Artistic Imagination in the Illuminationist Theosophy of Suhrawardi

Sheikhe Eshraq is known in the Islamic civilization as the first theorist of imaginational world. His important idea in Hekmat-al-Eshraq and other works in the proof of a world between lights world and material world as an isthmus (imaginational world or mundus imaginalis) between this world and hereafter or between spiritual world and obvious material world has important and significant effect on the expression of the universe stages in the works of Islamic wisdom such as Hazarate Khams (five divine beings) of Ibne Arabi. In order to describe and explain imaginational world, the use of imagination (which was used by Farabi as a factor to justify and explain Revelation and Prophethood and was analyzed completely by Avicenna in "Shefa") was more developed in the illuminationist wisdom and, as an esoteric faculty, it became a mirror reflecting imaginative forms of the imaginal world of imagination. Thus, referring to verses such as" then We sent her Our angel to human beings only" and appearance of Gabriel as Dahiee Kalbi to the prophet of Islam, the imaginational world became a source of ideal forms which appeared in the imagination of human and especially with regard to delicate point of Sheikh Eshraq in explaining the rule of Kon which considers an active role for the Wayfarer in creating such forms. The aim of this article is, first, to explain the faculty of imagination and its function as epistemological realm (continuous imagination) and also analyze ontological aspects of imagination, known as imaginational world or plan of ideal (discrete imagination), and then describe the role of these imaginations in founding the early and most important theosophical theories in the realm of Islamic art, literature and architecture (especially mosque).