Allah has Light
The previously mentioned ayat (24.35) of the Holy Qur’an states that Allah is Light, but immediately after that, in the next line, it speaks about Allah’s possessing Light. Thus Allah is not just light but He has light, or light belongs to Him. Then in the third line, there is a very nice parable of a lamp cited in order to deepen our understanding that Allah is not merely light, but He also has light. It is this: just as light emanates from a lamp, so also does the spiritual light emanate from Allah. Now let us analyze this ayat of the sura “An-Nur”, or “Light”, more carefully:
Masalu nurihi ka-Mishkatin-fiha Misbah: “The similitude of His Light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp.” (24.35)
The words Nurihi, ”His Light” is very significant.
Ustad Abdullah Yusuf Ali comments:
“Physical light has drawbacks incidental to its physical nature: 1) it is dependent upon some source external to itself; 2) it is a passing phenomenon; if we take it to be a form of motion or energy it is unstable, like all physical phenomena; 3) it is dependent on space and time; its speed is 186,000 miles per second, and there are stars whose light takes thousands of years before it reaches the earth. The perfect Light of Allah is free from any such defects.” (9, p. 1016)
This means that Allah has Light. He owns the Light. In other words, Light emanates from Allah. The example of al-misbah, a lamp, is given here. The light emanates from the lamp; the lamp is the source of light. Similarly, Allah is the source of Light from which all light comes. Just as mishkat, a niche, (a niche is a hollow area in the wall of an Eastern house, high off the ground, which was used to hold a lamp before the days of electricity) is the basis for misbah, a lamp, similarly, Allah is the basis for spiritual effulgence.
