Roots of the " Illuminative School (System)" in Suhrawardi

Over time, Islamic philosophy and wisdom have been flourished due to the efforts of many different schools in philosophy. Taking into account the limited and complicated resources (in philosophy), some eminent Muslim thinkers such as al-Farabi, al-Kindi, and others took preliminary steps in Islamic philosophy until they came to establish what is called the “Peripatetic School” in philosophy. The second influential school which played a significant role in developing the Islamic philosophy was that of Shihāb al-Din Suhrawardi in the sixth century A.H. which came to be known as the “Illuminative School (of philosophy)”. The main and clear characteristic of this philosophical school is that it paved the ground for certain philosophical doctrines in the West and East to incorporate into a coherent system. Having carefully studied the teachings of the Qur’an, Islamic traditions (hadiths), the Peripatetic School, the Ancient Greek philosophy, Islamic mysticism (Gnosticism), etc., Suhrawardi developed some innovations in his system of philosophy. The present research seeks to explore philosophical schools and doctrines on which Suhrawardi based his philosophical system. To sum up, the research concludes with the fact that Suhrawardi developed a philosophical system called the ‘illuminative School’ which was, in a way or other, coherent and consistent with, though in some ways different from, the Peripatetic School, taking crucial steps towards flourishing the Islamic philosophy.