Philosophy in Islam: The Concept of Shiʿism as a Philosophical Genre

Oliver Leaman

From: Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies
Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 2016
pp. 132-143 | 10.1353/isl.2016.0012

Abstract

ABSTRACT:

It has been recently argued that there are problems in identifying Islamic philosophy with Shiʿism. This is despite the fact that many Islamic philosophers were actually Shiʿi. An interesting and connected question is whether there is such a thing as Shiʿi philosophy, and many commentators use this term. It looks plausible that a particular theological and religious orientation would be reflected in philosophy. After all, all these views are theoretical and abstract and need to be connected logically, so it would seem likely that they would all be aligned in some way. However, there are problems with such a view, and these rest on two main points. Firstly, theology does not necessarily bring along with it a metaphysics, and so different theological views may be linked with contrary or similar philosophical approaches. To give an example, both Mullā Ṣadrā and Mīr Dāmād were philosophers, and both were Shiʿi, yet they defended entirely different ontologies. Secondly, theology does not necessarily involve a particular style of writing. Some theologians are interested in writing in such a way that only those sympathetic to them understand what they are saying, but many are not. Some direct their work to a particular audience while others seek to address a more general audience. In fact, Shiʿi philosophers often make sure that there is nothing Shiʿi about their work since they want to resonate with the Islamic world as a whole, not only the Shiʿi minority. If we look at a range of Shiʿi philosophers, it will be argued that it is difficult to detect a specific theological line that they embody in their philosophies, and so we should be careful about using the concept of Shiʿi philosophy.

The Imaginal World and Modern Oblivion: Kiarostami’s Zig-Zag by Joan Copjec

The Imaginal World and Modern Oblivion: Kiarostami’s Zig-Zag

Joan Copjec

Filozofski vestnik | Volume XXXVII | Number 2 | 2016 | 21–58

A zigzag path carved into a hill winds from base to crest, where it is crowned by a lushly-leafed tree standing solitary and upright like a kind of hieratic bouquet: this image recurs in three ¨lms – Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987); Life and Nothing More (1992); and Through the Olive Trees (1994) – which critics refer to as “the Koker trilogy,” simply because they are all set in the same location, the village of Koker in Northern Iran. Easily mistaken for a “found” image, part of the natural geography of the films’ actual setting, the recurrence of the image would seem to raise no questions nor require explanation. And yet there can be no confusing this image with natural geography, for as we learn from interviews, the films’ director, Abbas Kiarostami, did not just stumble upon this peculiar landscape while scouting locations. He had his ¨lm crew carve the pronounced zigzag path into the hill. An artiœcial landscape, then, inserted by Kiarostami into the natural setting, it replicates, as it turns out, a miniature found in a manuscript executed at Shiraz in southern Persia at the end of the fourteenth century. In the miniature, just as in the Koker trilogy, a sinuous path curls up the side of a hill atop which sprouts a single, °owering tree. This miniature graces the cover of Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, a book on Islamic philosophy in which the book’s author, the infuential Iranologist, Henry Corbin, praises the miniature as “the best illustration… which has come down to us today” of what he calls “visionary geography.” Distinct from natural geography or physically “situated space,” which is organized according to pre-established coordinates, visionary geography is, instead, “situative.” Neither purely abstract nor purely concrete and sensible, visionary geography is a “third” or intermediary realm between the abstract and •ƒ–the sensible; it functions as a creative forecourt of sensible reality, as the origin of [actual] spatial references and [that which] determines their structure.” In this realm the sense-perceptible is raised and pure intelligibility lowered to the same level, matter is immaterialized and spirit corporealized or, “to use a term currently in favor,” Corbin adds, “an anamorphosis is produced.” In Arabic this intermediate space is called alam-al-mithal: Corbin translated it: monde imaginal, the imaginal world...

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Traversing The Imaginal Knowledge

“The Possibility of Traversing The Imaginal Knowledge- Remarks of Muhammad B. Abd Al-Jabbār Al-Niffarī on Vision (Ru’yah) and Absence (Ghaybah)” 

Koltaş, Nurullah,

Journal of Faculty of Theology of Bozok University, 

10, 10 (2016/10) pp. 165-183.

pdf

Abstract 

Among the various aspects those make the Sūfī world view unique, the lore or the knowledge attained through the purification of the self plays a vital role. For, it has its roots in Revelation. Despite the diversity in methods (usūl), many representatives of Sūfī thought are in agreement concerning the nature of this profound knowledge. The ways differ in accordance with the capacity of the ones who demand it. However, the authenticity of it enables seekers to lead a life akin to that of the Perfect Man. In order to gain this sort of inward knowledge, the sufīs appeal to the opinions of the masters of theoretical Sufism (irfān-i nazarī) who define the ways to understand the truth that lies behind the veils. One of these masters is Muhammad b. Abd al-Jabbār al-Niffarī, the writer of al-Mawaqif wa al-Mukhatabat. Niffarī’s work consists of mawqifs those written in an almost abstruse language. Niffarī explains many sufi terms including the staying, veil, gnosis, vision, etc. skilfully. In this article, we will try to explain the nature of veils and unveiling in the context of vision as a suprarational means of attaining the truth. Then we will try to find out the role of vision through imagination. Finally, we will try to explain the relation of vision with the absence. 

Keywords: Staying, vision, absence, gnosis, veil

The Unseen Partner (update)

Reviewed here

Goodreads Book Giveaway

 

The Unseen Partner

by Diane L. Croft

Giveaway ends January 31, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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The Unseen Partner

Love & Longing in the Unconscious

by

Diane Croft

Visit the website

Don't miss this gorgeous book! I have waited years with great anticipation for this book. 

It is even more beautiful than I expected. It's really a volume to treasure. My congratulations
to the author for the perfect completion of a long labor of love. Here's my 

contribution to the small flood of positive reviews:

"In the tradition of Jung’s Red Book and Edinger’s The Living Psyche, Diane Croft’s The Unseen Partner is a beautifully illustrated, gorgeously produced and deeply moving account of personal transformation. Croft’s presentation of her own visionary recital in the company of the invisible guide who dictated these poems will be inspiration and solace to all who find themselves suddenly strangers in the strange and often frightening realm of the autonomous psyche. We should be grateful for such a gift." - Tom Cheetham

Visit the website for more reviews and details about this book. Here is an introduction:

The Unseen Partner records one woman's descent into the collective unconscious, a universal field of reality transcending time, space, and matter. For three years, the author recorded the primordial poetry she found there. It took almost two decades of struggle to make sense of the experience and to write about it in this book.

Drawing heavily on the discoveries of C.G. Jung, as recounted in his Red Book, this book explains our human need for the transcendent -- a dimension not somewhere else, but inextricably a part of us. Her living account demonstrates that we live in both a physical world and a spiritual realm simultaneously.

It is also available on amazon.

The Octopus: A Meditation on Creative Imagination 

by Tom Cheetham

Phi Beta Kappa Lecture 

The Connecticut College Department of Philosophy, 

Blaustein Center for the Humanities, 

March 29, 2013

A Short Biography of HC

Spiritual Light in the work of James Turrell

« L'expérience spirituelle à la lumière des installations de James Turrell » 

Cosmopolis, no. 3-4, 2016

Daniel Proulx

Daniel Proulx, philosophe et religiologue. Spécialiste de la pensée de Henry Corbin et du rôle de l’imagination dans l’expérience spirituelle, il tente de contribuer à un renouveau des études sur Henry Corbin en valorisant l’aspect philosophique de son œuvre. Il poursuit actuellement un doctorat de philosophie à l’Université catholique de Louvain sur la conception de l’histoire chez Henry Corbin. Il est membre actif des associations des amis de Henry Corbin et de Gilbert Durand.

Résumé

En reversant le rapport usuel à l’espace et à la lumière James Turrell, ne propose pas une simple modification ou altération d’un espace, il propose, en faisant de la lumière, non pas ce qui fait voir une œuvre, mais l’œuvre elle-même, une véritable transfiguration qui laisse un instant transparaître ce que l’on pourrait facilement caractériser comme la nature spirituelle d’un espace. Ce texte propose une analyse de l’œuvre de Turrell en se demandant si son travail n’est pas une représentation visuelle, mais aussi expérientielle pouvant aider les philosophes à comprendre les nombreuses descriptions mystiques qui font appel à la lumière.