Divine light in Plotinus and Al-Suhrawardi

ENIn the ancient solar theologies of the Near and Middle East, “light” is regarded not simply as a God-given symbol (wherewith, for instance, Allah is compared per analogiam by the famous Islamic theologian and Sufi al-Ghazali and now called the Sun, now the Light of lights) but as the direct theophany, manifestation and selfrevelation of the Divine. They constitute a sort of providential divine presence since Helios (or the eye of Zeus) sees everything and hears everything, according to Homer (//.III.277). But the Sun worship habitually ends by rationalizing itself as the elaborate metaphysics of the noetic cosmos. A hierophany is turned into an idea due to the equation of both visible and invisible light with the fire of intelligence and the demiurgic and anagogic principle in the hieratic superstructure of the Whole (to pan). [Extract, p. 271]