Sūratu’n-Nūr [The Light]:(24:35).Part1

اَللّٰهُ نُورُ السَّمٰوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. (An-Nūr 24:35)

It is God Who has brought and brings everything into the Light of existence from the darkness of non-existence and has made the universe an exhibition and a book to be mediated upon, nourishing our consciences with meanings that provide light for our eyes and exhilarate our hearts. 

Eyes do not see where His Light (of guidance) does not exist, hearts remain deprived of insight, sciences produce whims and fantasies, truths are confused with hypotheses, and existence is a chaos whose meanings remain hidden and cannot be understood. There is neither a substantial philosophy of knowledge in minds nor knowledge about God in hearts.

It is possible only through the Creator of Light, Who illuminates the heavens and the earth with whatever is in them, to advance from knowledge to faith and from faith to true knowledge of God and from true knowledge of God to a deep consciousness of servanthood to Him at the junction of the outer and inner human worlds.

Indeed, it is also through this same Light that the sun and numerous other suns illuminate the universe, the earth is bedecked with innumerable kinds of beauties, and hearts are enlightened with insight and perception. 

All these phenomena are like seeds from which people can produce knowledge of the Creator and His love and yearning to travel toward Him. It is through this Light as well that people think and form conceptions in the mind, and reason and judge, reaching certain truths by means of deduction, induction, comparison, and analogy or syllogism.

The eyes of human beings see the colors, the harmony among the colors and in everything else, and the eternal poetry in the general harmony of existence and transfer them to the heart as information.

The insight takes these pieces of information and re-analyzes and synthesizes them, transforming them into knowledge about or recognition of God. Devotion to God and viewing everything through His Light and knowledge improve the truth of humanity that is contained in a mere drop and transform this tiny drop into an ocean, and human knowledge, which is contained in an atom into a huge sun, and transforms the human heart, which is nothing in itself, into the pulse of the universe. While human beings cannot view the past, the future, and even the present as a whole with their eyes, they feel and sense both themselves and all other sensible things with their insight. They also sense both the pieces and the whole, both the physical entities and their truths (i.e., the Divine Names they are based upon. Each physical entity owes its existence and essential nature to one or several of God’s Names). Furthermore, they sense the Truth of truths, which the universe and whatever occurs in it refers to and indicates, and they come into contact with Him through one of the ranks of certainty, each according to his or her capacity.

The knowledge acquired about God through mental or intellectual and spiritual study of the universe and whatever is and occurs in it may cause confusion concerning the Divine Being. In order to avoid any confusion, while we, as the travelers of this guest-house of the world, are walking among His signs, evidences, and indicators and amidst incidents and witness all this with our physical eyes, we should direct our insight to or focus it on the Creator and Illuminator of Light so that the information we acquire from the universe can be transformed into knowledge of God and so that our feelings and sensations may not cause us confusion. Therefore, the existence must be studied through the Light of lights’ Book which is more radiant than the sun, as declared in the verse:

“Now a Proof has come to you from Your Lord” (An-Nisā’ 4:174),

and in the light of the Prophethood of the Spirit of existence, namely Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings. Just as our world is illuminated by the sun in daytime and by the moon at night, as stated in the verse,

“Blessed and Supreme is He Who has set in the sky great constellations and placed in it a (great, radiant) lamp and a shinning moon” (Al-Furqan 25:61),

the Prophethood of the Spirit of existence is the sun of our consciences and hearts and the moon of our minds.

Indeed, when Divine Light is not taken into consideration, everything in the universe is nothing but darkness.

When we consider everything in the light of God’s Light, then everything—visible or invisible—is illuminated and speaks about its Creator and Sustainer each in an articulate tongue.