Three Treatises on Sufism By Shihabuddin Suhrawerdi Maqtul

Trained in Avicennan Peripateticism, Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154–1191) became the founder of an Illuminationist (ishraqi) philosophical tradition in the Islamic East. Since none of his works were translated into Latin, he remained unknown in the West; but from the 13th century onwards, his works were studied in a number of philosophical circles in the Islamic East. In the mid-20th century, Henry Corbin worked relentlessly to edit and study his writings, which led to renewed interest in Suhrawardi’s works and thought, especially in the later part of the 20th century. Suhrawardi’s works circulated mainly within the traditional philosophical circles of learning of the Islamic East until the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries when, in the wake of the works of Carra de Vaux, Max Horten, Louis Massignon, Otto Spies and Khatak, and Helmut Ritter, the French Iranologist Henry Corbin began to study and edit a great number of his works. Otto Spies and Khatak’s work remains the stepping stone to the more elaborate study of this great Islamic philosopher.