The Human Being as an alien in the world; Suhrawardi and the story of al-Qurbat al-Qarbiyya

چکیده مقاله

The story of Qurbat al-Qarbiyya (The Occidental Exile or The Western Alienation) narrates the situation of the human being in the world from Suh-rawardi's standpoint. It represents the core of his philosophy of illumination (Ḥikamt al-Ishrāq) in the form of symbolic story. Whole of this world is Qarbiyya (Western) in relation to the original place of the human being, the lights (Al-Anwār). He uses east and west in ontological sense not geographical one. Again, the human being is in the Qurba (alienation), due to its distance to the original homeland. Suhrawardi has sophisticated this idea from philosophical point of view in various works especially Ḥikamt al-Ishraq. He maintains that if we find our nature as a self-consciousness (Nūr) and find the nature of our surroundings things as non-consciousness (Ẓulma), we meet with our alienation (Qurba). So, the aim of his philosophy is to aware us about this alienation and change our lifestyle as an alien in the world. There are many results we can deduce based on this view for the contemporary man, such as the meaning of otherness.