In a late interview, Corbin said: 'through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed. This drew Corbin's interest to Iranian Islam, which he believed esoterically expressed older perennial elements related to Zoroastrianism and Platonism. In 1928, Louis Massignon (director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne) introduced him to Suhrawardi, the 12th-century Persian Muslim thinker.

He also studied modern philosophy, including hermeneutics and phenomenology, becoming the first French translator of Martin Heidegger. Three years later he took his 'license de philosophie' under the Thomist Étienne Gilson. Although Protestant by birth, he received a Catholic education, obtaining a certificate in Scholastic philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris at age 19. He was influential in extending the modern study of traditional Islamic philosophy from early falsafa to later and ' mystical' figures such as Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi, and Mulla Sadra Shirazi.Ĭorbin was born in Paris in April 1903. Bloom shows us that this Shakespearean cosmos is analogous to Corbin's 'Imaginal Realm' of the Sufis, the place of soul or souls.Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 – 7 October 1978) was a French philosopher, theologian, and Iranologist, professor of Islamic studies at the École pratique des hautes études. These works, he writes, intermix the empirical world with a transcendent element. Harold Bloom's preface links Sufi mysticism with Shakespeare's visionary dramas and high tragedies, such as The Tempest and Hamlet. The remainder of the book is devoted to two complementary essays: on 'Sympathy and Theosophy' and 'Creative Imagination and Creative Prayer.' A section of notes and appendices includes original translations of numerous Su fi treatises.

He also relates Islamic mysticism to mystical thought in the West. Corbin begins with a kind of spiritual topography of the twelfth century, emphasizing the differences between exoteric and esoteric forms of Islam. In this book, which features a powerful new preface by Harold Bloom, Henry Corbin brings us to the very core of this movement with a penetrating analysis of Ibn 'Arabi's life and doctrines. Through the richness of his personal experience and the constructive power of his intellect, he made a unique contribution to Shi'ite Sufism. He was uniquely equipped not only to recover Iranian Sufism for the West, but also to defend the principal Western traditions of esoteric spirituality.'-From the introduction by Harold Bloom Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) was one of the great mystics of all time. 'Henry Corbin's works are the best guide to the visionary tradition.Corbin, like Scholem and Jonas, is remembered as a scholar of genius.

Henry corbin alone with the alone