Suhrawardi's Hymn to the Resplendent Sun
Shaykh al-Ishrāq Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi (1154–1191 CE) was the founder of the Ishrāqiyya, the Philosophy of Illumination — a synthesis of Zoroastrian light-metaphysics, Platonic emanationism, and Islamic mysticism that became one of the most influential currents in the mystical life of the medieval Islamic world. Executed for heresy in Aleppo at the age of thirty-six, Suhrawardi left behind a body of visionary writings — philosophical treatises, symbolic recitals, and devotional texts — that shaped Persian Sufism and Shi'i theosophy for centuries. His key claim was that the ancient wisdom of Persia's sages, lost since Zoroaster, had been preserved esoterically and could be recovered through the illumination of the intellect by divine light.
This text is one of two invocations to Hûrakhsh from Suhrawardi's "Book of Hours" (Kitāb al-awqāt). Hûrakhsh — from the Avestan Khurshed, "Shining Sun" — is not merely the physical sun but the Sun in its active Archangelic theophany: the visible manifestation of the Archangel Shahrvār (Avestan Xshathra Vairya, "Desirable Reign"), identified in the Zoroastrian Avesta as the most luminous manifestation of Ahura Mazdā. In Suhrawardi's cosmology, prayer to Hûrakhsh is a liturgical ascent: the soul addresses the visible sun, through the sun addresses its Archangel, through the Archangel the primordial hierarchy of Lights, and through those Lights the "Light of Lights" beyond all being — the Necessary Being who is "the God of Gods, the God of every Intelligence, of every Soul."
This invocation was shared in August 2006 on alt.religion.gnostic by the practitioner known as "Abraxas" (who signs as "Wahid"), drawn from Mullā Sadrā's commentary on the Hikmat al-Ishrāq as reproduced in Henri Corbin, En islam iranien, vol. II (Gallimard, 1974). It represents a rare instance of active Illuminationist liturgical practice surfacing in the early history of internet spiritual discourse.
The Great Invocation to Hûrakhsh
Blessed be the Most Luminous of beings endowed with life and thought, the Most Manifest of Persons, the Brightest of Stars. Hail to Thee! May the salutations and benedictions of the Godhead be upon Thee, Sublime Luminary, Most August of the moving stars; You who obey the One from Whom You originate; You Who are moved by the ardor of love for the Inaccessible Majesty of Your Creator. You are Hûrakhsh, the Most Powerful, Vanquisher of darkness, Prince of Heaven, Author of the Day, through the order of the Most High Godhead. You are the King of the Stars, Prince of Persons on High. You reign through the power and the obeyed divine force over the Lights incarnated into bodies. You are the Body that dispenses Light, the Vanquisher, the Brilliant One, the Sage, the One surpassing in Excellence. You are the Most Magnificent of the offspring from the spiritual world through your incandescent splendors. You are the Caliph of the Light of Lights in the world of bodies, Who encircles You with a Light that culminates in Its victory. You are an Image of Its Grandeur, an exemplification of Its beauty, Its proof for the eyes of the faithful. Glory to the One who gives You Your Form and Your Light, Who has made You a Mover through ardent desire for Its Inaccessible Majesty and Who has enshrined You in the Fourth Heaven.
Oh Holy Father! I pray to You that You may pray to the One who displays the Splendor of Your thinking Soul to His Orient, who is Your Father, Your Cause, the object of Your Love and the Principle of Your movement, Whose Shadow and Theurgy (of the Archangel Shahrvār) You are. Pray with Him to all Archangelic Lights, the immaterial Intelligences, that they may pray in their turn, in that form of prayer that belongs to the eternal world bereft of change and alteration, to the One who is their Father, their cause and the object of their Love; the Most August of Beings, of Primordial Birth, the Light closest to the Principle, Intelligence of the Universe (the Archangel Bahman). May He pray this same way to His God, the God of Gods, eternally subsisting Light of Lights, God of every Intelligence, of every Soul, of every ethereal and elementary body, simple or composed, the Necessary Being. May He pray Him to illuminate my soul with the brightness of the spiritual world, with theophanic knowledge and superior powers. May He pray Him to count me among those who have that nostalgia for His Light and make me immune to all infirmities of soul and body, to make the faithful of the Light and the mystical Orient triumph. May He bless them and make them holy and us also, for ever and ever. Amen.
Note
Hûrakhsh al-kabîr (the Great Invocation to Hûrakhsh) is the first of two invocations in Suhrawardi's Book of Hours. The text is preserved in Mullā Sadrā's commentary on the Hikmat al-Ishrāq (Gloss 430, §159), Teheran lithograph edition, p. 357 marginal. The first independent publication of the Arabic text was by Muh. Mo'in in Yaghmā I, 2 (1327 h.s.), pp. 88–89.
Colophon
Originally composed in Arabic by Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi (1154–1191 CE), founder of the Ishrāqiyya school of Islamic philosophy. Posted to alt.religion.gnostic in August 2006 by the practitioner "Abraxas" (Wahid). Source text: Henri Corbin, En islam iranien, vol. II (Gallimard, 1974), drawing on the marginal text in Mullā Sadrā's commentary. Original Message-ID: [email protected]
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲