This article discusses some aspects of Henry Corbin’s engagement with the Shiite tradition. This will be achieved primarily on the basis of four thematic complexes. First, the basic concern of Corbin’s work will be outlined in general; then his phenomenological-hermeneutic method will be discussed. Subsequently, Corbin’s creative understanding of tradition will be illuminated and the typology of Shiite spirituality, which can be reconstructed from his works, will be presented. Only against this background the question can be answered, what Corbin saw in the Shia and why he was attracted to Shiite religiosity in such an extraordinary way.
