ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Sohravardi and the Question of Knowledge Imaginal World In regards to the hierarchy of being, Sohravardi divides reality into four realms: 1) the world of sovereignty*(‘alam al-jabarut* ) or intellects (al-‘uqul), 2) the world of celestial and human souls*(‘alam al-malakut* ), 3) the imaginal world*(‘alam al-muthul* ), and 4) the material world (‘alam al-mulk), which includes the spheres and the physical elements.

Sohravardi claims that he unveiled these worlds through a genuine mystical experience. The most important of these realms in regards to our present purposes is the third realm, the imaginal world (or mondus imaginalis, as Henry Corbin has called it). This realm is one of Sohravardi’s great contributions to spiritual cosmology, and he calls it by various names including nakuja abad (Utopia, or “Land of nowhere”).

It is a world of wonders where the mysterious cities of Jabulqa, Jabulsa and Huvarqalya are located. This theory of the imaginal world is one of the essential elements of Sohravardi’s philosophy on which many of his epistemological and cosmological views are based. The imaginal realm, which is beyond matter, time and place, is the realm of immaterial forms and it is the origin of the forms and shapes of the material objects. Objects in this world have form and shape, but not material content.

Mirror images, imaginary forms, and the images in dreams as well as those of genies and devils, belong to this world. Only those souls who follow the ascetic life, pass the mysterious cosmic mountain of Qaf and find enlightenment are able to experience this world. The imaginal realm is a real world and should be distinguished from the realm of images which exists only in the human mind. By creative imagination we can apprehend the imaginal world.

Sohravardi’s imaginal world must also be distinguished from the ideal world of Plato. Plato’s Ideas are unchangeable luminous realities, whereas Sohravardi’s forms are without substance and have manifestations in the material world. Sohravardi explains resurrection, formal visions and the miracles of saints in terms of this world (2/229-235).

In summation, Sohravardi, like other philosophers, accepts self-evident truths, sensory perception and the principles of logic as foundations of speculative thinking and thus accepts speculative philosophy.