Light (al-Nur)
Light is what discloses that which was concealed, and manifests that which is hidden. It is hallowed beyond quantity, quality, direction, color, and space. It is the supreme spirit that annihilates shadows. It is manifest in itself, and makes other things manifest. It is the simple and uncompounded substance (al-jawhar al-basiṭ) that is known by self-evidence. It is the riding animal (maṭiyah) of the knowers of God to the Lord of the worlds.
Light is the true nature of the Spirit (ruḥ). It is the shadow of the innermost secret (sirr). It is the core of pure meaning and the eye of certainty. Light is the pre-eternal attribute of the Real that subsists by its very own essence. It manifests within the realm of possibility through the primacy of existence and through direct perception that discloses itself in the forms of possible things.
According to the People of Realization, Light is the first non-material creation. It is the ink of the Supreme Pen and the liminal intermediary entity (al-wasiṭa al-barzakhiyya) between the eternal and the non-eternal. It is the drink of divine union and an attribute that subsists in the Essence. It is neither the Essence itself nor other than It. It is God’s proof over His servants.
In other words, Light is the Master of Creation (sayyid al-khalq), may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, followed by his brethren among the Friends of God (awliyaʾ) who emulate him. Indeed, the awliyaʾ are the heirs of the Prophet for they point the way to the Real. They are designated by God Almighty as an isthmus (barzakh) between eternity and temporality, for the Beloved (ṣ) is a demonstrable proof (burhan) in and of his noble self. The blessed Messenger of God is sheer Light and a holy handful (qabaḍtan qudsiyah). He has no directions, which is why he could see in front of him and behind him. He is hallowed beyond the defective traits of human nature, and it is for Him that God exalted revealed the verse: “And you did not throw when you threw, but God threw.”
The Friend of God (wali) is a Light among the divine lights. He is a subtle grace (laṭafah) within gross density (kathafah); a divinity within human nature (lahut bi nasut); a heart within a receptacle (qalbun bi-qalab); a representative of God and a vicegerent over His creation. Those who follow the saint’s Lights which are drawn from the niche of prophecy are guided upon the Straight Path.
Light is life. Darkness is death. God says: “Is he who was dead, and to whom We give life, making for him a light by which to walk among mankind, like unto one who is in darkness from which he does not emerge?” (Q Anʿam 6:122).
Here, the dead person is deadened by his passions and appetites. He beholds his lower self and his deeds, and is compared to the one who is revived by the Light of proximity and union. The dead person is compared to the one who no longer beholds the cosmos. Such is the one whose heart is revived by the Light of pre-eternity; the one who sees pure meaning within the sensory realm; the one who hears with God’s hearing and sees with His seeing.
Light is thus the gate to direct knowledge of God (bab al-maʿrifah). It is God’s book, and the link between pre-eternity (qidam) and non-eternity (ḥadath). It is what brings together all pure meanings and inner secrets. It unites and manifests the two opposites. The Book of God was sent down by the Real from the “locations of the stars” (mawaqiʿ al-nujum, Q 56:75 - which could be translated as the "descending of the progressive installments" of the Qur'an) which are in the heaven of the Perfect Human Being (al-insan al-kamil). The Book was revealed in order to bring out the Nation of Monotheism (ummah al-shahadah) from the darkness of the lower self, or the darkness of beholding multiplicity, to the light of innate disposition (nur al-fiṭrah) by the permission of the Lord. This Light of the innate human disposition is the light of the Day of Alastu.
The Light guides upon the straight path of the singular pre-eternal Alif. It is therefore the intermediary (wasiṭah) of the singular name Allah that points to the divine Essence. God says: “He for whom God has not appointed any light has no light” (Q Nur 24:40).
Given that Light is an intermediary (wasiṭah), it requires divine permission. This intermediary is the rope of union between you and the world of Lights; between the world of spirits and the world of bodies. Whoever has no intermediary has no Light, and whoever denies the intermediary denies the Divine Name without knowing it. Moreover, whoever denies the Name has no share in knowing the Named, for even the blessed Messenger of God — who was better than you and I — the master of creation, had the [archangelic] intermediary of Gabriel (Jibril) who accompanied him till the Lote Tree of the furthest boundary, the boundary of all forms and shapes.
The Light of the Divine Name is lit from the tree of the Seal of Prophecy (khatmiyah). The one who is blessed by the company of a Knower of God, and who has an olive-nature (zaytuni) and a sound initiatic chain of transmission, will be illuminated in his inner vision in the blink of an eye. For the affair does not lie in increasing one’s ritual practices (awrad) but in recognizing the gatekeeper (bawwab).
Light is God’s prayer upon you. It is the prayer of the Lord which is pre-eternal and hallowed beyond change. A prayer that does not fluctuate with time and space. A prayer that is not affected by obedience or disobedience. Whoever is prayed upon in pre-eternity is chosen by God in post-eternity. God’s prayer upon us is a luminous mercy, a spiritual replenishment that brings us out from the darkness of human souls and the blindness of beholding the physical realm to the direct witnessing of the pre-eternal lights.
The life of the innermost secret (ḥayyatu al-sirr) is the light of the inner vision (nur al-baṣirah) for “The blind and the seeing person are not the same, nor the darknesses and the light” (wa-ma yastawi al-a‘ma wa-l-baṣir, wa-la al-ẓulumat wa-la al-nur). God speaks of darkness in the plural and of light in the singular, because the pathways to perdition are many, and the path of the Real is one. It is a luminous Alif. It is the Alif that the blessed Messenger of God drew with his hand in the sand when he said: “This is God’s straight path.”
The Light (nur) is the mercy that encompasses all things. It sustains all entities and all created existence. You walk with the lights, and behold the wonders of the names and the disclosures of the attributes in the courtyards of the acts (al-afʿal). The nur enables you to behold the power of the divinity upon the earth of human nature. Thus the created transports you back to the Creator, and every knowledge brings you back to its Source. Those who love each other in God’s Lights and in His majesty, as the ḥadith puts it, will be erected upon pulpits (minbar) of Light, and their faces will be radiant on the Day of Judgment on the right side of the divine throne.
Sh. Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari (al-Mahajja al-Bayda')
