Meditations on Suhrawardī Nūr Mujarrad

(‘light made bare’, or ‘denuded light’ – trans.O. Louchakova)

Known less than his illustrious spiritual contemporary, Mu?y al-Din ibn ‘Arabi, Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi was a practicing 12th century Sufi gnostic and metaphysician who developed a unique unitive metaphysics of light. The degree to which we can adopt his metaphysical philosophy as a way of practice depends on the correct reading of the key term in Suhrawardi’s philosophy, nur mujarrad (Louchakova-Schwartz, 2013, to appear). A direct (non-metaphorical) signification in Suhrawardi’s key term, nur mujarrad, clarifies the question of essences in the doctrine of Wa?dad al-Wujud. It is possible that Suhrawardi’s legacy of egological self-investigations assisted ibn ‘Arabi in offsetting the pressure of mu‘ta’zilite metaphorical interpretations of the Qur’an. The juxtaposition of idealistic (rationalistic) and phenomenological interpretations of the concept of light may explain why the successor of Qunawi in the lineage of ibn ‘Arabi,  Qu?b al Shirazi, found it necessary to write extensive commentaries on ?ikmat al-Ishraq.

The term nur mujarrad (Arabic) is explained in Suhrawardi’s ?ikmat al­-Ishraq. Translated by Walbridge and Ziai as “incorporeal light”, by Henry Corbin as “immaterial light”, this light “cannot be pointed to, nor be located in a body, nor have spatial dimensions" (112).  The adjective mujarrad, which is past participle of the verb jarrada (“to strip away, remove the outside covering, peel off the shell”) does not means “incorporeal” or “immaterial”.  I translate nur mujarrad as “denuded light” or “light made bare”. This translation points to the specific mental operation, tajrid, which can be used for meditation on the nature of Reality and the sameness of internal and external or visible light.

In The Epistle of the High Towers, Corbin mentions a fraternity of mystics whom he calls mujarrad-s, whose goal is to join the light of taw?id. In Bakar, Osman. B. 1998. Classification of knowledge in Islam: A study in Islamic philosophies of science. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, I found a reference to commentary made by S.H. Nasr with regard to a possible transmission of internal practices from Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi; I believe that even though there is no direct lineage remaining, it is possible to reconstruct such practice by the careful reading of Suhrawardi’s text.

Please click here to listen to a podcast at Ibn-Arabi symposium, Lecture about Suhrawardi at MIAS Symposium 2013