{"id":8,"date":"2018-03-21T03:51:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T03:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/?p=8"},"modified":"2018-05-01T23:42:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T23:42:03","slug":"a-prophetic-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/2018\/03\/21\/a-prophetic-light\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prophetic Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A major theme in Islam is the idea of light and its connection to God. In a passage from the Quran we read in class (24:35) it states, \u201c\u201cGod is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp \u2013 the lamp in a glass, the glass as if it were a glittering star \u2013kindled from a Blessed Tree, an olive tree that is neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil well-nigh would shine even if no fire touched it; Light upon Light; God guides to His Light whom He wills. And God strikes similitudes for man, and God has knowledge of everything.\u201d This passage is important because in regards to artistic expression, it validates the use of light as a definitive expression of God and his creations\/power. We also see this theme of light not only in regards to talking about God but also the prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) who is constantly referred to and describes as being \u201cThe Light of God\u201d. The prophet, who is seen as the perfect example of what a good Muslim is to be, is considered the light because he illuminates the path to righteousness and God through the way that he lives his life. To illustrate this concept of Muhammad being a light for Muslims and human beings in general, I constructed this paper lamp. The names of the different communities of interpretation that are on the sides of the lamps are meant to show that even with their differences and tensions, these communities of interpretation are unified by their love and view of the Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n

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A major theme in Islam is the idea of light and its connection to God. In a passage from the Quran we read in class (24:35) it states, \u201c\u201cGod is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp \u2013 the lamp in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9562,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ashemsu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}