The Legacy of Henry Corbin: "Henry Corbin's Understanding of Ismailism"

"...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.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

"Henry Corbin's Understanding of Ismailism"

Zayn Kassam on "Henry Corbin's Understanding of Ismailism" in SIMERG

Zayn Kassam is Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She received her Ph.D. from McGill University in the History of Religions in 1995, with a specialization in Islamic and Indian Philosophy. She teaches courses on women in Islam, Islamic mysticism, Islamic philosophy, as well as contemporary Muslim literature. More recently, she has also been teaching courses on religion and the environment.

Editor’s Note: This article was published in an earlier revision in Hikmat, July 1991, Vol III No. 5, pages 46-52.