Background

Henry Corbin was born on April 14, 1903, in Paris, France. He was a son of Henri Arthur and Eugénie Fournier Corbin.

Education

Henry Corbin studied at the Catholic University of Paris where he received a certificate in Scholastic philosophy in 1927. In 1930 he took his "licence de philosophie" under the Thomist Étienne Gilson. He also studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne University. In order to expand the scope of his studies, he learned over a dozen classic and modern languages.

Career

Henry Corbin started his career as a philosopher in 1930 when he got interested in the relationship between philosophy and mysticism. At that time Louis Massignon introduced him to the works of the twelfth-century Muslim philosopher of Suhrawardi that affected the course of Corbin's life. In 1938, he translated one of Heidegger's works into French and in 1939 went to Istanbul in order to study the manuscripts of Suhrawardī's works. He stayed in Turkey for the next five years. Then in 1945, Corbin went to Tehran, Iran, where he founded an institute of Iranian studies under the French-Iran Institute. In 1946 he was appointed Head of the department of Iranology, a post that he held until retirement in 1973. Corbin helped to found "Bibliothèque iranienne" in 1949. At that time he also began his association with the annual Eranos conferences. In 1954, Corbin became a professor at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris, France.

Henry Corbin published his first book Avicenna and the Visionary Recital in 1960. Later he wrote such books as History Of Islamic Philosophy, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism and Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam. His magnum opus is the four volume En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques. It has been translated into Farsi twice.

Achievements

• Henry Corbin was a French philosopher and writer who was famous for his books devoted to Islamic philosophy. His most famous books are History Of Islamic Philosophy, Alone with the Alone and Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam.
  
  Henry Corbin is responsible for redirecting the study of Islamic philosophy as a whole. His ideas continue to have an impact through the work of his colleagues, students and many others.

Works

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• book

  • The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism

    (A penetrating analysis of the writings of the great Persi...)

    1994
  • Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam

    (This volume makes two essays by Henry Corbin, the eminent...)

    1995
  • Alone with the Alone

    (Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) was one of the great mystics of al...)

    1998
  • Avicenna and the Visionary Recital 1960
  • History Of Islamic Philosophy 1993

Religion

Henry Corbin was Protestant by birth, but he was educated in the Catholic tradition. He considered himself a Protestant Christian but abandoned a Christocentric view of history.

Views

Henry Corbin's main purpose was to resurrect the ancient Iranian philosophy of light. He disputed the common view that philosophy among the Muslims came to an end after Ibn Rushd, demonstrating rather that a lively philosophical activity persisted in Iran and, indeed, continues to our own day. Corbin did not believe Sufism to be the unique vehicle of spirituality in Islam.

Henry Corbin's aim was not merely to describe a spiritual philosophy but to advocate it. The central concept of this philosophy was the mundus imaginalis or imaginal world, where the soul has its life, and which is known through visions and dreams.

Quotations: "The individual is identified with the perishable; what can become eternal in the individual pertains exclusively to the separate and unique active Intelligence."

"To be acquainted with what is best and oldest in yourself, is to know yourself as you were before the world was made before you emerged into time."

Interests

• History

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Ibn Arabi, Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi

Connections

Henry Corbin married Stella Leenhardt in 1939.

Wife:

Stella Leenhardt

References

• Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection The author of The Book of J explores the origins and significance of angels, symbolic dreams, and near-death experiences, showing how the contemporary interest in them is a basic aspect of humanity.
  1996
• The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations' For centuries Ibn ‘Arabi has been considered the “Greatest Master” of Islamic spiritual teaching, but Western readers have only recently had access to his greatest writings. This introduction to Ibn ‘Arabi’s Meccan Illuminations highlights the mysticism and realization of Sufi spiritual life, providing an intellectually penetrating look without requiring specialized knowledge.
  2005
• Power, Authority, Justice, and Rights: Studies in Political Obligations Although political scientists and their students tended, prior to the seventies, to approach political theory as the history of political ideas, a rapid growth of interest in political theory as the analysis of political concepts led to the publication of this book. The approach outlined here remains significant today not only for its contribution to normative analysis, but also because it shows how political scientists can view their subject matter with a more profound understanding of the concepts they deal with in their work.
  1999