A Comparative Study of the Western and Islamic Philosophical Vision on Divine Illumination from the Philosophical Perspective

The relationship between light and philosophy is one of the oldest issues in the scope of epistemology. In philosophy, the presence of light has been manifested as the mystic- philosopher intuition and specific ontological model. The Islamic philosophers have emphasized the divine nature of light. The western philosophers have stressed on the centrality of rationalism besides metaphysical source of knowledge of the universe concurrent with the divine reason that manifested in the presence of light. The research method applied in the current study is based on the analysis of philosophical texts of western and eastern philosophers. The research statistical sample is chosen after analyzing the contents of the opinions of thirty five western and thirty two Islamic philosophers. The most common components with philosophical nature are three divine nature, active intellect and beauty. It was found that two components i.e. divine light manifestation and truth had the most philosophical nature in the western philosophers’ opinions while three components of cognition, necessary being and revealed intellect were the most prevalent philosophical nature on the light by the Islamic philosophers.