The Notion of “Light” Interpreted in “The Niche of the Lights” of Ghazali

Since the revelation of the Holy Quran to the Prophet Mohammad, Muslim thinkers have been interested in the interpretation of the ۳۵th verse of the Surah “Light”. From Fārābi, Avicenna and Sohrawardi to contemporary Islamic scholars, the structure, content and symbolism of this verse, reputed by the title of the verse of the Light, have been studied and commented on several methods. Imam Abu Hamed Mohammad Ghazali, the Great Iranian Master of jurisprudence, theology, ethics, philosophy, logic and gnostic has written a very concise essay on this subject, in order to answer the question of a disciple who asks him to interpret this quranic verse. This book, written in Arabic, is called “Mishkat-al-Anwar”, which means “The Niche of the lights”. In this article, we will faithfully follow the approach taken by Ghazali, this famous Muslim thinker, who was born in Iranian region of Khorasan at the time of the Seljukide dynasty, to explain the quranic notion of the Light. In the examined verse, the terms are positioned according to a well-ordered hierarchical order. The glass is in a niche. The lamp is in the glass. This shows the hierarchy between the sources of light. That is why the quranic verse says “Light on Light”.