al-Suhrawardi al-Maqtul

Shihab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash al-Suhrawardi (born c. 549/1154) was a Persian philosopher remembered as the founder of "Illuminationist" philosophy — in Arabic hikmat al-ishraq, "the wisdom of illumination," a system that treats reality as gradations of light. For this he is called Shaykh al-Ishraq ("Master of Illumination"). His other epithet, al-Maqtul ("the executed one"), records how his life ended.

Born in the village of Suhraward in north-western Iran, he studied at Maragha under Majd al-Din al-Jili — a teacher also of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi — and then read logic at Isfahan, mastering the Avicennan (Peripatetic) tradition before turning toward mysticism. He spent years travelling through the Jazira and Anatolia, meeting Sufi teachers and, it is reported, seeking the patronage of local rulers and princes. Around 1183 he reached Aleppo, recently taken by Saladin (Salah al-Din) and entrusted to his young son al-Malik al-Zahir. There Suhrawardi won the prince's favour and completed his major work, the Philosophy of Illumination.

His bold philosophical claims and his standing at court alarmed Aleppo's jurists, who, tradition reports, drafted a legal opinion accusing him of heresy. According to the sources, Saladin pressed his son to act, and the philosopher was put to death in the Aleppo citadel in 587/1191, around the age of thirty-six. Early biographers disagree sharply on the manner of his death — confinement without food, the sword, strangulation, or crucifixion are all reported. His Illuminationist writings became deeply influential in later Persian thought.