“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp,
The lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star,
Lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree,
Neither of the east nor of the west,
Whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire.
Light upon light.
Allah guides to His light whom He wills.
And Allah presents examples for the people,
and Allah is Knowing of all things.”
– Surah 24 Verse 35
Light is one of the great mysteries of physics. It is not a definite object or packet of photons, but instead is best described as electromagnetic radiation, represented mathematically as wave functions. It is able to instantly reach the farthest parts of our world and bring with it sight and warmth. Light has a constant fast speed that can reach even the farthest of places in an amount of time the human mind is unable to grapple. In this powerful, esoteric verse from the Quran, Allah is not a person or even an object that one can conceive but the Light of the Universe. Allah is transcendent; He transcends the boundaries of space and time, He is infinite, He is even knowing and ever guiding to those whom He wills.
Visually representing this profound concept is difficult. Any physical representation presents natural limitations as a concept that is infinite cannot fully be represented physically. In order to capture the main ideas of this Quranic verse, I created a circular ring meant to represent a universal (circle) lamp. The lamp is held together by a green ring, which can represent the Prophet and his family for Shiite Muslims, or the color or paradise and the bounty of Allah’s creation for all Muslims. The red bottom represents the strong essense of Allah’s light and the yellow top the Light’s beauty and warmth. Finally, inside the “lamp” is the Arabic for Allah on a white painted interior, symbolizing the purity of Allah and his Guidance. White is also the color of light that contains all colors which also represents the universality of Allah. Allah is all knowing.
These ideas were discussed during Week 2 when we looked at the influence of calligraphy and text in the arts in Islam, particularly in the Khatibi and Sijelmassi piece that explored calligraphy’s fluidity, flexibility, and ability to trigger within one’s mind specific ideas or verses from the Quran.
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