Refusal of politics in Henry Corbin’s intellectual project

In the continuation of his intellectual project, which was inspired by Martin Heidegger, Henry Corbin paid attention to the wisdom and philosophy of Islam, especially Shiism in Iran, and in this direction, in addition to pursuing his ontological concerns, in reviving and introducing Sources, as well as their interpretation, took a lot of effort. Corbin’s focus on the secret aspects and the esoteric interpretation of the above-mentioned teachings, especially in the realm of illumination, led to the prominence of certain spiritual aspects, including the World of Idea and Metahistory. At the same time, by rejecting any affiliation of these teachings with social and political affairs, Corbin takes a practically even negative position on politics. His focus is not only on non-political aspects, but on several occasions he ignores the inevitable political solidarity in this tradition of thought that has emerged in history and therefore politics in his system is a subordinate, sub-marginal situation. He does not recognize the need for a connection between political success and the flourishing of spiritual themes and concepts. In fact, despite his attention to the phenomenological approach, Corbin avoids considering some of the Iranian and Shiite teachings as they have emerged in social and political affairs.