Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind: Light and luminous being in Islamic theology. (August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lange, Christian
• Other Names: Stolow Jeremy guest-editor.; Meyer Birgit guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Critical research on religion. Volume 9:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 142
• Page End: 156
• Publication Date: 2021-08
• Subjects: Islam -- light -- religion -- eschatology; Religion -- Periodicals; Religion -- Research -- Periodicals; Religion and sociology -- Periodicals; Religion and politics -- Periodicals; 200.5
• DOI: 10.1177/2050303220986975
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-3032

Abstract

For theologians, to conceive of God in terms of light has some undeniable advantages, allowing a middle-of-the road position between the two extremes of thinking about God in terms of a purely disembodied, unfathomable, unsensible being, and of crediting Him with a body, possibly even a human(oid) body. This paper first reviews the reasons why God, in early medieval Islam, was never fully theorized in terms of light. It then proceeds to discuss light-related narratives in two major, late-medieval compilations of hadiths about the afterlife, by al-Suyuti (Ash'ari, Egypt, d. 1505) and al-Majlisi (Persia, d. 1699), suggesting that eschatology was the area in which God's light continued to shine in Islam, and the backdoor through which a theology of light, in the thought of al-Suhrawardi (Syria, d. 1191) and his followers, made a triumphant re-entry into Islamic thought.