Imam Ali (as) On God as Light

Ameer ul Momineen (as) in one of his supplications addresses his Lord in the following words;
”وَبِنُورِ وَجْهِكَ الَّذِي أَضَاءَ لَهُ كُلُّ شَيٍْء يَا نُورُ يَا قُدُّوسُ “
translation: “And by the light of Your face, through which all things are illumined! O Light! O All-holy!” [Dua-e-Kumail]

Philosophers such as Sohrawardi and Mullah Sadra see God as Light [نور], the Light of all lights [نور الانوار] and the Reality of Light [حقيقة النور]. This light possessed by God is not something additional to His Essence [ذات] & Reality [حقيقة] but is identical [عين ذات] to it, such that there is no ontological [وجودى] distinction between this light and God’s Essence or Reality, and so this light is integral to and inseparable from the Divine Essence, in that the Light is the Essence and the Essence is Light; because if it is assumed that this light possessed by God is something additional to and existentially distinct from, His Essence & Reality, so this renders the Divine a composite [مركب] of light and not-light, meaning His Essence, and every composite derives its reality and being from its parts [اجزاء] and is therefore dependent upon its parts for its subsistence [قوام] and necessary through another [واجب بالغيره], and that which is necessary through another cannot simultaneously be necessary in itself [واجب بالذات], and that which is not necessary in itself must evidently by contingent in its essence [], and this is inadmissible.

According to Mullah Sadra light is synonymous with existence, and assuming that the light possessed by God is something additional to His Essence & Reality, existentially distinct and separate from it, that would mean that the Essence is other than light/existence; but that which is other than existence is non-existence [عدم], therefore the Essence would be equivalent to non-existence, thereby rendering God a composite of existence and non-existence, thus raising the same objections mentioned in the first para. If the Essence is equivalent to non-existence so absolute non-existence [عدم مطلق] is pure-nothingness and nothingness has no reality since it is a non-entity. This demonstrates that the light possessed by God is not something additional and distinct to His Essence but is identical to it, in that He is Light & luminosity in itself, without having derived this light from some other being.

In Sohrawardi’s illuminationist Philosophy [حكمت الاشراق] God is the Light of all lights because every other light derives its luminosity from the Light of all lights, and since Mullah Sadra identifies light with existence, and also states that existence is synonymous with reality therefore the phrase ‘Light of all lights’ would mean that God is Pure-Existence from which every other thing that exists, derives its reality and existence, as is also stated by the Imam (as) in these words “And by the light of Your face, through which all things are illumined”.