ʿIlm and the human body: Al-Suhrawardī’s concept of the illuminated temple

The conceptual connection between knowledge, light, and mental and spiritual enlightenment is universal; it can be found throughout history in many pre-modern and modern traditions. Perhaps the most well-known and enduring example of this link is Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ in hisRepublic , wherein the search for wisdom is presented in the analogy of reaching out of darkness into light.¹ In the Christian tradition, Christ is reported to have said: ‘I am the light of the world’, and is accordingly presented as the coincidence between knowledge (logos ) and light (lux ).² In the Islamic tradition, the link between knowledge (ʿilm )