the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Allah created His creation in darkness and cast upon them some of His light. Whoever was reached by that light was guided, and whoever it missed went astray.”

Another instance is his supplication at Tā’if, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“I seek refuge in the light of Your Face, by which the darkness is illuminated and the affairs of this world and the Hereafter are set right, lest Your displeasure descend upon me or Your wrath befall me.”

This was narrated by al-Tabarānī and others.

Another instance is the statement of Ibn Mas‘ūd:

“With your Lord there is neither night nor day. The light of the heavens comes from the light of His Face.”

Another instance is his statement in the report narrated by Muslim in his Sahīh from Abū Mūsā, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stood among us and delivered four statements, saying: ‘Allah does not sleep, nor is it befitting for Him to sleep. He lowers the balance. The deeds of the night are raised to Him before the deeds of the day, and the deeds of the day before the deeds of the night. His veil is light—or fire. Were He to remove it, the radiance of His Face would burn all of His creation that His sight reaches.’”

This hadith mentions His veil. The narrator’s uncertainty between the words “fire” and “light” does not affect this, for pure fire of this kind, through which He spoke to Moses, may be called both fire and light. Likewise, Allah called the flame of a lamp light. This differs from dark fire, such as the fire of Hell, which is not called light.

There are thus three categories:

“Illumination without burning”: pure light, such as that of the moon.

“Burning without illumination”: dark fire.

“That which is both fire and light”: such as the sun and the flames of lamps in this world, which are described in both ways. Since this is so, it is valid for Him to be