ABSTRACT
Shibab ai-Din Abfi 'I-FutfiQ YaQya ibn I:Iabash ibn Amirak alSuhrawardi (AD 1153-1191) is universally called Shaykh alIshrdq ,1 a title which may be rendered literally and briefly as 'Master of Illumination.' Ishrdq is, however, broader than its basic definition: scholars have attempted to encapsulate some of that breadth in such definitions of the term as 'illuminative wisdom'2 and 'sagesse orientale - illuminative.'3 They have rendered the title of al-Suhrawardi's most famous book devoted to ishrdq, lfikmat al-Ishrdq (lit. The Wisdom of Ishrdq) as Theosophie Orientale.4 The essence of the term is clearly somewhat difficult to pin down with exactitude. So perhaps one of the quickest ways to a real understanding of what ishrdq actually means is to treat it as an intellectual framework or field of discourse within which existence itself is viewed as light.s Or, to put it another way, ishrdq was the grammar by means of which a particular kind of light mysticism could be formulated and articulated.
