CITADEL OF LIGHT / CITADELLA SVJETLA
Bismi `lllâh
"CITADEL OF LIGHT" IS A CONTEMPORARY DRAMA, PLACING BEFORE READERSHIP AND SPECTATORS, FOLLOWING QUESTION:
WHY IN HUMAN COMMUNITY IS ALMOST UNIVERSALLY HAPPENING A CONFLICT BETWEEN POWER AND THOUGHT? WHERE, HISTORICALLY, CURRENT POWER IS USUALLY ON GAINS, BUT HISTORICALLY BEYOND DOUBT AT LOSS. JUST THE OPPOSITE OF THE THOUGHT, USSUALY HAPPENING TO BE A HISTORICAL LOSER, BUT HISTORICLLY SHOWS UP AS AN UNDOUBTED WINNER!
Historical, i.e. the current events, and historic, i.e. what from the actuality is being spiritually and materially crystallized remaining in Time, as an uninterrupted advancement of the human community, will be in "Citadel of Light" shown through two contrapuntal acts. Action of the second act, "The Red Mind", which is happening in medieval Syrian city of Halab/Aleppo, displaying last years of the life and work of the main protagonist of Drama, a Muslim philosopher (Theosophists, Gnostics), Shihâbu`d-Dîn Bin Habas ibn Yahyâ As-Suhrawardî, as well as his sufferings from the hands of religious and military authorities, will have announced its universality in the first act "Sarab". The play performed in the tradition of the "teater of shadows", the most popular form of art and mass entertainment in the Muslim world of the Middle Ages.
In this will be summarized wisdom and fate of some classic philosophers and Gnostics, Suhrawardi's predecessors in Hiqmatu`l-'Atiq, "The Ancient Wisdom", much later in Europe called "Philosophia perennis". Or, in other words, "Hikmatu`l-illlâhîyyah", "Divine Wisdom", whose hakimu`l-llâhî, "divine sage", is adorned not only with the superior speculative, logical-dialectical mind, but, also, with God-given direct cognisance, which is the effect of his persistent and exemplary religious practice.
Through dialogues between Ayyûbi governor of Halab, Mâlik Az-Zâhir Al-Gâzi, and his teacher, Shihâbu`d-Dîn ibn Yahyâ As-Suhrawardî, as well as those that the young Prince will moderate between the later and Halab's religious "Inteligentia", in second act of the Drama, and played in totally modern manner just as it is always modern every genuine gnosis, will be presented theosophical teachings of our "Shaykh of Illuminations". More precisely, those teaching from his book "Hikmatu'l-Ishrâk".
Great hermeneutical project of Creation as a permanent vertically descending emanations of "The Light of lights", or Absolute Divine Being, comprehensive in Its luminosity and Its self-consciousness, Which, as being Primary method of "the knowledge of the presence," 'ilmu' l-hudûrî, provides a paradigm for all the latter, human, cognizances. Horizontal, however interaction of the rays, vertically emanated pure, apocalyptic, lights, results in a complex system of the mundal beings. Whose hierarchy of enlightenment-as-self-consciousness has not only strictly cognitive, but also practical political, implications.
It is natural that people are ruled by divine sages, there will conclude our Shaykh his study of illumination-as-self-realisation. In his thesis that enlightenment and self-awareness, which adorn them, do not depend only on God's choice, but also on their individual effort, invested in contemplation and speculative thinking, just as in the sincere worship, followed by a reasonable asceticism, is contained in the answer to also universal question: about relationship between Necessity and Freedom. These, in Suhrawardi work both implicit and explicit conclusions, it is obvious, do not liberate man of his active participation and intervention in the framework of the Absolute Will, and hence the responsibility in creation of their own historical, and historic, reality.
Shihâbu`d-Dîn ibn Yahyâ As-Suhrawardî sais for himself to be not only Restorer but also totally genuine critique, and continuer of theosophical teachings of The One done by the the ancient Easterns: Persian, as well as the wise men of Babylon, China, India, Egypt, Great Britain, Islamic World. In a word, of all those thinkers from different civilisations, cultures, languages, who partake belief, cognizance, and direct experience of Existential- Essence. Thanks to what the latter followers will, based on Shihâbu`d-Dîn's cosmogony and philosophy of ishrâq - a spiritual journey through the world of lights above those worlds apt to the rational cognisance – be be called with a common name ishrâqiyyûn, the illuminationists.
