Light is a discursive tool that Sufis have drawn upon over the centuries in order to elucidate systems of thought and practice. In medieval Islamic thought, light was closely associated with the soul as well as conceptions of sight and the eye. It also occupied an important place in cosmology. By the twelfth- and thirteenth-centuries, Sufis began to consider notions of light more systematically, creating close correspondences between vision, cosmology, and anthropology within Sufi thought. This coincided with the increased production of complex diagrams in Sufi texts. This article shows that these developments were interrelated. By analyzing Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s (d. 587/1191) diagrams alongside his theories of light with respect to the nature of the soul and body, it demonstrates that the theory of the soul as light played an important part in shaping Sufi thought, practice, and visual culture.

为了阐明思想和实践体系，光是苏菲派几个世纪以来一直使用的一种话语工具。在中世纪的伊斯兰思想中，光与灵魂以及视觉和眼睛的观念紧密相关。它在宇宙学中也占有重要地位。在十二世纪和十三世纪，苏菲派开始更加系统地考虑光的概念，从而在苏菲思想中在视觉，宇宙学和人类学之间建立了密切的对应关系。这与Sufi文本中复杂图的增加产生相吻合。本文表明，这些发展是相互关联的。通过分析Shamsal-Dīnal-Daylamī（卒于587/1191）的图表以及他关于灵魂和身体本质的光理论，