Reconsideration of the Relation between Plato's Forms and Suhrawardi's Archetypes

Granting Suhrawardi, because of his belief in archetypes, is a Platonic philosopher in the Islamic world, but comparing the theory of forms in Plato with the theory of archetypes in the illuminative philosophy, suggests that, there are some general similarities and differences as well between the two philosophers, particularly on the higher principles of the things. In the present research, in addition to explain the core ideas of the two philosophers about the forms and the archetypes, we are going to compare their ideas indicating that there is some dissimilarity between the two on this issue. In the end, as the main claim of this paper, we will be led to the conclusion that the fundamental distinctions between the platonic and the forms of Suhrawardi, is the dissimilarity between the contexts of their projects, meaning that the aim of Plato's theory arises from the epistemological concerns, whereas Suhrawardi’s respects concentrated on the ontological issues.