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The Niche for Lights written by Abu Hamid al-Ghazālī, translated by William Henry Temple Gairdner

Mishkât Al-Anwar. First published as Monograph Vol. XIX by the Royal Asiatic Society, London 1924.

• Acknowledgment
• Author's Preface
• Translator's Introduction
  • I. Date, Object, and General Contents
  • II. Mysteries Left Veiled in this Treatise
  • III. A Ghazzalian Philosophy of Religion
  • IV. Ghazzali Problems Raised by the Foregoing
  • V. The Problem of the Vicegerent in Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufail
  • VI. One Solution of the Problem of the Vicegerent
  • VII. Another Solution
  • VIII. Al-Ghazzali and the Seven Spheres
  • IX. Anthropomorphism and Theomorphism in Al-Mishkat
  • X. Pantheism and Al-Ghazzali, in Al-Mishkat

[Ghazzâlî's sections and titles have been supplemented. The page-references enclosed within square brackets in the Introduction, Translation, and foot-notes are references to the pages of the Arabic text,(Cairo A.H. 1922, Matba`at as Sidq), the numbers of which will be found in the text of the Translation, enclosed in square brackets.]

The Niche for Lights

• Part I. Light, and Lights: Preliminary Studies

1. "Light" as Physical Light; as the Eye; as the Intelligence

2. The Koran as the Sun of the Intelligence

3. The Worlds Visible and Invisible; with their Lights

4. These Lights as Lamps Terrestrial and Celestial: with their Order and Grades

5. The Source of all these Grades of Light: Allah

6. The Mystic Verity of Verities

7. The "God-Aspect": an "advanced" explanation of the Relation of these Lights to Allah

8. The Relation of these Lights to Allah: Simple Illustrations and Explanations

• Part II. The Science of Symbolism

(i) The Outward and the Inward in Symbolism Type and Antitype

1. The Two Worlds: their Types and Antitypes

2. An Example of Symbolism, from the Story of Abraham in the Koran

3. Fundamental Examples of Symbolism: especially from the Story of Moses in the Koran

4. The Permanent Validity of the Outward and Visible Sign: an Example

5. Another Example of this Two-sided and Equal Validity of Outward and Inward

(ii) The Psychology of the Human Soul: its Five Faculties or Spirits

• Part III. The Application to the Light-Verse and the Veils Tradition

(i) The Exposition of the Symbolism of the Light-Verse

1. The Sensory Spirit

2. The Imaginative Spirit

3. The Intelligential Spirit

4 The Ratiocinative Spirit

5. The Transcendental Prophetic Spirit

Epilogue: the "Darkness"-Verse

(ii) The Exposition of the Symbolism of the Seventy Thousand Veils

1. Those veiled by Pure Darkness

2. Those veiled by mixed Light and Darkness

(a) The darkness of the Senses

(b) The darkness of the Imagination

(c) The darkness of the (ratiocinative) Intelligence

3. Those veiled by Pure Light

4. The Goal of the Quest

This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less.