Ibn Sina's Inner Perception in the Symbolic Treatises of Suhravardi

Suhravardi regards a good grasp of peripatetic philosophy a prevequisite for dealing with illuminative wisdom and all his works except "Illuminative Wisdom" are mainly concerned with Ibn Sina's teachings. In his discussion of the nature of soul he has the same approach. On the problem of inner perceptions he criticizes in his "Illuminative Wisdom" the five faculties that Ibn Sina has put forward rational conceptualization. But in his symbolie stories he states all the attempt and holy struggle of wayfarer for the liberation from bodily prison. In all cases that he speaks of inner perception, he has used symbols for the five senses of Ibn Sina. Since the external senses are proposed both before and after the internal senses, all these symbols are tenfold: ten birds, ten angels, ten graves, five towers, five cells and five gates.