The philosophical life and career of Corbin can be divided into three phases. The first is the 1920s and 1930s, when he was involved in learning and teaching western philosophy. The second is the years between 1939 and 1946, in which he studied Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination in Istanbul. The last phase begins in 1946 and lasts until his death, in which he studied and reintroduced eastern and Islamic philosophy.[6]
In 1933 he married Stella Leenhardt. In 1938, he completed the first translation of one of Heidegger's works into French (Was ist Metaphysik?, as Qu’est-ce que la metaphysique?).[1] In 1939 they traveled to Istanbul, and in 1945 to Tehran. They returned to Paris one year later in July 1946. In 1949, Corbin first attended the annual Eranos Conferences in Ascona, Switzerland. In 1954 he succeeded Louis Massignon in the Chair of Islam and the Religions of Arabia at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. From the 1950s on he spent autumn in Tehran, winter in Paris and spring in Ascona.
The three major works upon which his reputation largely rests in the English speaking world were first published in French in the 1950s: Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi and Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth. His later major work on Central Asian and Iranian Sufism appears in English with an Introduction by Zia Inayat Khan as The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. His magnum opus is the four volume En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques. It has been translated into Persian twice by Dr Enshollah Rahmati and Reza Kuhkan from French (the 4th volume being still untranslated).[7] He died on 7 October 1978.[1][8]
Main themesedit
There are several main themes which together form the core of the spirituality that Corbin defends. The Imagination is the primary means to engage with Creation. Prayer is the "supreme act of the creative imagination". He considered himself a Protestant Christian but he abandoned a Christocentric view of history. The grand sweep of his theology of the Holy Spirit embraces Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He defended the central role assigned in theology for the individual as the finite image of the Unique Divine.
Corbin's work has been criticized by a number of writers, including Steven M. Wasserstrom. Corbin's scholarly objectivity has been questioned on the basis of both a Shi'ite bias, and his theological agenda; he has been accused of being both ahistorically naive and dangerously politically reactionary; and he has been charged with being both an Iranian nationalist and an elitist in both his politics and his spirituality. Other writers, such as Lory and Subtelny, have written to defend Corbin.[18][19]
Selected bibliographyedit
Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Princeton University Press, 1960.
Histoire de la philosophie Islamique. Gallimard, 1964. (Re-issued by Kegan Paul in 1993 as History of Islamic PhilosophyISBN 0-7103-0416-1..)
Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi. Princeton University Press, 1969. (Re-issued in 1998 as Alone with the Alone.)
En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques (4 vols.). Gallimard, 1971–73.
Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi'ite Iran. Princeton University Press, 1977.
Le Paradoxe du Monothéisme. l'Herne, 1981.
Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis. KPI, 1983.
L'Homme et Son Ange: Initiation et Chevalerie Spirituelle. Fayard, 1983.
Face de Dieu, Face de l'homme: Hermeneutique et soufisme. Flammarion, 1983.
Temple and Contemplation. KPI, 1986.
The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Omega Publications, 1994.
Swedenborg and Esoteric Islam. Swedenborg Foundation, 1995.
^Jambet, Christian, ed. (1981). Cahiers de l'Herne no. 39: Henry Corbin (in French). Paris: L'Herne. pp. 40–41. ISBN 2851970399. English translation of the entire interview with Philippe Nemo courtesy of L'Association des Amis de Stella et Henry Corbin. Quoted in Cheetham, Tom, The World Turned Inside Out, p. xi.
^"Biographical post-scriptum to a philosophical interview". Translated by Evans-Cockle, Matthew. L'Association des Amis de Stella et Henry Corbin. Archived from the original on 2 December 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
^Carey, John (2011). "Henry Corbin and the Secret of the Grail" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Wasserstrom, Steven M. (1999). Religion After Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos. Princeton University Press. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-691-00540-9.
^Corbin, Henry (1978) En Islam Iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques Gallimard, Paris, OCLC 6776221
^Lakhani, M. Ali. The Corbin Trilogy by Thom Cheetham. Review in Sacred Web, Volume 23, Summer 2009.
^Irib. ir, Henri Corbin view point on Isalam and Iran
^Jacques Lacan, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Ed. by Jacques Alain-Miller. Trans. by Dennis Porter (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992), 148-149.
^Jacques Lacan, Le Triomphe de La Religion précédé de Discours aux Catholiques [The Triumph of Religion preceded by Discourse to Catholics] (Paris: Seuil, 2005), 65.
^Abdesselem Rechak, Le grand secret de la psychanalyse (Mandeure: self-published, 2020).
^Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz (2016). Foucault in Iran. University of Minnesota Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-8166-9949-0.
^"Association des amis de Henry et Stella Corbin – Site officiel de Henry Corbin". Retrieved 2021-02-08.
Algar, Hamid. "The Study of Islam: The Work of Henry Corbin." Religious Studies Review 6(2) 1980: 85–91.
Avens, Roberts. "The Subtle Realm: Corbin, Sufism and Swedenborg," in Immanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision, Edited by Robin Larson. Swedenborg Foundation, 1988.
Bamford, Christopher. "Esotericism Today: The Example of Henry Corbin," in Henry Corbin, The Voyage and the Messenger: Iran and Philosophy. North Atlantic Books, 1998.
Bloom, Harold. Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams and Resurrection. Riverhead Books, 1996.
Brown, Norman O., "The Prophetic Tradition," and "The Apocalypse of Islam," in Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis. University of California Press, 1991.
Camilleri, Sylvain and Proulx, Daniel. « Martin Heidegger et Henry Corbin : lettres et documents (1930-1941) », in Bulletin heideggérien, vol. 4, 2014, p. 4-63.
Cheetham, Tom. The World Turned Inside Out: Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism. Spring Journal Books, 2003.
_____ Green Man, Earth Angel: The Prophetic Tradition and the Battle for the Soul of the World. SUNY Press, 2005.
_____ After Prophecy: Imagination, Incarnation and the Unity of the Prophetic Tradition. Lectures for the Temenos Academy. Spring Journal Books, 2007.
_____ All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings, North Atlantic Books, 2012.
_____ Imaginal Love: The Meanings of Imagination in Henry Corbin and James Hillman, Spring Publications, 2015.
Chittick, William. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn 'Arabi's Metaphysics of the Imagination. SUNY Press, 1989.
______ Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn 'Arabi. Trans. Liadain Sherrard. Islamic Texts Society, 1993.
Corbin, H. (1969). Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn `Arabi. (Trans. R. Manheim. Original French, 1958.) Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press.
Corbin, H. (1972). "Mundus Imaginalis, the Imaginary and the Imaginal". Spring, 1972 pp. 1–19. New York: Analytical Psychology Club of New York, Inc.
Elmore, Gerald. Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-'Arabi's Book of the Fabulous Gryphon. Brill, 1998.
Jambet, Christian, (Editor). Henry Corbin. Cahier de l'Herne, no. 39. Consacré à Henry Corbin, 1981.
_____ La logique des Orientaux: Henry Corbin et la science des formes. Éditions du Seuil, 1983.
Giuliano, Glauco. Il Pellegrinaggio in Oriente di Henry Corbin. Con una scelta di testi. Lavis (Trento-Italia), La Finestra editrice, 2003.
Giuliano, Glauco. Nîtârtha. Saggi per un pensiero eurasiatico. Lavis (Trento-Italia), La Finestra editrice, 2004.
Giuliano, Glauco. L'Immagine del Tempo in Henry Corbin. Verso un'idiochronia angelomorfica. Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2009.
Landolt, Hermann. "Henry Corbin, 1903-1978: Between Philosophy and Orientalism," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 119(3): 484-490, 1999.
Morris, James. The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's Meccan Illuminations. Fons Vitae, 2005.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “Henry Corbin: The Life and Works of the Occidental Exile in Quest of the Orient of Light,” ch. 17, in S.H. Nasr, Traditional Islam in the Modern World. KPI, 1987.
Shayegan, Daryush. Henry Corbin penseur de l'Islam spirituel, Paris, Albin Michel, 2010, 428 p.
Suhrawardi, Yahyá ibn Habash. The philosophy of illumination: A new critical edition of the text of Hikmat al-Ishraq, with English translation, notes, commentary, and introduction by John Walbridge and Hossein Ziai. Brigham Young University Press, 1999.
Varzi, Roxanne. "Iran's French Revolution: Religion, Philosophy, and Crowds", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 637, issue 1, pp. 53 – 63, July 25, 2011
External linksedit
Official website
Association des Amis de Henry et Stella Corbin (French/English)