What is the light of God?

The Prophet tells us that God created angels out of light. Light is a name of God, and the Koran tells us that "God is the light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35). In order to understand what angels are, we have to understand what light is. It will not help us much to think about light in physical terms. Rather, we have to grasp the signs that are revealed to us when we observe light.

Normally, we think of light as visible, but in fact, it is invisible. We can only see light when it is mixed with darkness. If there were only light and no darkness, we would be blinded by its intensity. Look at what happens when you gaze at the sun, which is 93 million miles away and is viewed through the earth's atmosphere. If we moved outside the atmosphere, just few miles closer to the sun, we could not possibly look at it for a moment without losing our eyesight. What we call visible light is pretty pale stuff. It can hardly compare with unfiltered sunlight, much less with the divine light, which illuminates the whole cosmos. Hence, it is said in Islam that God's light is so bright that people have all been blinded by it.

God is unseen, angels are unseen, and light is unseen. Thus it should not be surprising that God and angels are light. You might object and say that we see light shining everywhere, but we don't see angels or God. Don't we? Tawhid (Unity of God) is telling us that the signs are nothing but God's radiance, and the creatures are nothing but the outward marks of God's creative power. "God is the light of the heavens and the earth" (24:35), and the heavens and the earth are the radiance or the reflection of that light.

Light is invisible, but without light we see nothing. Hence, light can be defined as an invisible something that makes other things visible. So also, God and the angels are invisible, but without them there would be no universe. Hence, God and the angels can be described as invisible somethings that make the universe visible.

The opposite of light is darkness, and darkness is simply the absence of light. In other words, light is something, but darkness is nothing. We see things because a nothing has mixed with a something. We would not be able to see if there were only light, or if there were only darkness. Light and darkness must come together for vision to occur.

God is Light. The opposite of light is darkness, which is nothing. In other words, God has no real, existing opposite, since nothing is not really something. If nothing is there, how can we talk about opposites? Of course, we say that nothing is the opposite of something, but this nothing does not exist except as a figure of speech or as an object of supposition for the purpose of discussion and explication.

Are creatures' light or darkness? The answer, of course, is that they are neither, or that they are both. If they were light and nothing but light, they would be God, and if they were darkness and nothing but darkness, they would not exist. Hence they live in a never-never land that is neither light nor darkness.

In respect of tashbih, the creatures are light, but in respect of tanzih they are darkness. In other words, to the extent that things are similar to God, they are luminous, but to the extent that they are incomparable with God, they are dark. They must have some luminosity, or else they could not exist.

To dwell in darkness (relative darkness, that is, since absolute darkness does not exist) is to dwell in distance from God; it is to be dominated by the divine qualities of majesty and wrath, which keep things far from God. To dwell in light is to live in nearness to God; it is to be dominated by the qualities of beauty and mercy, which bring things close to God.

There is one light, and that light is God. There are many darknesses, since each creature represents darkness in relation to God. The deeper the darkness, the greater the distance from God. Absolute darkness does not exist, because it would be cut off from God in every respect. How can anything exist if it has no relationship whatsoever to the Real, which is the source of every quality?

Created things dwell in distance from God, in difference, in otherness. This is to say that they dwell in relative darkness. Relative darkness has many modes and forms, since there are an infinite number of ways in which things can be different from God. "Nothing is like Him," but each thing is unlike him in its own unique way.

Dwelling in difference means perceiving God from the perspective of tanzih and hence to be dominated by the attributes of severity, majesty, and wrath. The goal of religion is to bring about a movement from tanzih to tashbih, from distance to nearness, from difference to sameness, from manyness to oneness, from wrath to mercy, from darkness to light.

The Koran frequently explains that God's goal in creation is to bring about unity, and often it employs the terms light and darkness to make this point. The broad significance of such verses becomes clear as soon as one grasps the meaning of tawhid. Notice that in the following verses light is one, since light is an attribute of God, but the darknesses are many, since darkness is an attribute that assumes many forms in keeping with the diversity of creation:

Are the blind and the seeing man equal, or are the darknesses and the light equal? (13:16, 35:20)

It is He who sends down upon His servant signs, clear explications that He may bring you forth from the darknesses into the light. (57:9)

Why, is he who was dead, and We gave him life, and appointed for him a light to walk by among the people, as one who is in the darknesses, and comes not forth from them? (6:122)

It is He who performs the salat over you, and His angels, that He may bring you forth from the darknesses into the light. (33:43)

This last verse brings us back to the angels, who are created from light and are therefore able to assist God in giving light to the creatures who dwell in the visible world.

Source: Islamicity

Heaven

Heaven and Hell. Concepts of the afterlife found in most of the major religious traditions, heaven generally symbolizes an abode of bliss or a place of union with God, while hell symbolizes a place dominated by Satan or evil forces or a place far from God. In Judaism before the exile God was seen as residing in heaven; below the earth was she’ol, the realm of the dead, which was poorly defined. Zoroastrianism envisioned a celestial realm filled with light and occupied by Ahuramazda, and a realm of darkness and evil dominated by Ahriman. These ideas influenced Judaism in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., when Jewish writers and thinkers lived under Persian rule; as a result Judaism acquired a belief in heaven and hell and the idea of Satan (from Ahriman).

Traditional Christian and Islamic ideas developed from Jewish notions. From popular Jewish and Greek notions, medieval Catholicism developed the idea of an intermediate stage, purgatory, where souls were punished for and purged of their sins and prepared for heaven; only the unrepentant were destined for hell. Islam views heaven as the reward of the true believer and hell as the destination of the infidel, though some will be released from hell after a period of suffering.

Early Hinduism gradually developed a concept of heaven as an abode where one enjoyed the pleasures of life but not the pains; a realm where one lived with, and like, the gods. The idea of hell as a shadowy, evil place, developed more gradually. With the rise of the idea of rebirth ("reincarnation") because of the accumulation of good or bad karma (actions), heaven and hell came to be seen by some Hindus as states into which one could occasionally be reborn, but the achievement of moksa (liberation) became the ultimate goal instead. Other Hindus spoke of a state of nirvana ("extinction"; bliss) and defined it variously as union with Ultimate Reality or unqualified communion with God. Buddhism developed out of later Hinduism and preserved the Hindu ideas of heavens, hells, karma, and rebirth, but redefined nirvana and viewed it as the ultimate goal. Some Buddhist sects, however, located the future Buddha in a level of heaven, the "Pure Land," and stated that faith in him could result in rebirth in the "Pure Land."

The Bahá’í Faith rejects the idea of heaven and hell as actual places. It views afterlife as involving progress through a series of spiritual realms, termed the Abhá ("Most Glorious")Kingdom. Depictions of the Abhá Kingdom are metaphorical, not literal, because the next life is a mystery that can not be adequately described. In the next world human beings remain in the human station–they can not progress to the station of, for example, a Manifestation of God–but in the human station they progress infinitely. The Abhá Kingdom possesses a spiritual hierarchy of stations, as the following passage from the Long Obligatory Prayer suggests: "I testify unto that whereunto have testified all created things, and the Concourse on High, and the inmates of the all-highest Paradise, and beyond them the Tongue of Grandeur itself from the all-glorious horizon. . ." (Bahá’í Prayers, 2d United States edition, 13). Bahá’u'lláh mentions a similar set of levels to the Abhá Kingdom in His mystical work, The Seven Valleys: "Others have called these the worlds of the Heavenly Court (Láhút), of the Empyrean Heaven (Jabarút), of the Kingdom of Angels (Malakút), and of the mortal world (Násút)" (The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys, 25). Here Bahá’u'lláh is quoting Súfí ideas.

The Bahá’í Faith usually defines the concepts of heaven and hell as "restricted to this world" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, 282) and "conditions within our own beings" (Shoghi Effendi, High Endeavors, 48). In other words, heaven and hell represent the state of the soul in its progress toward, or remoteness from, God, and its degree of obedience to divine law.

The Bahá’í scriptures also use heaven and hell as symbols and literary devices; these uses constitute the great majority of occasions where the words "heaven" and "hell" appear in the writings of the Báb, Bahá’u'lláh, `Abdu’l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi. Bahá’u'lláh notes that "in every instance, He hath given the term `heaven’ a special meaning" (Kitáb-i-Íqán, 68). Among the common uses are the following:

1. A literary device of contrast. This involves contrasting the word "heaven" with one of its opposites, such as: "make mention of Me on My earth, that in my heaven I may remember thee" (Bahá’u'lláh, Hidden Words, Arabic no. 43); "Creator of earth and heaven" (Bahá’u'lláh, Proclamation of Bahá’u'lláh, 58); "satanic conduct can not be turned into heavenly behavior" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas, 39); "all the keys of heaven God hath chosen to place on My right hand, and all the keys to hell on My left" (the Báb, quoted in Promised Day is Come, 43).

2. A symbol denoting the "loftiness and exaltation" of something (Bahá’u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 66): hence "the heaven of the religion of God" (Bahá’u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 40); "enter the heaven of communion with Me" (Bahá’u'lláh, Hidden Words, Persian no. 8); "he. . . hasteneth to the heaven of inner significance" (Bahá’u'lláh, The Seven Valleys, 12); "the foundations of idle fancies have trembled, and the heaven of vain imaginings hath been cleft asunder" (Bahá’u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, 119); "the heaven of statesmanship is made luminous and resplendent by the brightness of the light of these blessed words" (Bahá’u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, 166).

3. As part of a term referring to the Manifestation of God: "Birds of Heaven" (Bahá’u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 211, 254; Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, 261); the "melody of the dove of heaven" (Bahá’u'lláh, Hidden Words, Persian no. 8); ". . . that they may recognize Him Who is the Day-Star of Thy Revelation, the Dawning-Place of Thy signs, the heaven of Thy manifestation" (Bahá’u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, 114).

4. As part of a symbol of revelation or the source of revelation. The term "Maid of Heaven" is the most common example of this usage (Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings, 91; Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, 251). "Heaven of divine Revelation" also occurs (Bahá’u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán, 44).

5. As a symbol or part of a term referring to God: "neither [man nor woman] is superior to the other in the eyes of heaven" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, 162); "raise your suppliant hands to the heaven of the one God" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Secret of Divine Civilization, 2).

6. Rarely, as a metaphor for the Abhá Kingdom: ". . . the Supreme Concourse, the angels of heaven and the dwellers of the Kingdom of El-Abhá" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas, 527).

7. Occasionally the term is used literally: "we are waves of one sea, grass of the same meadow, stars in the same heaven" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, 174); "the heaven which doth not exist at all, for it is but space" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of `Abdu’l-Bahá, 168).

The term hell is used much more rarely in the Bahá’í scriptures than the term "heaven," and possesses a similar range of symbolic meanings. Use of "hell" as a contrast to the term "heaven" or some other positive idea is most common; for example "they hasten forward to hell fire, and mistake it for light" (Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings, 42). Just as "heaven" is occasionally used to symbolize the Abhá Kingdom, "hell" is occasionally used as a symbol for this world: "In truth, [upon death] from hell it [the soul] reaches a paradise of delights" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, 327). "Hell" is also used to symbolize evil: "shun the manifestations of the people of hell" (`Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, 431)