The Comparative Study of the Obstacles for Knowledge from the Viewpoints of Sheikh Ishraq and ʿIzzuddin Kashani

The present study, focusing on the obstacles of true knowledge from the viewpoints of Sheikh Ishraq (549-587 AH) and ʿIzzuddin Kashani (d. 735 AH), investigates and integrates the views and opinions of these two Muslim thinkers and pursues the similarities and differences of their opinions through a descriptive-analytical method. Sensory perceptions as well as the rational and argumentative sciences are among the obstacles of knowledge for Sheikh Ishraq, and the subsistence intellect (ʿaql maʿāsh) is among the obstacles of knowledge for ʿIzzuddin Mahmoud Kashani. Sohrawardi maintains that knowledge is enclosed in the jail of the nature and intelligibles as long as it denotes the forms of sensible things and individuations, which cannot be seen by the eyes of the body and the intellect. Kashani also, by relying on the light of faith and certainty, regards obstacles such as knowledge and argumentation, subsistence intellect, sin and sensual passions, evil deceptions, and boasting as the blights that prevent the man from acquiring knowledge. Considering his potentials and his existential capacities, the man has the decency to achieve perfection and receive emanated knowledge, and achieving the true knowledge necessitates disruption from the world of sensible things, impurities and physical involvements as well as the world of apparent things.