Imagine a microscopic creature living in a huge tank of still water. No matter which direction this creature looks at, it sees the same water molecules in random arrangements. Actually no matter where this creature moves to or in what configuration e.g. upside down he sees exactly the same water molecules moving the same ways.
We say the creature is within a symmetric space i.e. in all directions the space is the same.
Allah’s Nur is symmetric in every direction, because Nur is infinitely singleton i.e. there is Allah and no one else and nothing else. Therefore if we were to compare this Nur to the water tank, no matter which direction we look we see the same Nur. This is Ahadiyat where there is Allah and no one else, the super-Tauhid (Extreme Divine Oneness).
Now imagine the temperature drops in the said tank. Then at some point SUDDENLY ice forms! Now our creature sees different arrangements of water molecules depending on the direction of observation.
We say the symmetry broke e.g. ice appears where there was symmetric water before.
Similarly if the Nur passes through crystal of a glass, just like the asymmetric water crystals of ice, then the result would be lack of symmetry in the resultant Nur! Now it does not look the same in all directions.
Quartz crystal:
As the Hadith concluded: In some directions Nur shines on prophets, in another direction on governors in another direction on merchants i.e. in some direction the said asymmetric Nur shines in the darkness of ‘Adam (Non-Being) and prophets appear, shines in another direction into ‘Adam (Non-Being) and governors appear and so on, everyone and everything appear but asymmetrically different!
Therefore the lamp & glass are important to understand how from the modality of Ahadiyat i.e. where there is Allah and no one else in full symmetry, emerges Kathra (Multitude) multitudes of asymmetric creations.
The latter argument preoccupied the Muslim philosophers and in particular Sufis for centuries, but suddenly this incredible insight into our universe vanished amongst the Muslim thinkers and lamp & glass become verses of poetry.
Salaam Jalal
This is very clear, thank you. And I take your point about the hadith having become poetry where once it was seriously debated. I was thinking along similar lines with regard to images. As a possible clue (or perhaps just a parallel) to the loss of insight, there is a similar loss in the west, where visual material (whether figurative or abstract) was increasingly robbed of its batin as the art became ever more successfully photo-realistic (Gothic period onwards). Once people think they knew what they are looking at, no further meaning is sought.
Also, yes, the mention of the glass that could have been left out creates further meaning. I only have Tustari in translation, but he also mentions the glass in relation to the column of light and it seemed to me that his reference to the inside and the outside of the glass was related to the way the lamp is described in our hadith (the version with the peacock and the lamp) – but perhaps that is a turn of phrase that indicates transparency.
One aspect of the glass is not mentioned in any of the references checked for Tafsir or by any metaphysical arguments:
Glass is a barrier, translucent barrier, the creatures in ‘Adam (Non-Being) use the Nur to Exit (Ikrhraj) from Non-Being into Being (from darkness to light). And then they can trek along this Nur all the way back to the source but they are stopped by the translucent barrier of Glass! No way to reach the source of light i.e. Allah.
The Light verse or Hadith Nur could have dealt with lamps without glass, which were available during the time of the Prophet, so one has to wonder why the glass was mentioned.
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