 For Suhrawardi, illumination becomes a metaphor for the intellective process. Illuminative relations take place between metaphysical active light principles and the human soul (Marcotte forthcoming). Whereas only the (rational) Isfahbad-light part of the soul is immortal, Suhrawardi, nevertheless, notes the possibility for the imaginative faculty of souls that have not yet achieved perfection to “escape to the world of suspended images, whose locus is one of the celestial barriers” that would function as an ‘astral’ body, bringing “images into being” (PI, §§244–6). While perfect souls have direct access to the (intelligible) immaterial lights (PI, §250), the survival of human imagination would be required for the experiencing of divine retribution and the perfecting of imperfect souls in the afterlife. 