Like all of Suhrawardi's Philosophical writing, this book is sort of like what would happen if Plotinus or the other Neoplatonists were immersed in the application of Sufi disciplines, and then set to writing their incredible works in a language closer to us in time, and therefore more familiar to us. Suhrawardi had the great advantage of inheriting Bistami, Tustari, Al-Ghazzali, al-Hallaj, and others from the whole period of Islamic renniasance in Persia & the surrounding Arabic speaking areas. It was through the high Sufic lens that he was recieving the world, so that when he came upon Plotinus' idea of the "Light of Lights" it was a direct and lucid transmission. Perhaps it was even a recovery of something lost. Suhrawardi, through adherance to Shariah and through Sufi practice and purification, was well qualified to recieve this definitive pearl of emanationist theory in a proper light. Sadly, such a method of receiving is "all Greek" to the modern mind. Suhrawardi might have been the last major figure in this unbroken chain...

No, you're right Toto. Maybe we'd better stay in our enfeebled, drought-ridden little Philosophical Kansas where we can feel all safe and secure knowing that such things have been banished from the "world of ideas" altogether...

To abort the digression, it's always exciting to remember that Suhrawardi was also standing firm upon the traditions of Egyptian/Greco Hermeticism through the Harranians, and as well had a strong impulse to re-link with the Magian Traditions past of Zoroastrian pre-history. Thus the broad treatment of optics, Light, Darkness, Forms, apparitions...

In The Shape of Light we have a look into the Forms of Light, from what is probably the Medieval world's wisest and most well-informed teacher on the subject. As long as you're standing on some knowledge or experience of Sufism, or have gleaned some shining insights from either the Neoplatonists or Hermeticists at some point in your life, this will be well worth your while. If not, um... Also, the Epilogue by Shaykh Muhammad Sadiq Naqshabandi Erzinjani is a priceless allegory akin to the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rozenkreutz and Suhrawardi's own Visionary Treatises. Fons Vitae have as usual done a really attractive printing & binding job, with nice calligraphy & some gold ink.

"Knowledge is like water, the source of life. Look around you, it is everywhere: torrents of rain, rivers, lakes, oceans... Yet all recieve in accordance with their need, in the amount of the size of their cup."