Henry Corbin and his Understanding of Ismailism

~Zayn Kassam

Introduction: Corbin’s Universe

If scholarship is an entrance into a mental universe, then the gateway opened to us by Henry Corbin reveals a universe which is significantly different from those encountered in the works of many scholars of Ismailism. Along with V. Ivanow, S. Stern, W. Madelung, and a few others whose works are significant in impact if not in quantity, H. Corbin may be considered one of the pioneers in the twentieth century in the field of Ismaili studies, who attempted to study it from the viewpoint of texts internal to the tradition rather than from accounts of it by others not of the tradition itself. 

His impressive oeuvre of course consists of a much wider span than Ismaili studies alone; he edited, translated and wrote extensively on Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and Twelver Shi’ism, as well as on gnosticism as it is manifested in other religious traditions, notably Christianity and ancient Iranian religions.

Knowledge and the Sacred [3]

~Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The depleting of knowledge of its sacred character and the creation of a “profane” science which is then used to study even the most sacred doctrines and forms at the heart of religion have led to a forgetting of the primacy of the sapiential dimension within various traditions and the neglect of the traditional doctrine of man which has envisaged him as a being possessing the possibility of knowing things in principle and the principles of all things leading finally to the knowledge of Ultimate Reality. 

In fact, the sapiential perspective has been so forgotten and the claims of rationalism, which reduces man's intellectual faculty to only the extroverted and analytical function of the mind that then turns against the very foundations of religion, so emphasized, that many a religiously sensitive person in the West has been led to take refuge in faith alone, leaving belief or doctrinal creed to the mercy of ever-changing paradigms or theories caught in the process of relativization and constant transformation. 

OPENING

Ibn 'Arabi Heir to the Prophets [3]

Ibn ‘Arabi tells us that effort can take seekers only as far as the door. Having reached the door, they can knock as often as they like. It is God who will decide when and if he will open the door. Only at the opening of the door can complete inheritance occur. This explains the sense of the word “opening” in the title of Ibn ‘Arabi’s al-Futuhat al-makkiyya, “The Meccan Openings.”

The title announces that the knowledge and understanding contained in the book were not gained by study or discursive reasoning. They were simply given to the author when God opened the door to him. The whole Futuhat, in other words, represents a massive series of unveilings and witnessings, or “mystical visions” if you prefer.

Self-Observation [2]

~Maurice Nicoll

Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

The object of this Work is to make us conscious in ourselves and to ourselves, to what is going on in us, to the vast inner traffic of thoughts and feelings that lies within, in the psychic invisible realm as distinct from the vast outer physical world of things and people that the senses reveal to us. Here, in this inner world, and in what we select and reject in it, lies the key to the Work, and so to evolution. 

You all know how to reject and select things in the outer world. You discard useless things from your business and cling to useful things. It is the same idea. Suppose, by long observation, you notice that 'I's create moods, thoughts and feelings, that depress you, that eat you, that make you despondent, or negative, or suspicious, or evil-minded. Then what are you going to do?