SUHRAWARDĪ, SHIHĀB AL-DĪN YAḤYĀ. Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥabash ibn Amīrak Abū al-Futūḥ Suhrawardī (AH 549–587/1170–1208 CE) was born in a village near Zanjan, a northern Iranian city. He began his studies at an early age when he went to the city of Maragheh to study philosophy with Majd al-Dīn al-Jīlī, and then traveled to Iṣfahān, where he pursued his advanced studies in philosophy and al-Baṣāʾir (The observations) of ʿUmar ibn Salān al-Sāwī with Ẓāhir al-Dīn al-Fārsī.

Suhrawardī traveled to Anatolia and Syria, where he met Malik Ẓāhir, son of the famous Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ayyūbī, in Aleppo in 1200. Suhrawardī's openness to other...