About this text: The Occidental Exile

قصة الغربة الغربية

Suhrawardī (549–587/1154–1191)

Captives in the city of the West, the hoopoe's letter, and the climb to the Sinai of the soul.

On the Platonic Current: Suhrawardī

In the reader

46 passages · ~15 min · audio · 30 Quran quotations

1,059 words

Audio: Arabic and English
Published translation: none (the English is AI, marked as such)
Quran quotations: 30

Not yet: commentaries.

Read it →Grammar practice Study sheet (print)

Difficulty

much rare vocabulary

Lexical difficulty, from the words themselves: how many roots fall outside the 1,000 most frequent in the Quran, how long the words are, and how much of the vowelling had to be supplied by AI. It says how unfamiliar the vocabulary is, not how deep the ideas are.

Rare roots 17% · mean word length 4.4 letters · AI vowelling on 90% of words

Themes & resonances AI

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

Exile in the city of the Westغربةghurbaroot غرب
Climbing by night to the palace and the mountainصعودṣuʿūdroot صعد
Casting off the fetterقيدqaydroot قيد
The father's letter and the hoopoeالهاديal-Hādīroot هدي
The sea voyage and the stations of the wayسفينةsafīnaroot سفن
The Light of light above the chain of fathersنور النورnūr al-nūrroot نور
Breaking through the spheresفلكfalakroot فلك
Awakening onto the straight pathيقظةyaqẓaroot يقظ

What each theme is here

Exile in the city of the West. The soul is a captive from the East held in a well in Qayrawān, the western city of oppressors, and the West stands for matter and the world of generation.
Climbing by night to the palace and the mountain. The captives climb to the palace at night and fall back at dawn, and the exile finally climbs Mount Sinai to his father's hermitage.
Casting off the fetter. Deliverance (khalāṣ) comes by breaking the chains, drowning the son, slaying the wife and casting the wet-nurse into the sea, and the elder says the fetter has not yet been wholly cast off.
The father's letter and the hoopoe. The father al-Hādī, 'the Guide', sends a letter by the hoopoe that calls the exiles home and maps the way.
The sea voyage and the stations of the way. The journey runs by ship through waves like mountains, past Gog and Magog and the ruins of ʿĀd and Thamūd, drawing on Quranic stories of Noah, Lot, Moses and Khiḍr.
The Light of light above the chain of fathers. Each father stands to his own father as the son stands to him, until the lineage ends at the One who is above the above and the light of light.
Breaking through the spheres. The traveller casts down the spheres until sun, moon and stars are ground to powder and frees himself from fourteen coffins, which symbolise the body and the heavens.
Awakening onto the straight path. After freeing himself the traveller 'awoke' onto God's straight path, echoing the name Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, 'Alive, son of Awake'.

Connections

Lineage 4

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

Ibn Sīnā, The Recital of Ḥayy ibn YaqẓānFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm
Suhrawardī says in his preface that he read Ibn Sīnā's recital, found that it lacked the highest stage, and wrote this tale to supply it; the western boundary of Ḥayy's cosmic geography becomes his city of exile.
Carried byغربgharbroot غرب“the West”
In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Sīnā) ¶13 Ḥayy (Ibn Sīnā) ¶22 Path: The fall and the return of the soul
- Henry Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire (1954): Studies Ibn Sīnā's visionary recitals and presents Suhrawardī's Tale of the Occidental Exile as a response to and continuation of the Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān recital.
- Wheeler M. Thackston, The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi (1982): English translation of the Tale of the Occidental Exile, including the preface naming Ibn Sīnā's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān.
Ibn Sīnā, The Recital of the BirdFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Birds caught in a net who escape and cross mountains toward the King supply a model for the captives who glimpse birds and doves from their prison; Suhrawardī is known to have rendered Ibn Sīnā's Recital of the Bird into Persian.
Carried byroot قيد“the snare and the fetter”
In the library:Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶6 Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶7 Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶12
- Henry Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire (1954): Discusses the Recital of the Bird and its Persian rendering by Suhrawardī alongside the Occidental Exile.
The Quran: the straight path and the stories of Moses, Noah, Lot and KhiḍrQuran and hadith · firm
The tale is woven from Quranic phrases: the blessed spot of Moses (Q 28:30), Noah's ship and drowned son, Lot's wife who lags behind, Khiḍr's scuttled boat and the fish that finds its way to the sea (Q 18), and at the moment of awakening God's straight path (Q 6:153), the path asked for in the Opening.
Carried byالصراط المستقيمal-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīmroot قوم“the straight path”
In the library:Q 1:6
- Wheeler M. Thackston, The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi (1982): Translation of the tale with its Quranic citations identified.
Suhrawardī's Ishrāqī doctrine of lights and its commentatorsIshraqi philosophy · probable
The chain of fathers ending in the Light of light gives in symbolic form the hierarchy of lights that Suhrawardī sets out in his philosophical works, which his later readers studied as a single system.
Carried byإشراقishrāqroot شرق“illumination from the East”
In the library:Hayākil al-nūr ¶13 Taqdīs al-shams ¶3
- Hossein Ziai, Knowledge and Illumination: A Study of Suhrawardī's Ḥikmat al-ishrāq (1990): Documents Suhrawardī's philosophy of illumination and the place of his symbolic treatises within it.
- John Walbridge, The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardī and the Heritage of the Greeks (2000): Documents Suhrawardī's sources and his doctrine of lights.

Shared source 1

Both draw on a common ancestor by different routes; grounded like a lineage.

Ibn Ṭufayl, The Tale of Ḥayy ibn YaqẓānFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm
Two contemporaries, one in al-Andalus and one in Syria and Persia, each rewrote Ibn Sīnā's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān for his own purpose: Ibn Ṭufayl as a story of a solitary knower who reasons his way to God, Suhrawardī as a symbolic exile and return.
Common ancestor: Ibn Sīnā's Recital of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān
Carried byحي بن يقظانḤayy ibn Yaqẓānroot يقظ“Alive, son of Awake”
In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶1 Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶6
- Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale (1972): Translation and study of Ibn Ṭufayl's tale, including his reference to Ibn Sīnā's earlier Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān.

Resonance, not influence 8

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

Ibn Sīnā, The Ode on the SoulFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm
Ibn Sīnā's dove descends from the loftiest station, weeps for the dwellings of the sanctuary and is held by a dense snare; Suhrawardī's exiles receive doves with news of the sanctuary and weep at being cast back from the heights into the abyss.
Carried byroot هبط“descent and weeping for the sanctuary”
In the library:al-ʿAyniyya ¶1 al-ʿAyniyya ¶8 al-ʿAyniyya ¶15 Path: The fall and the return of the soul
al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights: the Light of lights and the lamp of the Light VerseSufism · probable
Both place a graded hierarchy of lights beneath a Light of lights and read the lamp with its oil from the Light Verse as a figure of the soul; the tale's lamp whose light spreads through the house and its One 'above the above and the light of light' sit close to al-Ghazālī's ordering of borrowed lights.
Carried byنور النورnūr al-nūrroot نور“Light of lights”
In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶59 Mishkāt al-anwār ¶74 Path: Light and its veils
Plotinus, Ennead VI.9: why one does not remain thereNeoplatonism · probable
Plotinus asks why the soul that has reached the vision does not stay, and answers that it has not yet wholly come out of the body; the elder on Sinai tells the exile he must go back to the western prison because he has not wholly cast off the fetter.
Carried by“not wholly come out”
In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 10 Path: Unification: the soul at peace
Ibn ʿArabī, The Meccan Openings: the youth met at the KaʿbaSufism · probable
In both works the seeker meets a luminous figure at a sacred height whose radiance overwhelms him to the point of swoon or effacement, and who then instructs him about his own reality.
Carried by“the luminous guide”
In the library:al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶83 al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶107 Path: The Beloved's face at the House
The Hymn of the Pearl, in the Acts of ThomasGnosticism · firm
A king's son sent from the East into Egypt forgets his origin until a letter from his father, carried by a bird-like messenger, wakes him and calls him home; the father's letter brought by the hoopoe plays the same part here. Nothing documents that Suhrawardī knew the hymn.
Carried by“the father's letter to the exiled son”
Plato, Republic VII: the allegory of the cavePlatonism · probable
Prisoners chained in a dark place underground, an ascent toward the sun, and a necessary return to the prisoners below form a pattern close to the well of Qayrawān, the climb to Sinai and the enforced return to the West.
Carried byσπήλαιονspēlaion“the cave and the well”
Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, The Conference of the BirdsPersian poetry · probable
A hoopoe leads the travellers across a perilous way, and at the end the seekers find their own likeness in what they sought, much as the exile learns that the fish at the mountain are his brothers from one father.
Carried byهدهدhudhud“the hoopoe”
Novalis, Heinrich von Ofterdingen: 'Where are we going? Always home.'Romanticism · suggestive
Novalis's novel treats all wandering as a homeward journey driven by longing; the tale's 'longing upon longing' for the homeland, stirred by lightning from the East, gives the same shape to desire.
Carried byشوقshawqroot شوق“longing for home”

Contrast 2

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (Kuoan Shiyuan): returning to the marketplaceBuddhism · probable
In the Zen sequence the return to the town after awakening is the final stage and a free act of compassion; in the tale the return to the western prison is suffered as a grief, softened only by the promise of easy ascent and a final release.
Carried by“the return after vision”
Ibn Ṭufayl, The Tale of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: the heart found by dissectionFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Ibn Ṭufayl's child learns that the soul is distinct from the body by opening the gazelle's heart and reasoning from what he finds; Suhrawardī reaches the same distinction through symbols, where the body appears as a well, a mill and fourteen coffins.
Carried by“the body left behind”
In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶80 Hayākil al-nūr ¶28

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-09-28. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

Versions

16 layers, each with its licence

The original

Amīn's edition (Cairo 1952)Aḥmad Amīn · 1952Public domain

By: Aḥmad Amīn (editor) · 1952
Source:: Aḥmad Amīn (ed.), Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān li-Ibn Sīnā wa-Ibn Ṭufayl wa-l-Suhrawardī (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1952; Dhakhāʾir al-ʿArab 8), printed pp. 131–134, headed «حي بن يقظان للسهروردي»; the archive.org copy is a later free reprint (Dār al-Madā for al-Ittiḥād) · link ↗
In the reader:: The medieval text only, in full: 46 passages, 1,059 words of A
Licence:: The medieval text is public domain. Amīn (d. 1954) is out of copyright in Egypt; his own editorial matter (preface, study, notes) remains protected in the US until 2047 and is not used
Notes: The first print of the Ghurba, from one manuscript, the Escorial copy catalogued in error as Ibn Sīnā's, lent to Amīn by al-Khuḍayrī; the text calls itself «قصة الغريبة الغربية». Independent of Corbin. Printed vowels almost none (tanwīn, a few shaddas), kept as printed. Amīn's three footnotes excluded.

Corbin's critical editionHenry Corbin · 1952Copyrighted: cited only

By: Henry Corbin (editor) · 1952
Source:: Henry Corbin (ed.), Opera metaphysica et mystica II = Œuvres philosophiques et mystiques II (Tehran: Institut Franco-Iranien / Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1952; Bibliothèque Iranienne 2), Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya c. pp. 273–297; reprinted in Majmūʿa-yi muṣannafāt-i Shaykh-i Ishrāq II (Tehran: Pizhūhishgāh, 1993)
In the reader:: Counts only: 177 difference units between Amīn and Corbin (10 orthographic, 167 substantive); its section numbers (prologue 0, §§1–45) give our segmentation
Licence:: In copyright (Corbin estate / IFRI): compared privately, readings not published
Notes: Compared word by word on the consonantal skeleton, as reprinted in the Beirut 2018 Mawsūʿa (read from its page images); the 1952 print itself is not on disk, so adjudication against Corbin proper is not done. Amīn is shorter (1,059 against 1,148 words): it lacks e.g. most of §29 and the Salāmān-and-Absāl clause of the prologue. No reading of Amīn was replaced by Corbin's.

The Beirut 2018 reprint of Corbin's textUNVERIFIED · 1439/2018Copyrighted: cited only

By: UNVERIFIED (editor (the title page's "ḥaqqaqahu wa-iʿtanā bihi" names no one in the OCR)) · 1439/2018
Source:: Mawsūʿat muṣannafāt al-Suhrawardī (Beirut: Dār Rawāfid li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-nashr, 1st ed. 1439/2018), ISBN 978-614-426-871-1, the Ghurba at printed pp. 577–582
In the reader:: Not shown
Licence:: In copyright (publisher, 2018); a private copy, used only to read Corbin's text
Notes: A compilation reprint of Corbin's text and numbering without his apparatus (derived from Corbin, no independent weight); Quran verses in ornamental brackets with sūra/āya footnotes by the modern editor.
UNVERIFIED:: The editor of the Beirut 2018 Mawsūʿa is not named in the repo.

Our edition

Our transcription of Amīn's textUNVERIFIED · 2026-09-28Our work

By: UNVERIFIED (transcriber) · 2026-09-28
Source:: data/sources/ghurba-base.json; text record, addendum of 28 Sept 2026
In the reader:: In full; changes and doubtful readings listed
Licence:: Ours
Notes: Transcribed from 220-dpi page images, the OCR used only as a typing aid. 31 changes: 4 misprints corrected (وجئتكما §10, ظئري §19, طلع §34, شئت §41) and 27 exact Quran quotations replaced with the verbatim Tanzil Uthmani text (3 of them orthographic only); 11 adapted allusions and 1 hadith (§13) recorded but left as printed. 10 doubtful readings of Amīn listed (§§5, 8, 13, 15, 32, 36, 37, 39, 42, 43). Review by a person pending.
UNVERIFIED:: The text record does not say whether Amīn's text was transcribed by a person or by AI.

Published translations

Thackston, A Tale of Occidental Exile (1982)W. M. Thackston · 1982Copyrighted: cited only

By: W. M. Thackston (translator) · 1982
Source:: W. M. Thackston, The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Suhrawardi (London: Octagon, 1982): A Tale of Occidental Exile (from the Arabic)
In the reader:: Not shown; none of its wording is reproduced
Licence:: In copyright; cited only
Notes: Our AI translation was checked against it privately (an AI comparison decided from the Arabic).

Thackston, The Philosophical Allegories (1999)W. M. Thackston · 1999Copyrighted: cited only

By: W. M. Thackston (editor and translator) · 1999
Source:: W. M. Thackston (ed. & tr.), The Philosophical Allegories and Mystical Treatises (Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1999; Bibliotheca Iranica, Intellectual Traditions 2): Arabic pp. 106–111 reprinted from Corbin; English facing the anonymous Persian translation-commentary, pp. 112–122
In the reader:: Not shown
Licence:: In copyright (1999); cited only

Corbin, L'Archange empourpré (1976)Henry Corbin · 1976Copyrighted: cited only

By: Henry Corbin (translator) · 1976
Source:: Henry Corbin, L'Archange empourpré (Paris: Fayard, 1976): French, with the Persian commentary
In the reader:: Not shown; not on disk
Licence:: In copyright; cited only

AI layers

Vowelling (supplied vowels)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: The vowel marks the AI supplied are shown in amber (per-character mask: 't' from the source, 'a' from AI)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/ghurba.json (scripts/recitals/prepare.py ghurba: headless Claude Code, Opus; letters verified unchanged))
Notes: Amīn's print is almost unvowelled: prepare.py supplied the vowels, letters verified unchanged; the Quran quotations are vowelled from Tanzil. 149 words with two defensible vowellings listed.

English translation, passage by passageClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Under each passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/ghurba.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py ghurba opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes: Written for this reader from the Arabic (our vowelled text), with the glossary in data/sources/ghurba-meta.json; the model was told not to reproduce or imitate published translations (Corbin/Trask, Goichon, Heath, Thackston, Azal, Hussain, Beneito & Hirtenstein, Austin, Nicholson, Chittick) and was given none.

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: One gloss per word, in the sense the passage gives it (word panel, and under the words on request)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/ghurba.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py ghurba opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes: Contextual glosses (1–5 words) for every word id, from the same run as the translation.

Term notesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (notes) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Up to six technical terms per passage, each with a one-sentence note, on the word
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/ghurba.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py ghurba opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes: From the same run as the translation, with the Ishrāqī glossary in data/sources/ghurba-meta.json.

Resonances: themes and connectionsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections, by docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: For the whole text: themes and 15 connections, on the About page
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of content/resonances/ghurba.json (Claude Code, headless, no web access))
Notes: Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references were proposed by the model without web access and are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis (CAMeL Tools)CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) · 2026-09-28Our work

By: CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) (analyser: calima-msa-r13 + MLE, constrained by the text's vowelling) · 2026-09-28
Source:: scripts/fusus/analyze.py → data/sources/ghurba-analysis.json · link ↗
In the reader:: Lemma, root, part of speech, clitics and pattern, in the word panel
Licence:: Our analysis layer, made offline with CAMeL Tools (code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2, not redistributed)
Notes: Constrained by the text's vowelling (data/sources/ghurba-analysis.json). Automatic and non-generative; date = first commit of the analysis file.

Quran quotations found automaticallyscripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-09-28Our work

By: scripts/quran_refs.py (skeleton matcher against the Tanzil Uthmani text) · 2026-09-28
Source:: app/src/data/quran-refs/ghurba.json
In the reader:: 30 matches, on the words they cover
Licence:: Ours
Notes: Quotations verified when the text was established, plus an automatic match on the consonantal skeleton (vowels, Quranic marks, alif spellings and hamza seats ignored): a run of four or more words, or three words of at least 12 letters. No AI.

Audio

Arabic read aloud (machine voice)ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) (machine voice) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage, word by word highlighted
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/ghurba-audio.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the vowelled text (including the AI vowels); a reading aid, not a recitation.

English read aloud (machine voice)en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) (machine voice) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage, word by word highlighted
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/ghurba-audio-en.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the AI English translation; a reading aid.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: status, witnesses, the decisions taken and why, and what AI supplied. This is a working edition, not an authority.Show the notes

Work / author / dates	Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya (قصة الغربة الغربية, "The Tale of the Occidental Exile") · Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Ḥabash al-Suhrawardī, al-Maqtūl (549–587 AH / 1154–1191 CE)
Part added	Whole text (short: a prologue + c. 45 numbered sections in Corbin's division; about 1,300 words)
Reader route	`/read/ghurba` · apparatus `/read/ghurba/notes` (proposed)
Status	witness survey done (step 2, 28 Sept 2026) · no text established yet · reviewed by: —

Structure: doxology and prologue (the author read Avicenna's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, found it lacking the hints to "the greatest stage" that are hidden in Salāmān wa-Absāl, and so wrote this tale), then the recital: the journey with the brother ʿĀṣim from Transoxiana to the West, capture in Qayrawān, the well and the palace, the hoopoe and the father's letter, the ship, the Quranic stations (Hūd, al-Kahf, al-Naml…), the ascent to the Fountain of Life and Mount Sinai, the meeting with the father, the necessary return to the western prison, the promise of final release, closing prayer. Dense with Quran quotation (at least 30 verses, mostly Hūd 11, al-Kahf 18, al-Naml 27): step 6 will matter. Relation to (B): it is written as an answer to Avicenna's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (see ibn-sina-hayy.md); the two are to be read as a pair.

1. Witnesses

Independence: C (Corbin) is the only critical edition. R is a modern reprint that follows C's text and numbering without its apparatus, so R is DERIVED from C and carries no independent weight (useful only as an openly readable text layer of C). A (Amīn) is an independent early print from a single manuscript. P is the anonymous Persian translation-commentary, an early transmission witness. Order of weight for this text: C → P (as witness to readings) → A → R → digital texts.

Siglum	Witness	Kind	Vowelled?	Licence	Location / text layer
C	Henry Corbin (ed.), Opera metaphysica et mystica II = Œuvres philosophiques et mystiques II (Kitāb Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, wa-yalīhi Risāla fī iʿtiqād al-ḥukamāʾ wa-Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya), Tehran: Institut Franco-Iranien / Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1952 (Bibliothèque Iranienne 2); Ghurba c. pp. 273–297 (Corbin cites §44 at p. 296). Critical edition with apparatus; Corbin's "Prolégomènes II" (French) discuss the text and translate the prologue (p. 88). Reprinted in Corbin (ed.), Majmūʿa-yi muṣannafāt-i Shaykh-i Ishrāq II, Tehran: Pizhūhishgāh, 1993 (and later reprints). MSS: to be read from C's introduction (not on disk). Corbin notes that MS ʿĀshir 441 (Istanbul), catalogued as Avicenna's Ḥayy, is in fact the Ghurba (Corbin/Trask, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, p. 127 n. 7).	critical ed.	partly (Quran and key words)	© (Corbin estate / IFRI); private layer	NOT ON DISK. Need a scan.
R	Mawsūʿat muṣannafāt al-Suhrawardī, Beirut: Dār Rawāfid li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-nashr, 1st ed. 1439/2018, ISBN 978-614-426-871-1 (printing: Dār al-Maḥajja al-Bayḍāʾ). Title page reads "ḥaqqaqahu wa-iʿtanā bihi" but the name is not in the OCR (possibly blank on the page: check the PDF title page). A compilation reprint: its contents reproduce Corbin OPM I–II (Talwīḥāt, Muqāwamāt, Mashāriʿ; Ḥikmat al-ishrāq with the very same half-title "wa-yalīhi Risāla fī iʿtiqād al-ḥukamāʾ wa-Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya"), plus Abū Rayyān's Hayākil al-nūr study, Badawī's Arabic version of the Corbin–Kraus Aṣwāt ajniḥat Jibrāʾīl, etc. Ghurba: OCR offset ≈ 801,300–807,900, printed pp. 577–582; sections numbered (1)–(45) as in Corbin (§44 is the fall back into the West, matching Corbin's §44); Quran verses in ornamental brackets with sūra/āya footnotes added by the modern editor; no variant apparatus.	modern reprint of C (derived)	partly (lightly, following C)	© publisher 2018 (the text is Corbin's edition; not openly licensed)	Local: a private copy; archive.org `20200216_20200216_0716` (no licence stated)
A	Aḥmad Amīn (ed.), Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān li-Ibn Sīnā wa-Ibn Ṭufayl wa-l-Suhrawardī, Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1952 (Dhakhāʾir al-ʿArab 8; later reprints). First print of the Ghurba, from one manuscript, the Escorial (Madrid) copy catalogued in error as Ibn Sīnā's, lent to Amīn by "al-ustādh al-Khuḍayrī" (Amīn's preface); Corbin: "a single manuscript and with a garbled title" (al-Gharība; Amīn's study writes «قصة الغريبة الغربية»). Independent of C.	early ed. (single MS)	lightly	Amīn d. 1954: PD in Egypt; US status uncertain	archive.org `quran99yaai_gmail_201710` (a free-with-newspaper reprint, Dār al-Madā for al-Ittiḥād). Good Arabic text layer (first 200 KB checked; the Ghurba text itself lies further in: TODO). Amīn's study quotes it: `سافرت مع أخي عاصم من ديار ما وراء النهر الى ساحل اللجة الخضراء الى مدينة القيروان في المغرب . فلما أحس قومها بقدومنا عليهم` (note «ساحل اللجة الخضراء» against R's garbled line: a reading to compare with C).
P	Anonymous Persian translation and commentary (Qiṣṣa-yi ghurbat-i gharbī, 13th c.?), each section translating the Arabic, then explaining it. Ed. Corbin (in OPM II, or its Persian section; confirm) and reprinted with English by Thackston 1999 pp. 112–122 with marginal glosses from MS Istanbul Rāghıb Paşa 1480 (siglum "Ra"). Useful as a lemma witness: it renders each Arabic section.	commentary (Persian)	n/a	© (editions)	Thackston PDF/TXT on disk (Persian layer garbled OCR)
T	W. M. Thackston (ed. & tr.), The Philosophical Allegories and Mystical Treatises, Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1999 (Bibliotheca Iranica, Intellectual Traditions 2). Arabic text pp. 106–111 reprinted from Corbin (Treatise IX: "the Persian texts … edited by … Henry Corbin (Treatise IX)"); English facing the Persian pp. 112–122. Earlier translation: Thackston, The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Suhrawardi, London: Octagon, 1982.	translation (+ reprint of C)	partly	© 1999 W. M. Thackston; cite only	a private copy. The Arabic text layer is unusable: `^tr^1 Jujf … 0^5" JCo y ijj-5 J C-^l`
—	Other translations (cite only): Corbin, L'Archange empourpré, Paris: Fayard, 1976 (French, with the Persian commentary); Corbin's French of the prologue in "Prolégomènes II"; Heath? (not traced for the Ghurba: Heath 1992 translates Avicenna's Miʿrāj-nāma, not this).	translation	—	©	not on disk except via Corbin (Trask) citations
D	Digital texts: see the table below. None is openly licensed and independently sourced.	digital

Digital texts checked

Source	Result
OpenITI RELEASE	no Ghurba text (as stated in the brief).
Shamela / al-Waraq / Wikisource	not found in a web search (28 Sept 2026); not checked site by site. TODO.
archive.org	R (above); A (Amīn) = `quran99yaai_gmail_201710`.
Zaydān	Yūsuf Zaydān, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: al-nuṣūṣ al-arbaʿa wa-mubdiʿūhā (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq) prints the Ghurba with the texts of Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Ṭufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs: ©, modern reading text; base unknown (probably C or A). Noor-book PDF only.
Hindawi	Ibn Ṭufayl and Kaylānī only; no Suhrawardī.

Quality of the local text layer (R)

Readable in straight narrative; badly broken wherever the print has Quran in ornamental brackets or vowelled words. Examples:

good: «لمّا سافرتُ مع أخي عاصم من ديار ما وراء النهر إلى بلاد المغرب …» comes out as مبدأ القصة: لمّا سافرتُ مع أخي عاصم من ديار ما وراء النهر إلى بلاد المفرته الس طاف من طور شال اللجة الهراة (the second half is OCR garbage for a Quranic phrase).
broken: (۷) وكان في قعر البئر «إطلمت عصان بعَضٍ 4 «إذا أخرجنا أيدينا لم تكد نراها» (Q 24:40 garbled).

Estimate: ~70–80% of words usable; every Quran quotation (a third of the text) must be restored from Tanzil, and the non-Quranic damage (e.g. §§16–18, 22–23, 31, 36, 41, 44–45) re-read from page images.

2. Base and why

Recommendation (provisional): establish our consonantal text on C (Corbin 1952) read from page images, using R's OCR as the typing layer (it is Corbin's text and numbering) and Tanzil for all Quran quotations. Corbin's section numbers (1)–(45) become our segmentation. Rights: no openly licensed witness exists. The work is public domain; Corbin's edited text (1952) is not formally public domain, but a plain consonantal text of a 12th-century work with no editorial creativity beyond choice of readings is usually treated as reproducible; the apparatus, his vowelling choices and R's added notes are not. Publish our own working edition (consonantal text from C checked against A and P), with C's and A's readings cited, not reproduced as editions. Alternative if an openly licensed base is required: A (Amīn 1952; scan on archive.org; PD in Egypt), but it rests on one (Escorial) manuscript and Corbin judged it poor; use it as an independent check, not the base.

3. Collation

TODO (step 4). Planned: R OCR ↔ C (page images) ↔ A ↔ P lemmata (the Persian commentary quotes/renders each section).

4. Decisions (substantive)

TODO

5. Quotations verified

TODO. At least 30 Quran quotations; R's footnotes already give sūra:āya (e.g. Hūd 11:40–44, 81–83; al-Kahf 18:61, 71, 79, 94, 98; al-Naml 27:22, 28, 93; al-Nāziʿāt 79:40…). Replace verbatim from Tanzil.

6. Vowelling

TODO. C is only partly vowelled; AI vowelling will be needed, checked against C.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

Proposed: Corbin's §§ (prologue + 1–45). Word IDs gh:<§>:<token>. TODO.

8. Analysis layer