‌ترین ترجمه‌ای که در تمام عمرم باهاش برخورد داشتم. بشدت از کتاب و موضوع دل زده ام‌ کرد . ترجمه این‌ کتاب به قلم آقای جواهری نیا تجسم‌ مسلم یک کابوس بود

[Ed Schulte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone with direct experience(s) of the subjective light, non-reflected , Divine light will immediately recognize what Corbin was wanting to convey. I doubt he himself had such experiences but no matter. His scholastic enthusiasm for Iranian Sufism and love of the Light subject shines bright here.

[Sherwin]

A poetic-philosophical concept: The man of light.

[Kelly Nezat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books I've read on Sufism and the Pir.