PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION OF ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHICAL TEXTS HAPPINESS AS SELFREALIZATION: TWO ISLAMIC APPROACHES A.V. Smirnov Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences Volknonka, 14, Moscow, Russia, 119991 Al-Suhrawardī, the founder of Ishrāqī school of Illumination, understands happiness as ultimate self-realization. <...> According to al-Suhrawardī, the human self, or ego (’anā), is light embedded and immured in material body, and to attain ultimate happiness means to knock off the shackles of dark matter and, breaking free, to merge with the Absolute Light. <...> This goal is attained after a painstaking vertical ascend and is reached only by a few. <...> Ibn ‘Arabī, on the contrary, holds that happiness is not only attainable, but actually attained by everyone, placing it not above, but within the horizon of human existence. <...> This view is backed by Akbarian ontology of God-to-world relation and his understanding of human being and his universal significance. <...> The universally attainable happiness in Akbarian perspective is human selfrealization as well, though with the different understanding of the human self. <...> Perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that the quest for sa‘āda “happiness” was a general concern of Islamic culture in its classical period. <...> With the advent of Islam, when human aspirations were universally shaped and posited in religious perspective, the word sa‘āda started to signify the ultimate goal to be attained by human being, the absolute bliss which humanity might hope to gain. <...> Generally, there was no doubt that life in the hereafter will be life of happiness and bliss, provided we follow the right path; the disagreement concerned the question whether sa‘āda may be attained exclusively in the hereafter, or the worldly life can be happy too. <...> Yet the question was not about their “equating” in any way, as this was out of question; the question was whether worldly life may be happy at all, in principle. 94 Smirnov A.V. Happiness as self-realization: two islamic approaches Generally speaking, Islamic doctrine (‘aqīda), Mu‘tazila and (at least some of) the Ṣūfī thinkers answered positively. <...> Falāsifa and Ismā‘īlī thinkers answered negatively, and the founder of Ishrāqī school Shihāb al-Dīn Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī should be classified <...>