“The Niche of Lights (Mishkat al-anwar) is an accessible and richly rewarding text by one of the most fascinating and important thinkers in the history of Islam.

Born in the eastern Iranian city of Tus in 450 A.H. (1058 C.E.), Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali also died there, relatively young, in 505 A.H. (1111 C.E.). Between those two dates, however, he established himself as a pivotal figure throughout the Islamic world. By his early thirties he was a pre-eminent legal scholar and teacher in Baghdad. But then, overcome by skepticism and finding no other satisfactory way to combat his doubts, he abandoned his academic position to devote himself to reattaining religious certainty through the practice of Sufi mysticism. By his own account, he succeeded. After somewhat more than a decade of travel and ascetic contemplation, and at the instance of the sultan at that time, he emerged again into public life and teaching during his final years.

In The Niche of Lights, al-Ghazali maintains that one who truly desires to understand the relationship between God and the world must recognize not only His distance and absolute transcendence, as emphasized in Islamic theology and jurisprudence, but also His proximity to His creation--His inherent presence. The "symbolism" of the Qur'an, suggests al-Ghazali, should not be thought of primarily as literary imagery, as mere similes and metaphors. On the contrary, God employs the language that He does in order to clarify the actual nature of reality. An understanding of the structure of the cosmos and of the human soul depends upon how accurately one perceives that reality.

Biography of Translator

David Buchman received his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he also earned his master's degree. For his dissertation he completed two years of field research on the beliefs and practices of a Sufi order in Yemen. As a Stony Brook undergraduate, he majored in religious studies with an emphasis on Islam. He has traveled throughout the Middle East pursuing the study of Arabic, Islam, and the status of contemporary Sufism. He is currently an assistant professor of anthropology and Middle East studies at Hanover College in Indiana.”       
                                                                           

“The Mishkat al-Anwar, an examination of the Light-Verse in the Koran and the symbolism of the Veils-Tradition, was written in the eleventh century by al-Ghazzali, a man of formidable intellect working in the Muslim tradition, who understood that spiritual realization entailed making a jump from the limitations of the mind and sensory experience. Abdullah discusses the inner teaching of the Mishkat al-Anwar, explaining truths which are as relevant to twenty-first century man as to seekers a thousand years ago.” (Review)       
                                                                           

“Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali's philosophical explorations covered nearly the entire spectrum of twelfth-century beliefs. Beginning his career as a skeptic, he ended it as a scholar of mysticism and orthodoxy. The Niche of Lights, written near the end of his illustrious career, advances the philosophically important idea that reason can serve as a connection between the devout and God. Al-Ghazali argues that abstracting God from the world, as he believed theologians did, was not sufficient for understanding. Exploring the boundary between philosophy and theology, The Niche of Lights seeks to understand the role of reality in the perception of the spiritual.”