Illuminationist Texts and Textual Studies : Essays in Memory of Hossein Ziai

The late Professor Hossein Ziai’s interests focused on the Illuminationist (Ishrāqī) tradition. Dedicated to his memory, this volume deals with the post-Avicennan philosophical tradition in Iran, and in particular the Illuminationist school and later philosophers, such as those associated with the School of Isfahan, who were fundamentally influenced by it. The focus of various chapters is on translations, editions, and close expositions of rationalist works in areas such as epistemology, logic and metaphysics rather than mysticism more generally, and also on specific texts rather than themes or studies of individual philosophers. The purpose of the volume is to introduce new texts into the modern canon of Islamic and Iranian philosophy. Various texts in this volume have not been previously translated nor have they been the subject of significant Western scholarship.

Ali Gheissari D. Phil. University of Oxford, is Professor of History at the University of San Diego with research interest in the intellectual history of modern Iran. He has written extensively in Persian and English on modern Iranian history and on modern philosophy and social theory. His publications include Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century 1998; reissued, 2008; Persian translation of Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Ethics with Hamid Enayat, 1991; new edition with revisions, 2015, amongst numerous other books and articles. Ali Gheissari is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Iranian Studies.

John Walbridge, Ph.D. Harvard, is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University Bloomington. His academic specialty is post-classical Islamic philosophy, particularly the Illuminationist school, though he has also published on Islamic science and medicine and Islamic studies more generally. He is the author, co-author, or translator of nine books, including three monographs on Suhrawardī and the Illuminationist school.

Ahmed Alwishah, Ph.D University of California, Los Angeles, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer College, Claremont Colleges and a life member of Clare Hall College at Cambridge University. His research focuses on Islamic philosophy and philosophy of language in Islamic tradition. He is the co-editor of Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition, 2015, and Ibn Kammūna Refinement and Commentary of Suhrawardī’s Intimations, 2002 amongst other publications.


Contributors:
Eiyad S. al-Kutubi, Ahmed Alwishah, Charles Butterworth, Khaled El-Rouayheb, Ali Gheissari, Malihe Karbassian, Mohammad Karimi Zanjani Asl, Christian Lange, Y. Tzvi Langermann, Jon McGinnis, Nasrollah Pourjavady, Reza Pourjavady, L.W. Cornelis van Lit, John Walbridge