A Note on the Azoth of Basil Valentine and the Ṭūbā Tree of Suhrawardī: Two Expressions of the Same Archetype

Husayn Jaffry brought to mind a significant convergence of  symbolisms in the third session of our current Suhrawardi course. Among the richest points of convergence between Western alchemy and Islamic Illuminationist gnosis is the symbolism of the Azoth in Basil Valentine and the Ṭūbā Tree with its Pearl in Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī’s Red Intellect (ʿaql-i-surkh). Though historically unrelated, the two images express the same archetypal reality: the universal medicine, axis mundi, and luminous fruit of gnosis. In both Western alchemy and Islamic Illuminationism, the image of a cosmic tree crowned with a luminous jewel also recurs as the emblem of transformation. Basil Valentine’s Azoth of the Philosophers and Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī’s Ṭūbā Tree and Pearl in The Red Intellect are not merely similar symbols but, at their deepest stratum, reveal the same metaphysical archetype: the axis of divine manifestation and return.

Basil Valentine’s Azoth.
In Valentine’s Azoth of the Philosophers emblem, the “Azoth” appears as a cosmic tree whose roots are grounded in the elements and whose branches extend through the planets to the heavens. It is simultaneously the prima materia and the completed lapis philosophorum. The Azoth mediates opposites—sulphur and mercury, sun and moon, male and female—leading to their reconciliation in the one Stone. Alchemically, this universal tincture is both the origin and the goal of the work: the seed becomes the tree, the tree yields the fruit, and the fruit is the pearl-like Stone.

Valentine’s Azoth is also sometimes depicted as a tree growing from the prima materia, branching upward through the planetary spheres, and bearing the lapis philosophorum—the pearl-like Stone. The Azoth is simultaneously the seed, the tree, and the fruit: the one medicine that heals division by reconciling contraries. In its alchemical function, the Azoth is the mediating reality between God and nature, binding together the opposites of sulphur and mercury, spirit and matter, into perfected wholeness.

 

Suhrawardī’s Ṭūbā Tree and Pearl.
In al-ʿaql al-muḥmar (The Red Intellect), Suhrawardī describes the mystical journey culminating in the vision of the Ṭūbā Tree, the paradisal tree rooted in the Light of Lights whose branches stretch through all the degrees of existence. At its heart lies a radiant pearl, symbol of the nūr muḥammadī and the secret of divine wisdom. To behold this pearl is to attain the gnosis of the Red Intellect, the perfected soul transfigured in the dawn-fire of illumination. Like the Azoth, the Ṭūbā Tree is both the origin from which all descends and the ladder by which all ascends.

In Suhrawardī’s Red Intellect, the gnostic beholds the Ṭūbā Tree, the paradisal axis rooted in the Light of Lights (nūr al-anwār). Here the Tree is not merely a symbol of paradise: it is God Itself, the living Source from which all realities flow. At its crown lies the radiant Pearl, identified by Suhrawardī as the First Intellect (al-ʿaql al-awwal), the first emanation from the divine essence and the treasury of all forms. The perfected gnostic, the Red Intellect, perceives this Pearl as the luminous seed of creation, the principle through which multiplicity descends and to which it returns.

Archetypal Unity.
When the two symbols are read together, their equivalence becomes striking:

• The Tree as God/Source: In Valentine, the Azoth Tree grows from the undifferentiated prima materia, which in Hermetic thought is a direct manifestation of the One. In Suhrawardī, the Ṭūbā Tree is God Itself, the Light of Lights from which all being emanates.
• The Jewel/Intellect: In Valentine, the fruit of the Azoth is the Stone, the pearl of perfected integration. In Suhrawardī, the jewel at the crown of the Tree is the First Intellect, the pearl of divine wisdom and the archetypal mediator.
• The Function of Mediation: Both the Azoth and the Pearl are intermediaries: the Azoth as the universal medicine bridging contraries, the First Intellect as the first emanation that mediates between God and creation.
• The Redness: The Red Tincture in alchemy and the Red Intellect in Illuminationism both signify transfiguration — the moment when the Work is complete and the soul shines with dawn-fire.

 
Thus, the Azoth of Basil Valentine and Suhrawardī’s Ṭūbā Tree and Pearl are not disparate symbols but complementary revelations of the same archetype: the divine axis (Tree/God) and its luminous fruit (Stone/Pearl/First Intellect). Both affirm that the path of transmutation culminates in the encounter with the First Principle—whether named the lapis philosophorum or the First Intellect—through which the Many are healed and reunited with the One.