Mehdi Fadayi Mehrbani, doctorate student of political sciences: Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was an influential western philosopher whose span of life could be divided into two periods. The first half is distinguished with being a disciple of Martin Heidegger, and the second half begins when he got familiar with Islamic-Iranian philosophers…

IBNA – Mehdi Fadayi Mehrbani, doctorate student of political sciences: Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was an influential western philosopher whose span of life could be divided into two periods. The first half is distinguished with being a disciple of Martin Heidegger, and the second half begins when he got familiar with Islamic-Iranian philosophers. And while he was expected to be the next great western philosopher, he sought the spirit of truth in somewhere else.
As mentioned in his writings, Corbin took Catholic education when still a child. Then he went to a school of Christian Studies and became interested in Protestantism. He continued education at the University of Sorbonne and received his BA in 1925. A year later he took his "licence de philosophie", and two other diplomas in 1928 and 1929 from the University of Paris and INALCO. Meanwhile he also learnt Arabic, Persian and Pahlavi. 

During the years 1923-24 he attended the great Thomist Étienne Gilson (1884 – 1978) courses and later he confessed that it was in the classes of the peerless professor of the Middle Ages philosophy that found about the wonderful collusion of cosmology and angelology in Avicenna's Risalat al-Nafs (Discourse on the Knowledge of the Soul) and from then on he was fond of angelology in Iranian ideology. 

Nevertheless the most significant event of his life took place when he was a pupil of Louis Massignon, director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne, and it was he who introduced Corbin to the writings of Suhrawardi, the 12th century Persian mystic and philosopher. Corbin writes 

"One day in the educational year of 1927-1928 I found an opportunity to discuss issues like my reasons for studying Arabic and the proportions between philosophy and mysticism. When I mentioned an abridged translation of text by a Suhrawardi, suddenly Massignon had an epiphany: he had brought a lithographed book of Suhrawardi from his last trip to Iran. The book was titled 'Hikmat al-Ishraq' with an interpretation attached – a volume of about 500 pages. "Take this, I think this book has something for you!" he said. What Massignon said meant Sheikh Al-Ishraq's accompany throughout my life." 

His acquaintance with the ideas of Suhrawardi began in 1928 when he was employed at the National Library of Paris and started Oriental studies. The job never satisfied Corbin and instead of an orientalist, he ended up as an oriental philosopher as his familiarity with Suhrawardi did not let him treat the orient as an object. He often referred to the moment of Massignon's gifting him Suhrawardi's book as a turning point in his life. 

Suhrawardi had a particular importance for Corbin and the love of Suhrawardi was with him to the last moments of his life as he always referred to Suhrawardi as 'Notre maitre' (Our Master). Corbin says: 

"I was a young Platonist when my heart was ignited by the love of the Imam of Iranian Platonists and since then I never quit his company… My familiarity with Suhrawardi determined my spiritual destiny and passage through this world. My Platonic belief was well expressed by the angelologic vocabulary of ancient Iranian Zoroaster and it enlightened my path. Not only was Iran a great empire and nation, it was also the core of spirituality and history of religions." 

From then on Iran became the center of attention of Corbin as his spiritual land and he wholeheartedly regarded the Shiite Iran as the symbol of original thought in the world. He had often declared that the only way of the western world to get out of the materialist crisis is through Iran and in the instructions of Shiite philosophers and mystics. 

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