The Legacy of Henry Corbin: Major Works by Henry Corbin in English

"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland. He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide. But Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Major Works by Henry Corbin in English

Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Translated by Willard Trask, Princeton: Princeton Unviersity Press/Bollingen Series LXVI, 1960.
Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi. Translated by Ralph Manheim, Princeton: Princeton University Press/Bollingen Series XCI, 1969. (Re-issued as Alone with the Alone, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).
Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis. Translated by Ralph Manheim, James W. Morris, London: Kegan Paul International, 1983.
Spiritual Body & Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi'ite Iran. Translated by Nancy Pearson, Princeton: Princeton University Press/Bollingen Series XCI: 2, (Important 5th Printing, 1989, with Prelude to the Second Edition: Towards a Chart of the Imaginal), 1977.
Temple and Contemplation. Translated by Philip Sherrard and Liadain Sherrard, London: KPI, 1986.
The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Translated by Nancy Pearson. New Lebanon, NY: Omega Publications, 1994.