However...

However, this does not mean that the soul knows everything about itself; nor does it necessitate the soul knowing the external and internal parts of its body (2/112). Humankind knows itself constantly and is not unaware of itself in any moment: this knowledge does not depend on body.

Sohravardi in Partov Nameh writes: “Know that you may forget each part of your body … and you may neglect each body and accident (‘arad), but you never forget yourself, and you know yourself without knowing these things. Thus, your essence is not any of these” (3/23). This is, according to Sohravardi, a proof of the immateriality of the soul.

He continues: “You call yourself ‘I,’ and you can refer to parts of your body as ‘it,’ and whatsoever you can call ‘it’ is different from the one in you who says ‘I;’ for whatever is ‘it’ for you is not ‘I’ of you…thus you are beyond all these” (3/23). Another proof of the immateriality of soul is that humankind is able to perceive abstract meanings; if it were corporeal it could not perceive abstract meanings.

According to Sohravardi, the soul’s knowledge of itself and its faculties and immaterial realities are immediate and by presence. Other immaterial realities such as angles’ knowledge are of this type. Knowledge of God is also immediate. God’s self-knowledge is identical with His essence and His knowledge of other things is by illumination; God knows them directly, not through their forms or images; they are themselves God’s knowledge.

The most fundamental principle of Sohravardi’s philosophy, and since his time in Islamic philosophy in general, is knowledge by presence. According to some accounts, self-evident truths also depend on this knowledge. Without self-awareness no knowledge is possible. Furthermore, self-knowledge is immediate, does not depend on any other knowledge and is not acquired knowledge.

Knowledge by correspondence depends on knowledge by presence, because knowledge by correspondence is knowledge via concepts or forms, and our knowledge of concepts and forms is immediate, not via other concepts or forms; otherwise we would face an infinite regress. Therefore, all conceptual knowledge depends on immediate knowledge. One of the characteristics of immediate knowledge is that it is immune from error. Error takes place when a mental form does not correspond with its object.