ALGAR on CORBIN oevre

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Religious Studies Rmiew

A Quarterly Review of Publications in the Field of Religion and Related Discidines Volume 6. Number 2PuGished by the Council on the Study of Religion

- 1April 198

THE STUDY OF ISLAM:THE WORK OF HENRY CORBIN

Hamid AlgarDepartment of Nea r Eastern Studies

University of CalforniaBerkeley, CA 94720

Orientalism-the purportedly scientific study of the reli-gion, history, civilization, and actuality of the Muslim peo-ples-has recently come under increasing and often justi-fied attack. A self-perpetuating tradition that has flourishedincestuously, rarely open to participation by any but themost assimilated and “occidentalized” Muslims, it has sig-nally failed to construct a credible and comprehensive visionof Islam as religion or as civilization, despite vast andmeritorious labor accomplished in the discovery and ac-cumulation of factual information. Nowhere have mattersstood worse than in the Orientalist study of the Islamicreligion. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that so radical isthe disparity between the Islam of Orientalist descriptionand the Islam known to Muslims from belief, experience,and practice that they appear to be two different phenom-ena, opposed to each other o r even unrelated. The reasonsfor this are numerous. The persistence of traditionalJudeo-Christian theological animus toward Islam shouldnever be underestimated. Probably of greater significance,however, is the unwillingness of the quasi-totalityof scholarsto accept the autonomy of the religious “fact” and theirinsistence upon historicist or sociologist reductionism.

A major exception to this rule was the French Islamicist,Henry Corbin, who, by the time of his death on October 7,

1978,had elaborated a rich and varied corpus of writings onvarious aspects of Islamic spirituality unequaled by anyother Orientalist. With Iran and Shi’ism always as his ulti-mate point of reference, Corbin wrote prolifically for morethan three decades on Sufism, Islamic philosophy, Twelver

and Isma‘ili Shi‘ism, the concept of spiritual chivalry inIslam, and a host of other related topics. In almost all that hetouched, Corbin acted as a pioneer and innovator, question-ing some of the most tenaciously held beliefs of Orientalismand uncovering vistas of thought and imagination that hadpreviously been unknown or underestimated. In addition tohis works of analysis and synthesis (culminating in the four-volume work, EnIslam iranien, 1971-72,a summary of all hismajor themes and interests), Corbin founded and edited theBibliothkque Iranienne, a series of Persian and Arabic textsconcerned mostly with the currents of philosophy and mys-ticism that were close to his heart. Twenty-three volumes of

Conten.-REVIEW ESSAYS

The Study of Islam: The Work of Henry CorbinHamid Algar 85

“Master of the Stray Detail”: Peter Brown andHistoriographyPatrick Henry 91

Peter Brown, The Making of Late AntiquityReviewer: Mary Douglas 96

Edward 0.Wilson, On Human NatureReviewer: William H. Austin 99

Douglas A. Knight (editor), Tradition and Theology inthe Old TestamentReviewer: Bernhard W . Anderson 104

Character, Vision, and NarrativeGene Outka 110

George Grant and Religious Social Ethics in CanadaTerry Anderson 118

NOTES ON RECENT PUBLICATIONS 125

REPRINTINGS 167

PERSON ALI A 168

RECENT DISSERTATIONS IN RELIGION 168

IN COMING ISSUES 172



86 / Religious Studies Review Vol. 6, No. 4 / April 1980

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ISSN 0319-485X

this series have now appeared, many of them edited by

Corbin himself, and others prefaced by him with analytical

synopses; taken as a whole, they represent a major addition

to the textual resources available for the study of Islamic

philosophy a nd mysticism. Given the quantitative a nd qual-

itative dimensions of Corbin’s work, an increasing portion

of which is becoming available in English, it seems useful to

attempt an analysis of his vision of Islam, and to indicateboth the strengths and weaknesses of his profoundly indi-

vidual, and even idiosyncratic, oeuvre.

1

It needs first to be remarked that Corbin brought to his

labors as a scholar of Islam far more than the customary

philological training an d apparatus of the Orientalist. His

was primarily a philosophical mind, nu rtu red by the train-

ing of the great medievalist, Etienne Gilson, an d by an early

interest in Heidegger (his French translation of WasktMetaphysik? appeared in Paris in 1938). But, as he never tiredof stressing in all his works on th e Shi‘i sages of Ir an , his

concept of philosophy extended beyond m ere ratiocination

to an nsistence on t he inner, visionary pursuit of the tru th

his concern, indeed, was primarily with theosophy, a wordthat came to be a key element in his terminology. Accord-

ingly, to the elements in his general intellectual formation

that helped to sha pe his understanding of Islam should beadded a sympathetic acquaintance with esoteric elements in

Western philosophy, with the Rhenish mystics, and with

such assorted topics as the Holy Grad, the Knights Tem-

plar, Goethe’s Furbenlehre, and the writings of Swedenborg

Corbin’s theosophical predisposition led him to a radi-

cal reassessment of the whole nature and history of

philosophical activity in Islam. Before Corbin, it had been

the general thesis of most works on Islamic philosophy (e.g.

E. J. de Boer’s The History of Philosophy in Islam, first pub-

lished in 1903 but widely used for many subsequent de

cades) that the prime interest of Muslim philosophicalthought lay in the reception and transmission to Europe, in

slightly enriched form, of Greek philosophy. This mediat-

ing function, a nd with it, philosophical activity as such, wa

held to have come to an end by the thirteenth century, so

that ap art from the anomalous figure of Ibn Khaldun the

intellectual horizons of Islam remained bare until the be-

ginning of modern times. This view of Islamic philosophy

rested partly on the assumption that only those aspects of

Islamic thought that impinged o n the intellectual history of

Europe were of importance; partly on the unspoken equa-tion of Islamic civilization with th e Arab (o r Arabic-writing

element that domina ted its formative period; and partly on

the sterile triadic scheme of “rise, maturity a nd decline” tha

Islam was thought to have completed by the thirteenthcentury. More than any othe r individual, Corbin discredited

this simplistic view of things. He demonst rated, first of allthat even the most familiar of Muslim philosophers, Av

icenna, had been partially misunderstood, and showed tha

in addit ion to the ra tional aspe ct of his thought-

emphasized because of its influence on medieval scholasti

cism-there was ano the r element to his thought-esoteric,

inward, and illuminationist (see Corbin, 1960b, passim)

More importantly, h e brought to light in a whole series owritings the prolongation of Islamic philosophical activity

that took place long after the thirteenth century under t he

aegis of Shi’ism an d th e designation of hzkrnut. It is fair to say



Vol. 6, No. 2 / April 1980 Religious Studies Review / 87

that before Corbin the names of Mir DHm5d, Findiriski,Q5zi Sa‘id Qummi, and Mull5 S d r 5 were barely known toWestern scholarship.

In qualification of Corbin’s unquestionable achieve-ment in the reassessment of Islamic philosophy, it must besaid that he frequently applied the traditional Arabic adagethat “cure is effected by opposites.” For in seeking to em-

phasize the undoubted visionary and theosophic elementpresent in the thought of both Avicenna and Mull2 $adrH,he ran the risk of underestimating the rational core of theirsystems. In the introduction to his careful study of Mull5$adr5, Fazlur Rahman addresses this problem, with obviousreference to Corbin. Rejecting Corbin’s thesis of a substan-tial illuminationist or Sufi element in the work of Sdr5 , hepoints out that inward experience had for Sadra and othersof his school the function not of producing new thought-content, but rather of bestowing on thoughtcontent intel-lectually attained the quality of personal experience (FazlurRahman, 1975,3-4).We have here the first of many indica-tions that the personal proclivities of Corbin colored as wellas illumined the topics he discussed.

n

even appears grotesque. None would dispute that ‘arfirepresents a form of Islamic esoterism appropriate to theShi‘i context and that it draws in large par t on the traditionsattributed to the Imams. But to assert that ‘ i f i n is coterminous with Shi‘ism, or even that it represents its most important expression, is quite a different matter. It necessitateoverlooking the vast body of traditions of the Imams relat

ing to exoteric (“legalist”) matters and the persistent although thwarted claims of the Imams to exercise actuapolitical authority. It also causes Corbin to be extremelyselective in his view of Shi‘ism.

In the world of Iranian Shi‘ism, Corbin confined hisattention-apart from questions of “imamo1ogy”-to littlemore than the practitioners of hikmat and the Shaykhis, aschool of esoteric sDeculation that had some imDortance inz

The second major theme addressed by Corbin was Shi‘iIslam in its Twelver and Isma‘ili forms. Here, too, hebrought about a much-needed change in Orientalist con-cepts. Before Corbin, the Sunni-Shi‘i differentiation withinIslam was understood almost exclusively in political terms,and Shi‘ism was dismissed as a “heterodoxy,” without anyprecise definition being offered for the term or its counter-part, “orthodoxy,” as if the position of the majority were perse orthodox and that of the minority, heterodox. Againstthis view of things, Corbin rose in eloquent revolt, protest-ing that “Shi‘ism cannot be reduced to cursing the first threecaliphs, nor to the practice of a fifth rite of law, side by side

with the four rites of law officially recognized by SunniIslam” (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 1, xiv). For the first time in aWestern language, Corbin expounded the doctrine of theImamate in all its esoteric and metaphysical dimensions,making it plain that the succession to the Prophet to whichthe Imams laid claim was far more than the political andjuridical governance of the community, and that it was thecyclical prolongation of the core of prophethood itself.

But here again we find Corbin attempting “cure byopposites.” Correctly refuting the reduction of Shi‘ism to acontingent question of political succession, he insists uponan equally extreme view, that Shi‘ism is essentially anesoterism, that indeed it is“the sanctuary of the esoterism ofIslam” (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 1, 16). This view, which per-meates the whole of Corbin’s writing on Shi‘ism, involves aserious distortion of both Sunni and Shi‘i Islam. OnceShi‘ism becomes the sole repository of Islamic esoterism(i.e., spirituality and profundity), Sunni Islam becomes re-duced to what Corbin refers to, repeatedly and with obviouscontempt, as “legalist Islam.” A form of esoterism, Sufism,has manifestly flourished in the Sunni world, but as we shallsee, Corbin views Sufism as a truncated form of Shi‘ism thathas mistakenly attempted to dispense with the Imams.

The distortion of Shi‘ism involved in its identification asan esoterism is equally serious, and now, in the aftermath ofthe Iranian Revolution, with its strong emphasis on thesociopolitical dimensions of religion, such an identification

the early nineteenth century but later became confined to asmall and stagnant community in Kerman. Almost totallyabsent from all of Corbin’s copious writing on IranianShi‘ism are those who have been its chief custodians and ex-

ponents for more than three centuries: the ‘ulami2’a.z-tczhirthe “exoterist” authorities. Their absence is not of courseattributable to a deliberate exclusion on the part of Corbinand still less to ignorance. I t is simply that once the identifi-cation of Shi‘ism with esoterism has taken place, all schoolsand currents of thought that are not esoterist naturally falby the way as inauthentic, even if they have been historicallypredominant. In a highly revealing passage, Corbin oncesuggested that the attainment of majority status by the Shi‘a

in Iran during the Safavid period, and the concomitantinvolvement of the religious leaders in socioeconomic andeven political matters, led to a “betrayal” of the esotericessence of Shi‘ism (Corbin, 196Oc, 69). The abstruse speculations of the Shaykhi school were, according to Corbin, acorrective response to this betrayal, intended to restore “integral Shi’ism,”and he devoted several studies to them (notably Corbin, 1960-61).The triumph of the UsUli school offiqh at about the same time as the emergence of the Shaykhschool was, by contrast, a subject of no interest to Corbin,even though it was indubitably the most important singledevelopment in the religious history of post-Safavid Iran. I tpermitted the growth of a powerful class of ‘ulamiiand maybe regarded as the distant ancestor of the Iranian Revolu

tion. Because of his identification of Shi‘ism with esoterismCorbin was, in his own way, as remote from the contempo-rary reality of Shi‘i Islam in Iran as the most obtuse of

political scientists.

3The third major focus of Corbin’s scholarly concern wasSufism, or, more precisely, a well-defined range of topicsand personalities within Sufism: Ibn ‘Arabi and his Iranianexegetes, RUzbih5n Baqliof Shiraz, and various members ofthe Kubravi order, especially ‘A15 ad-Daula Simn5ni. It isimmediately to be conceded that in this area, too, Corbindisplayed his usual talents for the voracious and imaginative




reading of little-known texts. His understanding of all hetouched was, however, colored, or even determined, by hisparticular vision of Shi‘ism as the sole legitimate esoterism ofIslam. He presented the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi as being inmany ways akin to Shi’ism, in both its Twelver and Isma‘iliforms, and went to some lengths to establish parallels be-tween the tw o schools, while ignoring almost completely the

immediate and demonstrable antecedents of Ibn ‘Arabi inthe Sufism of Andalusia and the Maghreb. Similarly, whenspeaking of Riizbihan, Corbin again finds himself com-pelled to make some reference to Shi‘ism, although on this

occasion he can do little but offer his readers a barely dis-guised apology for concerning himself with a Sunni writerand mystic (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 3, 11). As for the Kub-ravis, he asserts that various leading figures of the order(such as Sa‘d ad-Din Hamiiya and ‘All ad-Daula Simnlni)were either crypto- or proto-Shi‘is. Here he followed thewell-established practice of certain Shi‘i writers, such asNfirullZh Shushtari, author of the celebrated MajGlis al-

Mu’minin, who insisted on claiming retrospectively forShi‘ism almost anyone who made reverential mention of ‘Ali

and the other Imams. Corbin was, of course, aware that suchreferences did not necessarily identify their authors as Shi‘i.But he was remarkably categorical in his attributions of Shi‘itendencies to the Kubraviya, magisterially disdaining awhole mass of evidence pointing to the Sunni identity of theord er (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 3,294-95). Consistently refus-ing to engage in more historical discussion than appearednecessary to validate his assertions, he left his readers un-aware, for example, that the Kubraviya throve for centuriesin the strictly Sunni environment of Transoxiana and that in

Kashmir it even engaged in fierce polemics against the Shi‘a(see Rafiqi, n.d., 96).

Most important, however, for understanding Corbin’sview of Sufism is his constantly repeated assertion that the

key concept of wilzyat-“sainthood,” for want of a betterEnglish equivalent’-is, in Sufism, an uprooted borrowingfrom Shi‘ism and that the esoteric, initiatic, and cosmicfunctions of the Imams of Shi‘ism have been usurped by theSufis and reassigned by them to their masters. In a discus-sion of Simnlni , for example, Corbin asserts that the idea ofwiliiyat originated in various ?mdFths of the Imams recordedby al-KulaynT an d proceeds to claim that “to speak of wilciyatin isolation, passing over the charisma of the Imam in si-lence, is more than a paradox; it destroys a unity,” i.e., theunity of prophethood and wiliiyat, the former being exotericin purpose, the latter esoteric (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 3,296). Now this assertion is demonstrably untrue; the Sufiunderstanding of wiliiyat also relates it to prophethood,although in a fashion different from that propounded byShi‘ism (see al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi, 1965,336ff.). Moreover,as Paul Nwyia has pointed ou t, there is no need to suppose atransmission of influence to have taken place in either direc-tion, since the concept of wiliiyat is rooted in the Qur’an anddeveloped in Sufism without any paradox or problem re-sulting (Nwyia, 1970, 240-42).

4Philosophy, Shi‘ism, and Sufism were, then, the three majorareas of Corbin’s concern a lternating throughout his schol-arly career as the dominating themes of his work. In addi-tion to them, a particular place is occupied in his oeuvre by

an individual, Shihab ad-Din Suhrawardi, the illuminationist philosopher executed for heresy in Aleppo in 119 1. Cor-bin devoted to him his earliest essay in Orientalism (Corbin1939), published his collected works in Arabic and Persian(in collaboration with Seyyed Hossein Nasr), and made ubi-quitous mention of Suhrawardi throughout his work as wellas devoting to him a number of separate studies. In brief, we

may say that Suhrawardi was for Corbin what Hallaj was forMassignon: not only the pivotal figure of a scholarly career,but also a personal spiritual hero. Suhrawardi was of com-pelling interest to Corbin for a number of easily identifiable

reasons. More clearly than Avicenna or Mull2 Sadri, theshaykh al-ishriiq exemplified the union of discursive reason-ing and mystic intuition that was so dear to Corbin. He wasmoreover an ancestor of the school of hikmat that occupiedso large a place in Corbin’s vision of Shi‘ism, although itappears he may have distorted the nature and extent ofilluminationist influence on, for example, Mull2 $adti (seeagain Rahman, 1975, 1) . Finally, Suhrawardi claimed tohave resurrected the wisdom of pre-Islamic Iran, and hemade use of Persian terminology in his angelogical theories.

For Corbin, who always insisted on an unbroken spiritualcontinuity between pre-Islamic and Islamic Iran, this was aprecious and rare fragment of evidence. I cannot attempt topass judgment here on the accuracy of Corbin’s analyses ofSuhrawardi. What may be pointed out, however, is that theposition of Suhrawardi and his school in the intellectual andspiritual history of Islam is marginal, whatever may be theintrinsic interest of i s hr h . Apart from his influence on hzk-mat in Safavid Iran, and the stray commentary written uponhis work in Turkey and India, there is little sign of his havingexerted a substantial posthumous influence. Th e fact thatCorbin deliberately elevated him to a position of eminencein his scheme of “Iranian Islam” is perhaps the strongestsingle indication of how Corbin’s spiritual predilections

came to determine his scholarly concerns. Just as Massignonhad elevated Hallaj to a position of centrality in Sufi tradi-tion that was not legitimately his, so did Corbin glorifySuhrawardi as a sage of unparalleled stature. It is hardly acoincidence that both HallZj and Suhrawardi, the respectiveheroes of the two French Orientalists, suffered execution, afate indicative, among other things, of their marginalitywith respect to Islamic traditiom2

5All of the topics outlined above should be viewed against thebackground of Corbin’s belief in an entity he called “IranianIslam.” It is obvious that Islam, in its historical elaboration,assumed multiple forms of expression, some of which maybe identified with a particular region or people. From thebeginning of the sixteenth century down to the present,

Iran has certainly followed a path of religious developmentlargely distinct from that of its neighbors. But it is plain thatwhen Corbin spoke of “Iranian Islam,” he had in mindsomething far more fundamental and pervasive. Th er e ex-isted for Corbin something called “the Iranian soul,” en-dowed with “an imprescriptible vocation” and exercising aquasi-monopoly on the philosophical and mystical aspects ofIslamic tradition (Corbin, 1971-72,Vol. 1, x). The counter-part of this profound “Iranian Islam” is presumably “ArabIslam”-a dry and superficial legalism, with a mistaken in-sistence on the social applicability of religion. The racial



Vol. 6, No. 4 / April 1980

FbrtressLibrary~nPaul1

Religious Studim Review / 89

contrast between Iranian and Arab is never explicitly made,but when reading the works of Corbin, one cannot fail to bereminded of the theories of bygone Orientalists such asComte Arthur de Gobineau and Max Horten who at-tempted to analyze the intellectual history of Islam in termsof a putative clash between Aryan (= Iranian) and Semite(= Arab). Corbin transferred the dichotomy from the

biological to the spiritual plane.According to Corbin, “Iranian Islam” is characterized

not only by spirituality and esoterism, but also by a virtuallyunbroken continuity with the pre-Islamic past. In the credoprefacing his E n Islam iranien, he.states: “Within the Islamiccommunity, the Iranian world has formed since the verybeginnings an entity the characteristic traits and vocation ofwhich can be understood only if one considers the Iranianspiritual universe as forming a whole, before and after Is-lam” (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 1, xxvii). Clearly the religiousconsciousnessof Iran was not a tabula rma at the time of theMuslim conquest, and elements of Mazdean provenancepersisted into the Islamic period, particularly on the level offolklore and popular belief. But it is a question of emphasis

and proportion. There is no substantial pre-Islamic sub-stratum in the mainstream religious history of Islamic Iran.It is, on the contrary, remarkable to see how fully the intel-lectual and spiritual energies of Iran were devoted to theassimilation and elaboration of the Islamic religious sciencesin the era of their formative development. For his thesis offundamental continuity between pre-Islamic and IslamicIran, Corbin is able to muster little more evidence than thenomenclature of the angels in the works of Suhrawardk

certain parallels between the cosmological doctrines of theYashts and the Bundahishn, on the one hand, and those ofSuhrawardi, Mull5 S d r P and the Shaykhis, on the otherhand; and a partial similarity between the Saoshyant ofMazdean belief and the Twelfth Imam of Shi‘i Islam (see inparticular Corbin, 1977, passim). But he exhibited thesefragments of evidence untiringly, and even regarded them

as justifying the concept of “Irano-Islamic phi lo ~o ph y.”Having defined “Iranian Islam” as a distinct entity nar-

rowly concerned with mysticism and spirituality, and deeplymarked by the legacy of its pre-Islamic past, Corbin cameinevitably to present a highly selective view of Islam in Iran.It is true that he foreswore all attempts at presenting ageneral history of Islam in Iran, and that he deliberatelyentitled the four-volume summation of his researches EnIslam iranien, warning the reader to anticipate a series ofthemes, not an exhaustive catalogue. Having made somuchof the distinctiveness of Iranian Islam, Corbin might havebeen expected, however, to select themes more fully repre-sentative of the well-defined tradition he claimed to per-ceive. In fact, for all the mastery and eloquence with which it

was elaborated, Corbin’s vision of Iranian Islam embracedlittle more than the dim echoes of Mazdaism, the Sufism ofRiizbihPn and the Kubraviya, the illuminationism ofSuhrawardi, and the speculative and mystical aspects ofShi‘ism. From a reading of Corbin’s works, one would neversuspect that Sunni Islam dominated the religious horizonsof Iran for nine centuries, nor a re his writings of much helpin understanding the verifiable process whereby TwelverShi‘ism did indeed become something of an “Iranian Islam.”

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6An Orientalist career may legitimately be viewed not only inthe context of the intellectual and spiritual predilections of

the scholar in question, bu t also in that of the institutionaland even political framework within which it was pursued.

Thr oug hou t his career, Corbin alternated between France

and Iran, having as his base in Te hra n th e Department of

Iranology at the Franco-Iranian Institute. He enjoyednumerous contacts in both official and academic circles, an d

frequently mentioned unnamed “Iranian friends” as asource of authoritative reference in his works. H e collabo-

rated on certain projects with the late Muhammad Mu‘in,withJalaad-Din Ashtiyinl, as well as othe r scholars. A series

of discussions he conducted with one of the scholars of

Qum, ‘Allima Sayyid Husayn Tabstabl‘i, was published in

Persian and enjoyed considerable fame (Corbin, 1960a).

But the most important among his Iranian collaboratorswas, without doubt, Sayyed Hossein Nasr. A prolific if often

derivative author on themes akin to those pursued by Cor-bin, Nasr occupied a wide variety of academic and adminis-

trative posts before prudently leaving Iran in the course of

th e revolution. Director of the I mper ial Academy ofPhilosophy, he was known to have close personal ties to thecourt. Corbin’s association with Nasr h ad , therefore , certain

inevitable political implications. I do not wish to imply for aminute tha t Corbin, consciously or unconsciously, aligned

himself with the now def unct Iranian monarchy in the senseof placing his scholarship at its service. The directions he

chose to pursue were fully explicable in terms of his ownintellectual preferences and spiritual tastes. It remains,however, a fact of some significance that his particular visionof “Iranian Islam” corresponded nicely to the cultural

policies of the Pahlavi regime. Corbin’s identification of Shi‘iIslam as an esoterism that disdained the sociopolitical plane

had much in common with the regime’s insistence that reli-

gious leaders refrain fro m all political concern. In particu-lar, the teaching of the Shaykhi leader, Zayn al-‘Abidin, that“the action of men cannot remedy their situation,” quoted

approvingly by Corbin, may fairly be termed an ideal pre-scription for the passive endurance of tyranny (Corbin,

1971-72, Vol. 4,247). Certainly a reading of Corbin’s works

leaves the read er with the impression that Imam Khomeinihas either failed to grasp the t rue essence of Shi‘ism, o r haswillfully transgressed against it. Likewise, Corbin’s positing

of an Iranian-Arab dichotomy in Islam had a direct affinityto the ex sh ah’s insistence on removing Ira n, as far as possi-

ble, fro m the Arab context of its culture and history; i t wasthe scholarly and elegant version of the official slogan,“Muslim but not Arab.” Finally, his notion of a profoundspiritual continuity between pre-Islamic and Islamic Iranwas frequently absorbed into the bombastic propaganda

that spoke of two an d a half millennia of unbroken monar-chical rule.

Corbin died in Paris a week after the arrival there of

Imam Khomeini, who was about to ente r the last and trium-phan t stage of his long exile fro m I ran. Writing an obituarynotice in LeMonde (October 11,1978) Henri Tho mas specu-lated on what would have transpired if the two men, who

apparently had so much in common, had met. Given thepolitical context and implications of Corbin’s work (which isknown to Khomeini in general terms), it is highly unlikely

that the meeting would have been congenial.

7As remarkable a nd idiosyncratic as the content of Corbin’s

work was the methodology he espoused. Disdaining notonly historicism but history, he claimed to be a strict

phenomenologist, concerned only with the religious phe-nomenon as an autonomous, almost unattached, reality. Hedefined phenomenology as

the recovery of phenomena, i.e., encountering them, where theytake place and where they have their places. In the religious sci

ences, this means encountering them in the souls of believersrather than in the monuments of critical eruditionor circumstan

tial enquiries; it is to display what has shown itself to them [thesouls], namely the religious fact (Corbin, 1971-72, Vol. 1, xix).

This is no do ubt a laudable and even necessary aim, one that

the overwhelming majority of Orientalists have never evenconceived, let alone striven to attain. Its sufficiency and

feasibility are, however, questionable. The religious fac

exists not only in the soul of the believer, but also on thehistorical plane, conditioning and being conditioned by it ; toignore the interaction between the religious and historica

fact is surely an avoidable impoverishment of our understanding of religion. There is the danger, too, that thescholar will encounter th e religious fact not so much in the“souls of the believers” as in his own soul, where it will be

intermingled with whatever beliefs and associative reminiscences may happen to exist there. T hu s in the case of Cor

bin, the Sufism and Shi‘ism of Iran are obliged to coexiswith numerous elements that are most definitely absenfrom the soul of the Muslim believer: the Holy Graal, theKnights Templar, Swedenborg, Meister Eckhart, to name

but a few. Deliberately, even ostentatiously, refusing toplace the religious phenomenon in the historical contex

that gives it specificity, Corbin all too frequently ended u pby embedding i t in the contours of his own soul.

He was, moreover, not entirely consistent in his adherence to phenomenology. As we have seen, he regarded the

Sufi concept of wiliiyat as an unacknowledged borrowing

from Shi‘ism; this is obviously a historical argument, sincthe alleged borrowing must have taken place at a given time

Tr ue , Corbin remains faithful to his contempt for history by

failing to adduce any convincing proof , but the phenomenological principle is violated by the refusal to encounter thereligious fact of Sufi wiliiyat “where it takes place and has it

place”-i.e., in the soul of the Sufi who is unconcerned withor even totally unaware o f, the Shi’i teachings on the wilzyaof the Imams.

Corbin was certainly not alone among modern Orientalists in experiencing a confluence of spiritual and scholarlinterests. E. G. Browne, R. A. Nicholson, and A. J. Arberryall seem to have been restored to a belief in Anglican Chris

tianity by the study of Sufi texts,4 and Louis Massignospoke of being a “spiritual guest” in the Islamic world long

before Corbin identified himself in similar terms. Insofar a

the atti tude of the Orientalist guest is more respectful andsensitive than that of the Orientalist judge, critic or conqueror, all of whom bring to the study of Islam latent oovert feelings of hostility and superiority, he may achieve greater insight than his colleagues. Sometimes, however, thguest turns out to have been self-invited, and there is n

guarantee that he will fully understand his hosts or transmi

accurately their perception of themselves. What then result



Vol. 6, No. 2 1April 1980 Religious Studies Review / 91

is a personal vision, which may possess profundity andbeauty, but is convincing neither on the plane of formal,discursive scholarship, nor on that of the religious fact (orfacts) experienced by Muslims.

It would be an impertinence to overlook the grandeurand sweep of Corbin’s work or to belittle the magnitude ofhis achievement. He transformed utterly the study of bothIslamic philosophy and of Shi‘ism, and no Western studentof these topics, or indeed of Islam in general, can afford toshirk a careful reading of his works. The reader should notbe intimidated, however, by the magisterial eloquence ofCorbin’s tone, or by the wide and imaginative erudition hiswritings display. Like Massignon before him, Corbin can besaid to have attempted a selective appropriation of Islam byrearranging its component elements in a pattern that he feltto be congenial, personally satisfying, and, therefore, true.His enterprise was a rarefied and idiosyncratic form ofspiritual colonialism.

NOTES~~ ~

It is concisely defined by Sharif JurjHni (1969, 269) as “thesubsistence of Gods servant through God after his obliterationwith respect to himself.”

The perceptive analysis of Massignon’s work by Edward Said(1978), 264-75, suggests many points of comparison with Corbin.

See Corbin, 1972, a paper given, significantly, at the Inter-national Congress of Iranology held at Shiraz in 1971 on theoccasion of “the 2500th anniversary of the foundation of the Per-sian Empire.”

See A. J. Arberry’s autobiographical sketch prefaced to theposthumously published second volume of his translation of Mysti-cal Poems of Rumi (1979), ix-xiv.

REFERENCES

WORKS BY H EN RY CORBIN1939 Suhrawardi d‘Alep. Paris: Maisonneuve.1960a (solar; 133931.)1960b ET Auicennu and the Visionary Recital. Pantheon Books.196Oc “Pour une morphologie de la spiritualitk shi’ite.”Eranos

Jahrbuch 29.1960-61 “L‘kcole shaykhie en thkologie shi‘ite.” Annuaare deI‘Ecob Pratique d es Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Religiewes,1-60.1969 ET Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Zbn ‘Arabi. Prince-ton University Press.1971-72 En Islam iranien. 4 vols. Paris: Gallimard.1972 “For the Concept of Irano-Islamic Philosophy.” Th ePhilosophical Forum (Boston) 411, 114-23.1977ET Spritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Ma d ea n Iran toShi‘ite Iran. Bollingen Series, 4 1/2. Princeton University Press.

1978 ET The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Shambhala (Boul-der, CO).

Maktab-i Tmhuyyu‘. Qum, Iran.

WORKS BY OTHER AUTHORS

ARBERRY, . J. (TRANS.)1979 E T

der, CO).

1965Imprimerie Catholique.

1975York Press (Albany).

Mystical Poems of Rumi. Vol. 2. Westview Press (Bod-

AL-HAKTM AT-TIRMIDHTKit& Khatm al-AwliyZ. Edited by Othman Yahya. Beirut:

FAZLUR, AHMANThe Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. State University of New

JURJANi, S H A R i F

1969 Kitiib at-Ta‘r$it. Beirut: Librairie du Liban.NWYIA, AUL

1970 Exegise Coranique et Langage myshque. Beirut: Dar al-

Machreq Editeurs.RAFIQI,ABDULQAIYUM

N.d.

ing House.SAID, DWARD

1978 Orientalism. Pantheon Books.

Sqi sm in Kashmir. Varanasi and Delhi: Bharatiya Publish-

“MASTER OF THE STRAY DETAIL”:PETER BROWN AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

Patrick HenrySwarthmore College

Swarthmore, P A I9081

The invitation to write a survey review of Peter Brown’s

wo r k is a challenge to justify to myself and others the holdthis man’s portrayal of the world I study has come to haveover me. I came away from reading Augmtim of Hippo: ABiography with something of the exhilaration Keats felt onfirst looking into Chapman’s Homer. I know other patristicsscholars who, lacking my native-Texan penchant for en-thusiasm and hyperbole, nevertheless abandon academiccaution and professional prickliness when admitting howBrown has helped them see things fresh and new. To reviewBrown’s wo r k is to attempt a measurement of a powerfulelectric charge (to adapt one of Brown’s favorite metaphors)administered over the past tw o decades to a broad field ofstudy.

I propose to measure the charge by passing it throughfour questions:

1. What does Brown think he is doing?2. What are his suspicions?3. What are his questions?4. What is his method?

This will be less an account of achieved results than anassessment of the way Brown has reached his conclusions,for his wo r k is not an icon to be venerated, but an undertak-ing to be joined.

WHAT DOES BROWN TH INK HE IS DOING?

This question is particularly important in Brown’s case be-cause he is doing something uncommon in a field whichusually falls into a classicist’s appendix or a medievalist’s

prolegomenon. The territory is of course not unexplored;Rostovtzeff, Nock, Jones, Dodds, Marrou, Frend, andothers have staked their claims, and the somber hues ofGibbon can still be glimpsed at the lowest stratum of thepalimpsest map of the age built up by recent generations ofscholarship. The tradition of patristic scholarship since theseventeenth century has minutely examined the theologicaland ecclesiastical remains of the period. Brown readily ad-mits his debts to previous explorers, but insists he is doingsomething different. T o disregard this insistence is to riskcriticizing Brown for not doing something he has no inten-tion of doing.

ALGAR on CORBIN oevre

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