---
product_id: 7986489
title: "The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism"
brand: "henry corbin"
price: "€ 44.78"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.hr/products/7986489-the-man-of-light-in-iranian-sufism
store_origin: HR
region: Croatia
---

# The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism

**Brand:** henry corbin
**Price:** € 44.78
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- **What is this?** The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism by henry corbin
- **How much does it cost?** € 44.78 with free shipping
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## Description

The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    The Quest for Orientation and the Dawning of the Inner Light
  

*by C***L on Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2019*

In the Sufism of ancient Iran, according to Corbin’s Man of Light,  the quest for the dawning of light in the cosmic North (“the heavenly pole and Orient of immaterial Light”) symbolizes the mystic’s search for realization.  In this spiritual journey, the light arising in man’s inner darkness – the Northern Light or Midnight Sun – represents the impartial but brilliant light of Truth, that which sets us free from egotism and from slavery to material existence. Corbin’s primary focus is on Shaikh al-Ishraq’ Suhrawardi (“Master of Illumination”) (1154-1191),  the founder of the Iranian School of Illuminationism, which drew upon Zoroastrian and Platonic ideas. Suhrawardi thought of himself as a reviver of the ancient tradition of Persian wisdom, of Mazdeism, Manicheism, Hermetism and particularly Iranian Sufism. Orientation, the quest for the Orient, is a primary phenomenon of our presence in the world, especially for the Sufi. The man of light is held captive by Darkness and struggling to free himself from Darkness.  The light, the point of orientation was not the sun rising in the east, but the heavenly north, the pole star, the aurora borealis (“Northern Lights”), the supersensory, mystical Orient, the place of the Origin and the Return.  In truth, the light was inner light, the “Sun of the heart,” the Sun of the mystery,” the “Sun of the Spirit,” the “initiatic light.”  For Suhrawardi, the quest culminated in the visio smaragdina, the outburst of emerald light heralding ‘the secret of the mystery of Mysteries.’ The emerald light is described in Revelation: “round [God’s] throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald.”  It is the Emerald Tablet for Thoth-Hermes.This reascent of light to light, the ascent of the ‘column of Light,’ this mystical experience fills a function of cosmic salvation.  “To attain fully to this Illumination is salvation.”  Corbin emphasizes that “the terms light and darkness, clarity and obscurity, are neither metaphor nor comparisons. The mystic really and actually sees light and darkness, by a kind of vision that depends on an organ other than the physical organ of sight.”  The means of reaching this aim is dhikr – “continuous prayer.” The practice of dhikr includes also a whole system of techniques: movements of the head, control of breathing, certain postures, possibly revealing "Taoist" [Tantric] influence. This can also be compared with kundalini awakening and the hesychast experience of the Divine Light of the Transfiguration.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Vintage Corbin
  

*by P***S on Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2018*

I've read parts or all of the majority of Corbins books, and he is the most difficult of the four writers I sometimes group together in my reviews (the other 3 are Scholem, Jonas and Eliade.) I can't comment on the accuracy or authenticity of Corbins interpretation and presentation of Sufism, or Islam. Very, very few would be qualified to do so, and I would suspect that most who are well enough versed in Middle Eastern literature would be unqualified to appraise the esoteric areas of study in which Corbin truly excels. All I can do is analyze the text that we here have:As everyone says, its very good and rewarding, but difficult. I don't find the connections between Iranian and Hellenistic philosophy and Christian theosophy challenging, having studied a little bit of Arabic and Greek philosophy being one of my specialties. I think the trouble I have is in Corbin drawing all of the above into an over-arching programme of Phenomenology that I'm not sure was within the original authors respective intentions.What we end up with then is a maze of Zoroastrian, Manichaean and Sufi neologisms that in some respects resembles a modern version of Jacob Boehme. But whereas the writing of Boehme is circular in form and endlessly self-referential, drawing in Paracelsian alchemy and Kabbalah by several removes, Corbin reinterprets the Persian and Muslim figures to explicate his own Phenomenological system.A typical structure that both use goes something like this: 1 corresponds to A. 2 corresponds to A. 3 corresponds to A. 4 corresponds to A. But 4 is also an aspect of 1 and A is also a reference to B...Rewarding reading on the original authors, exponentially moreso, when we consider Corbin as a philosopher in his own right and as a scholar who preserves the thought of others but also systematizes and elaborates. I for one just am unsure where to sketch the dichotomy where one tendency ends and the other begins. Thank you.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    One of very few books on the importance of Black Color Symbolism.
  

*by M***K on Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2014*

I recently purchased many of Corbin's books including this one, and like anteKA, I was immediately taken by experience of the Black Light due to my own sapiential knowledge of it. The meaning of Color, and the primal colors, is not one that is written about extensively. Black in particular is quite often perceived as negative. The important thing is how one looks at that (excuse the pun). It can be rationally processed or inwardly processed by the Intellect. Frederic Portal wrote an essay on Color  (which I discovered through reading Martin Lings' Symbol & Archetype and available through Kessinger Legacy Reprints on Amazon among other places ) but it is written in older Victorian English and still removed from the actual experience of color especially when dealing with Black. Apuleius refers to this experience of the Black Light as seeing the Midnight Sun in The Golden Ass when Lucius is initiated into the Mysteries of Isis by none other than the Queen of the Night herself. The most direct profound description I have personally found is in Dionysius The Areopagite's The Mystical Theology (Eastern Christianity). Spot on! I highly recommend that.I agree that this is tough reading. I suspect the original French is as well.  Tom Cheetham writes on Corbin and you should look at his books if you're interested in Corbin specifically. For PL000, the best complete source on the overall theme of forgetting and recovery of the sacred is Seyyed Hossein Nasr's Knowledge and the Sacred. It's written in a academic style, but not as dense as Corbin's translated works, having been given as a series of lectures (Gifford) in 1981, but it is the best overview of Traditionalist thought up to this point in time and will help you place much of this in context. Good luck in your search.

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*Last updated: 2026-03-21*