Medieval Philosophy

An Islamic subversion of the
Existence-Essence Distinction?
Suhrawardí and the philosophy of Light Mysticism

Sajjad H Rizvi
Pembroke College

ABSTRACT: The distinction between existence and essence within contingent beings is one of the foundational, hegemonic ideas of the discourse of medieval philosophy. Building upon neo-Platonic precursors, thinkers such as Avicenna, Aquinas and William of Auvergne discussed this issue and debated the nature of the distinction. However, one Islamic philosopher who was to have a lasting impact upon the development of philosophical discourse in Iran, subverted the traditional Peripatetic visions of reality and brought into question the very nature of half of the distinction — existence. Through a critique of the Peripatetic notion of existence, Suhrawardi (c.1191) shows how the distinction is absurd and irrelevant for metaphysical inquiry. Suhrawardi refuses to accept traditional Peripatetic realism and has little need for the distinction's role in affirming contingency and the existence of a Necessary Existence. Later Islamic philosophy's insistence on an essentialist reading of Suhrawardi could be described as a category mistake confusing his concept of light with their concept of existence. An analysis of his major texts will show how this cannot be the case. Finally, an attempt will be made to explain this misreading and suggest that the Platonic hermeneutic of essential vision which Suhrawardi expounds might be the reason for it.

Shihåb al-Dín Suhrawardí [exe.1191] was an influential mystical philosopher and founder of the school of ishråq (illumination) whose phenomenological view of reality led him to reject the concrete nature of existence. Suhrawardí's position on existence and his basic rejection of a metaphysics of distinction represent both an alternative to Peripatetic metaphysics as well as provide a key to understanding the radical synthesis of later Islamic philosophy by Mullå Íadrå [d.1641]. The central issue revolves around an anachronistic reading of a later aporia: where does Suhrawardí stand on the question of primacy within the distinction between existence and essence? Is essence or existence primary ? Traditionally this question has been answered by Mullå Íadrå and his school by stating that Suhrawardí believed in asålat al-måhiyya (primacy of quiddity). This claim has to be verified and explained. Four central questions emerge. What does existence signify for Suhrawardí and is it ontologically distinguished from being? Is 'light' the same as being as understood by Íadrå? How does Suhrawardí understand the distinction and relate it to his metaphysics of contingency?

i) Wujúd and Existence in Suhrawardí

Suhrawardí sets out in the logic of Óikmat al-Ishråq, 'The wisdom of illumination' his mature magnum opus, to deconstruct the distinction through a critique of the Peripatetic theory of definition.(1) His attempt is to disprove the ontological status of being(2) and replace it with the notion of existence as a 'conceptual mode of being' and as a common concept such as quiddity.(3) As such, therefore, being has no existential status (mawjúdiyya).(4) Since he understands the Peripatetics as arguing for existence as 'being actual' and the distinction as a real composition, his attack on this idea focusses on separating the concept of 'existence' from 'existent'.

The distinction applies only to contingent beings, so he begins with a discussion of the divisions 0f contingents and the individuation of a particular contingent through preponderation.(5) He proceeds to his refutation of existence's real status. The first step requires a proof of the impossibility of infinite ranked units in a series, which had also been argued by Avicenna.(6) Then he argues that existence has one general meaning and as such is a mental predicate:

"existence occurs with one meaning (ma<na) and one notion (mafhúm) for blackness and whiteness, and man and horse, so it is a meaning which is more commonly intelligible than each one (of these); and similarly the notion of quiddity absolutely, and thingness and reality (®aqíqa) and essence (dhåt) absolutely, so we claim that these predicables (ma®múlåt) are purely mental (<aqliyya)."(7)

The argument has already progressed towards showing that existence is a mental concept only.(8) This point is then stressed by showing that there are different notions of existence for God and different types of contingent being — Suhrawardí remains keen to safeguard this basic ontological distinction. If existence has one meaning then it cannot refer to both existence and other-than-it (in an uninstantiated mode).(9) The concept of existent is thus separated from existence and Suhrawardí proves this with his argument of infinite regress, a classic theological form of disputation which in its content shows signs of influence from Fakhr al-Dín al-Råzí [d.1209]:(10)

"if blackness is non-existence, then its existence does not occur [in re], and so its existence is not existent, since its existence is also non-existent. When we intellect existence, and we judge that it is non-existent, then the notion of existence is not the notion of existent. Then if we say: [a] blackness exists which we had taken to be non-existent and its existence to be non-occurring, [after which] its existence occurred, so the occurrence of the existence is other-than-it. Thus the existence has an existence, and the argument returns to the existence of the existence ad infinitum. The gathering together of attributes in rank which are infinite is impossible."(11)

Given his preamble on ranked series, the point is made. The regress denies existence real predication and assumes that there is a lack of tashkík (analogy)in being and a difference between existence and an existent.(12) This is the reason for his insistence that thingness and existence are not synonymous.(13) He appeals to common sense by saying that 'mumkin al-wujúd' (possible being) cannot mean the same as 'mumkin al-shay>' (possible thing).(14) Thus if existence is added to thingness in re, the regress argument is activated. Such a difference does seem mere sophistry. Íadrå strongly attacks this argument in Kitåb al-mashå<ir, quoting Avicenna in his Ta<líqåt he says:

"if someone asks : does existence exist? The answer is that it is an existent in the sense that the reality of existent is being an existent, for existence is precisely being existent."(15)

An alternative form of Suhrawardí's argument begins by considering the 'accidentality' of being as understood by Averroes:(16)

"if existence occurs in re, and it is not a substance"(17)

and he has already shown that the two are different as thingness and existence are separable,(18)

"then it is clear that it is an accident in the thing and so it does not occur independently. [After which] its locus occurs so it is found before its locus and not that its locus occurs with it, since it exists with existence and not by existence and it is impossible."

Thus it would be circular to suggest that being is both an accident and real. Shahrazúrí(19) says that this is an important argument since the Peripatetics agree that an existent is either substance or accident. Again the premise of the argument can be criticised. It only holds if being is regarded as a real accident which it is not for Avicenna.(20) Íadrå points out that substance as a quiddity is a general meaning — it is existence, on the other hand, which has real occurrence:

"existential realities are concrete ipseities and individual essences (dhawåt) which are not ranked under [the category of] universal either essential or accidental."(21)

The non-occurrence of universals in re is again affirmed by Íadrå.

The aim of Suhrawardí is to show that all concepts which the Peripatetics consider to be a priori and real such as wujúd, thingness, affirmative existence (thubút), contingency (imkån) and necessity (wujúb) are merely mental considerations (i<tibårí)(22) with no corresponding reality. Suhrawardí redefines wujúd as reified being and as such he rejects it, replacing it with a common sense understanding of existence as a mere linguistic connective. Suffering from an 'anxiety of influence' with respect to Peripatetic philosophy, he fails to escape the language of being and even seems to assert the concreteness of it when discussing the divisions of reality into substance and accidents. Reality is that which exists externally:

"everything which has an existence (wujúd) outside of the mind."(23)

Nevertheless, the metaphysics of substance contingency based on reified being is supplanted by his vision of the hierarchy of lights which represent true reality.

ii) Light and Category Mistake?

What exactly does light mean for Suhrawardí? It is the underlying reality and the instantiating principle of all things in reality. Everything is rooted ontologically in light and it has absolute primacy.(24) Given that this is how the Íadrian school describes being, it is not surprising to find the equation with being in the later tradition. Suhrawardí says in Óikmat al-Ishråq,

"there is in existence that which does not need definition nor explanation and it is clear; and there is nothing more evident (aóhar) than light (al-núr) and nothing which is more free from the need for definition."(25)

Suhrawardí's metaphysics is therefore based on what is manifest and accessible to direct experience.(26) So we find Nasr and even Netton(27) arguing that, "ishråqí thought saw existence itself as light." But here light has taken on a metaphorical role with respect to being (28) — often in the later tradition the oneness and primacy as well as the systematic ambiguity of being is explained with reference to light as an ontological trope. Light as a metaphor for existence has two levels of meaning: first, it is an immediate sign of reality and as such equated with existence; and secondly, it is a mediate sign for a figurative meaning for reality. Walbridge argues that the former 'equation' is a misunderstanding and that it is anachronistic to equate what Suhrawardí means by light with what he means by existence.(29) But when one considers what Avicenna and Íadrå meant by being, making the equation does not seem so problematic on the metaphilosophical level of an understanding of ontological reality.

The hierarchy of lights is Suhrawardí's descriptive metaphysics of contingency, which functions like Íadrå's hierarchy of being. The contingent is that which does not have light/being in itself but has it from other than itself — the Light of Lights (núr al-anwår) or the Pure Being (al-wujúd al-muñlaq). Light is thus the prime existential principle, while quiddities remain principles of differentiation.(30) Thus it would seem to be the case that on this issue there is no category mistake — ultimately Suhrawardí's light is Íadrå's being, though one must keep the distinction to understand the chronological development of these ideas.

iii) The Distinction for Suhrawardí

Since all reality for Suhrawardí is a hierarchy of lights, the distinction has little real value. It is an unnecessary method for affirming contingency and cannot be derived from the dyadic nature of material beings constituted of matter and form — for Suhrawardí, there is no such duality.(31) An apophatic analysis may enlighten Suhrawardí's position on the distinction.

First, it is not a means for asserting contingency. Since God is not described in terms of Being, the being of contingents cannot be related to him in this way.(32) The difference between Necessary and contingent being depends on whether it has light in itself or light from other-than-it.(33)

Secondly, existence is not a real occurrent but an attribute of essence.(34) The distinction reflects an epistemology based on representational knowledge since Peripatetism asserts that images of quiddities are intelligible but being is directly intuited. Such a method cannot lead to certain knowledge since it ignores light. Al-Dåwåní [d.1501] says in his commentary to Suhrawardí's Hayåkil al-núr:

"knowledge (<ilm) is a light (núr) by which the essences of things (®aqå>iq al-ashyå>) are manifested."(35)

Knowledge depends on light, the existential principle which illuminates essences and not existences which are not real.(36) It can only be conveyed through presence to the light. Suhrawardí clearly states in Óikmat al-Ishråq that real definition requires vision of essences and the Peripatetic definition of existents is impossible because existence is not realised.(37) The distinction cannot remain if existence is not real and if its epistemological foundations are suspect.

Thirdly, it is not a real distinction. Suhrawardí rejects any distinction in objective reality since both potential essence and actual existence are notional (i<tibårí.)(38) In fact, given Lonergan's typology of distinctions(39) one might consider Suhrawardí to be accepting a mixed distinction if any, where notional existence is added to the real particularised instance of quiddity. If one considers quiddity in itself, then it is a purely notional distinction. However, Suhrawardí does seem to affirm that the realised entity has precedence and is a substrate for existence as a concept. An objection to this was preempted in al-Mashåri< wa l-muñåra®åt:(40) the Peripatetic view is put forward that quiddity needs something in order to exist which is existence; this is countered by saying that actualisation is received from the Agent by an ipseity (huwiyya) which is not identical to existence. This ipseity in turns needs an existence to be and the regress sets in.(41) Suhrawardí is trying to stress that the existing thing as a contingent ipseity precedes existence as an accident.(42)

Ishråqí thinkers do accept a notional distinction. In the Talwí®åt, Suhrawardí says that a distinction in the mind is possible because a notional infinite regress of existences is not a problem,(43) though he himself is not in favour of the language of distinction in existents. Rízí,(44) an 14th century Persian commnentator on Suhrawardí, uses the regress argument to prove the impossibility of real distinction, replacing it with a notional one because being and thing remain concepts separated in the mind which are accidental to quiddity.(45) Shahrazúrí is best representative of this tradition and clearly articulates the notional distinction in his commentary on Suhrawardí's Óikmat al-Ishråq, claiming it as his master's true position.(46) The stress seems to remain on essence and would suggest the primacy of it within the distinction.

iv) Aßålat al-måhiyya

Proponents of the Íadrian school(47) have always claimed without much evidence that Suhrawardí held that within the distinction, it is essence which has ontological priority, a position characteristic of a misunderstanding of Avicenna based on misreading his argument on quiddity qua quiddity. But this is not supported by the textual evidence. Indeed it strikes one as being rather anachronistic(48) since the question of primacy was not explicitly posed before Íadrå.

Historians of Islamic philosophy have read this issue back in time and insisted that the whole early tradition regarded quiddity as primary(49) because it devalued existence as an accident, and because the mystical tradition saw essences as potentialities in the mind of God prior to their existential status in re. Morewedge argues that there was a school of illuminisitic monism which held this later position exemplified by the sufi <Azíz-i Nasafí.(50) But it is clear that the Peripatetic tradition and this so-called essentialist school have very different concepts of being and essence.(51) If one suggests that Suhrawardí understands light and essence to be synonymous, as Aminrazavi rather surprisingly does,(52) then essence indeed does have primary ontological status. For Suhrawardí light is the being of things as their instantiating principle in concreto and not their essences.(53) However, it is possible that one could misconstrue Suhrawardí and see the roots of this misunderstanding in Fakhr al-Dín al-Råzí's earlier theologically-inspired critique of Avicenna. In the commentary to the Ishåråt, he says,

"quiddity is affirmed in re without its existence and then being inheres in it"(54)

The aim of this text is to show that existence is a real accident, and is a view strongly criticised by Naßír al-Dín al-Êúsí [d.1274] who rebuts,

"the being of quiddity is its existence and quiddity cannot be abstracted from existence except in the mind."(55)

An effect cannot precede a cause. Apart from the fact that the primacy of essence is a philosophically tenuous position, it appears to have been ruled out by Suhrawardí in his texts where he clearly states that quiddity in itself is as conceptual and unreal a matter as existence.(56)

However, perhaps Suhrawardí's methodology implies primacy of essence. Íadrå argues that the ishråqí position is quite consistent with their phenomenological epistemology of eidetic vision.(57) The ontology of presential knowledge experiences 'entities' as essences which are the apparent aspects of what one might regard as 'light monads'. Knowledge lies in the vision of these fixed possibilities and makes Suhrawardí almost a proto-Husserlian phenomenologist.(58) The Platonic roots of such a position are self-evident. The central hermeneutic of being for Suhrawardí is the vision (shuhúd) of essences. Beings without the form of a quiddity have little meaning.(59) True vision is not sensible, as he says in Óikmat al-ishråq, and perceives the lights beyond the essences.(60) Therefore essences are a primary hermeneutic step to pass through on the way to reality. The primacy of essence can therefore be seen as a step towards understanding a reality which is beyond the Peripatetic distinction. Íadrå(61) expresses this by saying that the vision of contingent quiddities is a veil and that true vision encompasses the light of being. Such a vision has a mystical nature: many traditions focus on light mysticism where illumination literally involves seeing light everwhere as everything.

Suhrawardí's deconstruction of Peripatetism is wide-ranging and based on a critique of its theory of definition, its view of existence and crucially its postulation of a distinction between existence and essence. He rejects the distinction as unnecessary to his metaphysics, and, taking a real interpretation of it, refutes its viability as a theory. Yet there seems little doubt that what Suhrawardí means by light, Íadrå intends by being. Suhrawardí's critique did change Peripatetism and Íadrian metaphysics manages to blend the Avicennan ontology of contingency with an ishråqí hierarchy of lights. The central doctrine of being in Íadrå sees wujúd as both a primary unitive reality and as a systematically ambiguous one. It seems clear that the former idea has its roots in Avicenna (and the mystical vision of being) and the latter is inspired by Suhrawardí's descriptive and experiential metaphysics of light.

Notes

(1) The crucial account is in chapter 3 of Hikmat al-Ishraq, in Opera metaphysica et mystica Tome 2, ed. H.Corbin (Tehran : L'Institut Franco-Iranien, 1951).

(2) Rahman, The philosophy of Mullå Íadrå, Albany : SUNY Press 1975, p.27.

(3) ibid p.33.

(4) al-Mashari' wa l-mutarahat in Opera metaphysica et mystica Tome 1, Ed.H.Corbin, Istanbul 1945, p.355.

(5) Opera 2 p.62.

(6) Kitab al-Najat, Cairo : Muhyi l-Din Sabri al-Kurdi 1938, p.234.

(7) Opera 2 p.64.

(8) Shahrazúrí, Sharh Hikmat al-Ishraq, Tehran:Institute of cultural studies and research 1993, p.180.

(9) Opera 2 p.64-5.

(10) Razi, Muhassal, ed.'Abd al-Ra'uf Sa'd, Beirut : Dar al-Kitab al-?arabi 1984, p.55.

(11) Opera 2 p.64-5.

(12) Aminrazavi, Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination, Curzon Press 1997, p.34; al-Talwihat in Opera 1 p.23.

(13) ibid. p.4; al-Muqawamat in Opera 1 p.125.

(14) al-Mashari' wa l-mutarahat in Opera 1 p.202, 344.

(15) Masha'ir, ed.P.Morewedge, New York : SSIPS 1992, p.26.

(16) Walbridge, The science of mystic lights, Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press 1992, p.47.

(17) Opera 2 p.66.

(18) ibid. p.62.

(19) Shahrazuri, Sharh p.185.

(20) Suhrawardí seems to understand being as a quiddity instead of an ontological status. For Avicenna, being is not a real accident, but rather a mental accident - at least that it how the later Iranian tradition reads his exposition of the existence-essence distinction.

(21) Masha'ir - Morewedge p.31.

(22) al-Muqawamat in Opera 1 p.173; al-Talwihat in ibid p.70.

(23) Hikmat al-Ishraq in Opera 2 p.61.

(24) Aminrazavi, Suhrawardí p.32.

(25) Opera 2 p.106.

(26) Walbridge, Mystic Lights p.45.

(27) Netton, Allah Transcendent, Exeter : Curzon Press 1989, p.257.

(28) Aminrazavi, Suhrawardí p.31.

(29) Walbridge, Mystic Lights p. 40.

(30) Aminrazavi, "Suhrawardi's metaphysics of illumination," Hamdard Islamicus 15(1992): 20.

(31) Fakhry in Philosophies of existence ancient and medieval, ed. P. Morewedge, New York : Fordham University Press 1982, p.231.

(32) Dinani, Shu?a? andísha va shuhud dar falsafa-yi Suhrawardi, Tehran : Intisharat-i Hikmat 1366 Shamsí, p.658.

(33) Hikmat al-ishraq in Opera 2 p.107.

(34) Corbin, Le livre de la sagesses orientale, Paris : Éditions Verdier 1986, p.12.

(35) MS Cambridge Or.840, f.4r.

(36) ibid; Aminrazavi, Suhrawardi p.33.

(37) Opera 2 p.73.

(38) Essays in Islamic philosophy and science, ed. G. Hourani, Albany : SUNY Press 1975, p.227.

(39) Lonergan, Insight , London : Darnton, Longman & Todd 1958, p.489.

(40) Opera 1 p.345.

(41) ibid. p.348; this position would suggest that Suhrawardi regards quiddities as possessing ontological priority but it is not clear what he means by ipseity here.

(42) Aminrazavi, Suhrawardí p.34.

(43) Opera 1 p.24.

(44) Hayat al-nufus, Tehran 1369 Shamsi, p.309-313.

(45) ibid. p.315.

(46) Shahrazuri, Sharh p.182.

(47) Nasr, The Islamic intellectual tradition in Persia, Curzon Press 1996, p.135.

(48) Walbridge, Mystic Lights p.46.

(49) Åshtiyåní, Anthologie vol1, Tehran : L'Institut Franco-Iranien 1972, p.20 says that this was true from Avicenna to Mir Damad (d.1630), and Suhrawardi just makes the situation more explicit — the consensual view of Islamic philosophy insists on Sadra's 'existential revolution'.

(50) Morewedge, Essays in Islamic philosophy, theology and mysticism, Oneonta : SUNY Press 1995, p.91 — this view was strongly criticised as anachronistic and unsubstantiated by texts by Hermann Landolt in the annual SSIPS conference in Bingamton, New York 26th October 1996.

(51) Ziai, Knowledge and illumination, Atlanta : Scholars Press 1990, p.170.

(52) Aminrazavi, Suhrawardi p.35.

(53) Ziai, Knowledge p.170.

(54) Isharat Volume III : 462.

(55) ibid p.462.

(56) al-Talwihat in Opera 1 p.175; Hikmat al-ishraq in Opera 2 p.64; Avicenna in Najat p.220; Taftazani, al-Maqasid volume 1 p.346.

(57) Corbin, Le Livre p.441.

(58) MacIntyre, "Essence and existence" Encyclopaedia of Philosophy III :.60.

(59) Dinani, Shu?a? p.17.

(60) Opera 2 p.110.

(61) Masha?ir - Morewedge p.22.

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