A Study on Manifestation of Symbol of Light in Islamic Architecture (Based on Suhrawardi's Attitude to " Light" and an Emphasis on Mosques Traits)

Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi is the founder of Illuminated Wisdom and through introducing an ideology based on light, he determines the creation of infinite lights. He also puts forth ‘luminous world of fancy’ which is a turning point in philosophical issues and artistic innovation as light is a meaningful item in Islamic art indicating the source of art as well as aesthetic aspects of it. The present study aims at determining Suhrawardi’s special view to the topic of ‘light’ and introduce art and aesthetic aspects based on that view. Then, the role of this view on philosophical issues and on the mind, language, and the thought of the Muslim artists will be surveyed. To this end, from among different manifestations of Islamic arts, mosque architecture has specifically been taken into consideration. Due to using different colors and shapes in building mosques, the mosques can be good manifestations of the concept of ‘light’ in different aspects and a good tool for decoding the concepts. An analysis of shapes and colors in special parts of the mosques indicates that ‘light’ plays an important role and the architect has been able to show the balance between materialistic and spiritual worlds through using different lightsand colors as a result of understanding the qualitative and quantitative aspects of light. It is worth mentioning that the pictorial data have been collected from different online sites and valid books.