“Wisdom is a light. When its ray shines upon you, it adorns the tongue with right remembrance, the heart with right thought, and the bodily members with right activity,” said Persian Sufi master Hazrat Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī of the early 12^th century.

Spiritual wisdom is the grace and blessing of the Divine Beloved. When God shines his glorious light upon His chosen one, that blessed being is illuminated from within. The greatest masters, the greatest mystics are adorned with such divine blessings. Then their life becomes a glorious transformative force for all around them. Everybody benefits from such benediction of the Divine Beloved.

Hazrat Maybudi sees divine wisdom as light. Sufi masters have often used light as a metaphor for inner peace, spiritual growth, enlightenment and other such celestial attributes. Bowing to divine wisdom, the mystics have spoken in luminous terms evoking unveiling for dispelling of darkness. The Divine Beloved’s Nur (Divine Glorious Light) provides transcendent knowledge and insight so that true seekers are able to perceive divine truths.

Seeing God as the Holy Light draws from the Holy Quran’s Light Verse, the Surah An-Nur, a famous passage describing Allah as the Light of the heavens and the earth, using an extended metaphor of a lamp in a niche, a crystal, a shining star, and oil from a blessed olive tree to illustrate the divine, pure, and universal nature of His guidance (Light), guiding whom He wills towards it.

Describing God as light, Sufi masters have written glorious verses in His praise. Across Sufi traditions globally, the mystics have narrated stories and instructed their followers that God is the primal Nur, the source of all illumination. Among the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah, one of His names is An-Nur, meaning “The Light.”

The Holy Quran says, “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.” God is the Divine Radiance that illuminates everything that is good and beautiful. He removes the darkness in our heart and leads us to His glorious light. An-Nur reflects the layered brilliance of the Divine Beloved. He is infinite light, He is the holy scripture, and He is also the believer’s polished heart. True seekers have seen the Divine Beloved as “light upon light.”

Hazrat Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ghazālī (1058-1111), the celebrated Persian Islamic philosopher, theologian, psychologist, and mystic, deconstructed the word Nur and all its meanings in his seminal work The Mishkat Al-Anwar (The Niche for Lights). Hazrat Al Ghazali wrote of divine light from different perspectives. He understood light as physical luminescence that permeates the man who is suffused with love for the Divine Almighty. He wrote of light as the spiritual intelligence of the seeker who searches for God. Hazrat Al Ghazali also wrote of light as the divine essence that fills the heart and being of the seeker who has surrendered to the Divine Beloved and is anchored in faith and devotion. Physical nur illuminates eyes; intellectual nur (wisdom) reveals truths; the nur of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) guides hearts. And the ultimate Nur Muhammadi reflects God’s radiance. Through these various stages of revelation and divine illumination, the Divine Beloved is seen as “Light Upon Light.”

Hazrat Al-Ghazali wrote of his dream where his teacher Hazrat Yusuf an-Nasaaj opened his baseerah (inner sight), like polishing the heart’s eye with kohl for unseen realities. In this way, Hazrat Al-Ghazali likened spiritual growth to ‘light conquering doubt beyond intellect’. This observation reflected Hazrat Al-Ghazali’s teaching in Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal. He wrote that direct mystical tasting of the Divine Almighty (dhawq) illuminates truth where reason fails.

This magnificent light is revealed to man only after the veils of illusion are lifted with God’s grace. As the celebrated 13^th century mystic Mevlana Rumi said, “The light which shines in the eye is really the light of the heart.” When the light of the heart is illuminated by God the Almighty, then the blessed seeker is able to discern the unity between divine mystery and the soul.

Shaykh-ul-Akbar Hazrat Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) saw God as the Light of heavens and earth. In Futuhat-ul-Makkiyyah (The Meccan Revelations), among his best-known works, he wrote, “The heart has eyes that perceive the Real, if the rust of illusion is lifted.” Hazrat Ibn Arabi explained that ordinary intellect is able to perceive only forms. But when God’s purifying light illuminates the soul, the heart beholds divine signs.

Only God’s light can set a man free and lift his spirit to exalted heights. It is said that a wealthy man wished to give Saint Rabia a gift, so he brought her a purse of gold coins. “God provides for everyone, even those who curse him,” Saint Rabia said. “I don’t need your gold.”

The rich man still stood there, purse in hand, hoping that Saint Rabia would accept his gift.

“Take it away!” Rabia repeated. “I once used the light of the sultan’s lamp to sew by, but it bound my heart. I undid every stitch, and then I used the light of God’s sun to do my work. That is how I freed my heart. Do not ask me to bind my heart with this gold.”

Using the metaphor of light, Saint Rabia has illustrated how only God’s love and His Infinite Magnificent Light frees a man from the clutches of darkness and fills his soul with divine radiance.

Hazrat Ibn-e-Ataullah Sikandari, the famous 13^thcentury Sufi mystic, said that true seekers who surrender to the Almighty are able to receive the benediction of His light. “There is a light deposited in hearts which is nourished by the Light coming from the treasuries of the invisible realms. There is a light wherewith He unveils for you His created things, and there is a Light wherewith He unveils for you His Attributes,” said the great master. God’s light permeates all things eternally, but man may be able to perceive this divine light only if God wills it. When God wills, the light dawns as divine intellect; it dawns as divine illumination of the heart and the spirit.

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