Al-Ghazali’s Mishkat al-Anwar and the Light Verse
- Date of account
- Twelfth century
- Location
- Khurasan and Syria; textual setting within Islamic philosophical-mystical discourse
- Source
- model_recalled_reference
- Record updated
- 2026-10-10
Record summary
The Mishkat al-Anwar interprets Qur'an 24:35, the Light Verse, through layered metaphors of light, perception, intellect, imagination, and spiritual unveiling. It offers a precise medieval vocabulary for comparing visionary experience, illumination, symbolic cognition, and claims of direct knowledge. The treatise is exegetical and philosophical rather than a report of a single altered-state episode. Its interpretation of prophetic and saintly perception has generated different readings across Islamic intellectual history, so researchers should consult Arabic editions and contextual scholarship.
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