Sheikh Ishraq on the Light of Lights

Different entities, according to Suhrawardi, are no more than the light graded in terms of their weakness or intensity. Suhrawardfi’s ontology rest on the system of light and its levels. The worlds, he argues, have different levels the highest of which is that of the Light of lights; it is the source of brightness which all what there is comes from. He holds that the best argument for the Light of lights is that of the righteous (i.e. ontological argument). In his discussion of the attributes, Suhrawardi says that the Light of lights neither has the dark attributes nor the bright ones. Nonetheless, he considers many attributions for the Light of lights such as, those of all-Provider, the Origin, the Knower, and … ; he eventually says that all those attributions go back to that of the Origin. Furthermore, Suhrawardi embraces many negative attributes such as that the Light of lights is not body, pitch-dark, contingent, oriented and so on; all those negative attributes stem from one namely, contingency. All those negative and relative attributes are mentally-constructed none of which is independent concrete attached to the Essence lest they bring about composition in the Holy Essence.