Switch off every light in your house tonight and sit for a minute. Then strike one match. That tiny flame changes the whole room: you can see faces, find the door, read a line. Light is so ordinary that we forget it is the condition for seeing anything at all.
The sunlight on your face this morning left the Sun's surface about eight minutes earlier. But the energy carrying it began deep in the Sun's core, and took around 170,000 years to work its way out. When the Qur'an reaches for a picture of God, it does not choose a king or a fortress. It chooses light.
“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things.”
Qur'an 24:35 · Pickthall (1930)
This is the Verse of Light, one of the most loved and most commented-on passages in the Qur'an. It is a parable: “the example of His light is like...”. Classical scholars stress that God is not a physical light; the verse describes how His guidance fills the world and the believer's heart. The olive tree “neither of the east nor of the west” is often read as a tree in open ground that catches the sun all day. So its oil is the purest. The next verse places the lamp in houses of prayer (24:36).
What science shows
Light is the fastest thing in the universe. In empty space it travels at exactly 299,792,458 metres per second. The number is exact because, since 1983, scientists have defined the metre itself by it: a metre is the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second. At that speed, light could circle the Earth more than seven times in one second.
Sunlight takes about 8 minutes and 20 seconds to cross the 150 million kilometres to Earth. But NASA explains that the energy made by nuclear fusion in the Sun's core spends about 170,000 years bouncing around inside the Sun before it reaches the outer layers. Some of the warmth on your skin today began its journey before the last Ice Age.
The light our eyes can see is a thin slice of a much wider family, the electromagnetic spectrum, which runs from radio waves to X-rays. Our eyes are astonishingly sensitive to that slice. In 2016, a team at Rockefeller University and in Vienna showed that people can detect a single photon, the smallest possible amount of light, at better than chance.
Light is also made by living things. In a 17-year survey of the deep ocean off California, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute found something startling. Of the animals they observed in the open water, 76% could make their own light. In the deepest dark, light is everywhere.
And people have always made light. Olive oil lamps lit homes, temples, churches and mosques around the Mediterranean for thousands of years. Pressed olive oil burns with a steady, smokeless flame, which is why the verse's “blessed olive tree” would have meant the best light anyone knew.
What each faith says
Judaism
“And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.”
Exodus 27:20 · JPS 1917
In Genesis, light is the first thing God speaks into being: “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). In the Tabernacle and the Temple, a lamp of pure olive oil was to burn continually. Today every synagogue has a ner tamid, an eternal light, above the ark where the Torah scrolls are kept. At Hanukkah, Jewish families light the menorah to remember the Temple's lamp and the oil that lasted. And every Friday at dusk, Shabbat begins with candles, traditionally lit by the women of the household, who cover their eyes to say the blessing.
The Psalms make light a picture of knowing God: “In Thy light do we see light” (Psalm 36:10). Proverbs says “the spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD” (Proverbs 20:27). Jewish teachers often read this as a call to let our inner lamp be lit by goodness and learning.
Christianity
“I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12 · WEB
The New Testament speaks of God as light without darkness: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). John's Gospel opens with light shining in the darkness, and Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” For Christians this is part of their belief that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the light of God present in a human life.
Many churches keep a sanctuary lamp burning near the place where the consecrated bread is kept. At the Easter Vigil, a single candle is lit in a dark church and its flame passed from hand to hand. And on 2 February, Candlemas, many Catholic and Anglican churches bless the candles they will use for the year ahead.
Islam
“Light upon light. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will.”
Qur'an 24:35 · Pickthall (1930)
An-Nūr, the Light, is one of God's 99 Names. Muslim scholars such as al-Ghazālī, the great eleventh-century theologian, wrote whole books on this verse. His Niche of Lights reads each part as a level of understanding, from the senses to the intellect to revelation. The verse ends with guidance: God guides to His light whom He wills. Light here is not something to look at but something to see by.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) used to pray for light in every part of himself. “O God, place light in my heart, light in my sight, light in my hearing, light on my right and on my left, light above me and below me, light before me and behind me, and make me light” (reported in Bukhari 6316 and Muslim 763). Many mosques have a mihrab, a niche in the wall facing Makkah, and lamps were hung there for centuries, often inscribed with this very verse.
Same and different
All three faiths keep a lamp burning in their houses of prayer: the ner tamid, the sanctuary lamp, the mosque's hanging lamp. Each uses light to speak of God's guidance and goodness. They differ in what they say about how that light comes to us. Judaism looks to the Torah and the covenant. Christianity looks to Jesus as the light of the world. Islam looks to the Qur'an and the guidance of God alone, who has no partner and is not Himself a created light.
A moment to reflect
- What is the difference between looking at a light and seeing by it?
- When has someone been a light for you, without perhaps knowing it?
- Why might a faith choose light, rather than power, as a picture of God?
- Some of today's sunlight began its journey 170,000 years ago. What does that do to your sense of time?
Watch
A clear, animated answer to what light actually is.
The visible and invisible parts of the spectrum.
The scientists behind the 76% figure explain deep-sea light.
A longer Royal Institution lecture for those who want to go further.
Do it together
Arrange a short visit to see the ner tamid in a synagogue, a sanctuary lamp in a church and the mihrab and lamps in a mosque, on one afternoon. At each, ask the host what the light means to them.
With an adult in charge, darken a room completely and light one candle. Sit quietly for two minutes, then talk about what you could suddenly see that you couldn't before.
With supervision, float a cotton wick in a saucer of olive oil and light it. Compare its flame with a paraffin candle: smoke, steadiness, smell. Read Exodus 27:20 and Qur'an 24:35 beside it.
Go deeper
- Qur'an 24:35 with translations · scripture
- NIST: the speed of light in vacuum · article
- NASA: Sun facts · article
- Exodus 27 (JPS 1917) on Sefaria · scripture
- John 8 (WEB) on Bible Gateway · scripture
In pictures
Try this · KS1 · 20 min · Science
A lamp in a niche
You need: a shoebox, kitchen foil, a clean glass jar, an LED tea light (battery)
- Stand the shoebox on its side to make a niche, or alcove.
- Line the back with foil.
- Put the LED tea light inside the glass jar and set it in the niche.
- Turn the room lights off. Compare: jar outside the box, and jar inside the niche. Which glows more?
Safety: Use a battery LED light only, never a real candle.
A niche, a lamp, a glass like a star: the Light Verse is built from ordinary things like these.
Sources (5)
- Speed of light exactly 299,792,458 m/s: NIST CODATA
- Energy takes about 170,000 years to cross the Sun's radiative zone: NASA Science, Sun facts, accessed Nov 2026
- Humans can detect a single photon above chance: Tinsley et al., Nature Communications, 2016
- 76% of observed water-column animals are bioluminescent: Martini & Haddock, Scientific Reports, 2017
- Metre defined by the speed of light since 1983: BIPM, SI base unit: metre