Suhrawardī’s Other Dream: Knowledge, Power, and Authenticity between Three Dream Accounts

The legacy of Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥabash al-Suhrawardī (549/1155-587/1191) is often remembered in light of his philosophical innovation in formulating the Philosophy of Illumination (Hikmat al-ishrāq). His mystical ontology and epistemology allow for an elaborate role of dreams and vision quests as avenues of knowledge. Among such dreams, scholars of Suhrawardī have extensively analyzed, albeit with varying approaches, the ones elaborating his mystical and philosophical teachings. However, in historical accounts of Suhrawardī, there are a number of other dreams attributed to the shaykh and to other figures that flesh out the making and the reception of the political aspect of his philosophy. My paper will provide an outline of Suhrawardī’s political philosophy by historical contextualization of one of such dream accounts and, in the bigger picture, relating it to a specific motif in dream accounts by ‘ulamā aspiring for political power in the same historical period and geographical region.