The word used in the Hadith is Qindil which means lamp but it is formed from the template Fa’iil (ii reads ee in eel) like Saghir i.e. indicates small dimensions. Therefore Qindil means small lamp.
I could not find anything about this word in Hadith or Tafsir (for now) but I saw in some references that Qindil was a small lamp used by the Arab who left it burning and went to bed without the fear of burning the house down. In other words the other lamps of their time were not safe and they had to extinguish them prior to going to bed, or they could have just let a small lamp to burn safely during the night and that small lamp is called Qindil.
The Hadith indicates this small lamp was made from exotic translucent substances that had a reddish hue.
Thank you, that is interesting too. I had collected images of lamps a while back and have uploaded two but cannot see how to attach them. One is a standard ceramic bird-shaped lamp. Smallish I think. The flame would come out of the tail and there seems to be no guard of any kind, and perhaps the narrow base of the lamp would make this one a little worrisome to leave unattended. The other is a small glass hanging lamp – it looks slightly pinkish in the photo but is apparently of grey glass. 4cm in height, so that would be very small, and safe I would think. Perhaps it could be called a qindil?
I think this is a similar lamp to what the hadith explained with amber reddish glass. I am not an expert far removed from even someone who has any concepts in these areas
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