Light upon Light! God guides whom He will to His Light: God sets forth parables for men, and God knows all things.

The Qur'an

Light Upon Light

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
The parable of His Light
is as if there were a Niche,
and within it a Lamp;
the Lamp enclosed in Glass:
The Glass as it were a brilliant star:
Lit from a blessed Tree,
an olive neither of the East nor of the West,
Whose oil is well-nigh luminous,
though fire scarce touched it.
Light upon Light!
God guides whom He will to His Light:
God sets forth parables for men, and God knows all things.

Islam
The Qur'an

Wilson, Andrew, editor. World Scripture - a Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. Paragon House, 1991, pp. 74, 381 [Qur'an 24.35].

Theme: The Light of Truth

Andrew Wilson’s Commentary Qur’an 24.35

Islamic mystics since al-Ghazali have interpreted these verses as expressing God’s inner illumination of the human soul. The Niche, Glass, Lamp, Tree and Oil correspond to the five faculties of the soul: 1) the senses, 2) the imagination, 3) the discriminative intellect, 4) reason, the faculty capable of abstract knowledge, and 5) the transcendent prophetic spirit that can apprehend divine truth. The soul is thus a graded succession of lights, “Light upon Light,” whose source is God.

―Andrew Wilson, Editor [World Scripture, A Comparative Anthology Of Sacred Texts].

Qur’an 24.35 [Short Commentary]

In the sacred text of the Qur’an, the phrase “Light upon Light” illuminates a profound spiritual concept. It carries a message that God guides whom He wills to His Light, offering parables for human understanding and embodying the boundless knowledge of all things. This divine metaphor invites us into a reflection on the inner illumination of the human soul, a theme that has been explored by Islamic mystics such as al-Ghazali and holds relevance even in our modern times.

Qur’an 24.35 [Longer Commentary]

The notion of “Light upon Light” has been beautifully interpreted by these mystics as a layered journey of self-realization and spiritual awakening. Each layer of light corresponds to a distinct faculty of the human soul. The senses, our first point of contact with the world, are a light that guides us. Imagination, the next layer of light, nurtures our ability to envision possibilities beyond the visible realm. This illumination then deepens into the discriminative intellect, a light that helps us distinguish truth from untruth, right from wrong.

The fourth light is reason, an essential faculty that enables us to engage with abstract knowledge, to explore depths of understanding beyond the tactile and the seen. It’s our capacity to think, to reflect, to make connections. This light of reason brings us to the threshold of the highest level of our soul’s faculties, the transcendent prophetic spirit. This ultimate light lets us apprehend the divine truth, a direct illumination from God that transcends the limits of our earthly existence. It is the light that brings us closest to the divine, aligning our spirit with the ultimate source of all illumination.

Therefore, the soul is more than a vessel for the physical senses, it is a “graded succession of lights” leading towards divine truth. Each faculty, each light, is a step on the path of spiritual discovery, a journey guided by the light of truth. This journey is not linear, but rather an ongoing, layered process of illumination – “Light upon Light” – which continues to unfold as we engage with our inner selves and the world around us. The source of all these lights is God, a constant beacon guiding us on this path of self-awareness and spiritual enlightenment. The “light of truth”, therefore, becomes not just an external divine guide, but also an inner illumination that transforms our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe.

Light Upon Light

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