Investigating the Corporeality of Light: Perspectives from Transcendent Wisdom and Modern Physics

Authors
Neamatallah Bahmani 1
Habibollah Razmi 2
Hamid Parsania 3
1 Baqir al-Uloom University
2 University of Qom
3 Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran
Abstract
The prevalent physicalist perspective cannot adequately account for all properties of light. Although light possesses some characteristics of material bodies, it also exhibits certain non-material and unconventional attributes. In modern physics, evidence such as its masslessness, constancy of speed in vacuum, uncountability of its particles(photons), indeterminacy of spatial position for its particles, and lack of structure indicates light’s distinction from conventional physical and material bodies. Based on findings in modern physics and the insights of Muslim philosophers, particularly those of Transcendent Wisdom, light can be conceptualized as an exemplar and intermediary between the material and immaterial realms. This enables the proposal of a continuous gradational luminous system(niẓām-i nūrī-i tashkīkī) extending from the material to the immaterial without positing any separation or discontinuity between them. This paper elucidates the criteria of material bodies in Islamic philosophy and the properties of light according to the latest findings of modern physics, arguing that perceptible, natural light, by virtue of its trans-material properties, serves as an apt connecting link between matter and immaterial entities
Keywords
light
Corporeality of Light
Physicalism
Islamic Philosophy
Modern Physics
38. Al-Amri, M. D., El-Gomati, M. M., & Zubairy, M. S. (2016). Optics in Our Time. Cham: Springer.
39. Blumenberg, H. (1993). Light as a Metaphor for Truth. In D. M. Levin (Ed.), Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision (pp. 30–62). Berkeley: University of California Press.
40. Broglie, L. de (1955). Physics and Microphysics. Translated by Martin Davidson. Pantheon Books.
41. Broglie, L. de (1924). Recherches sur la théorie des quanta. Annales de Physique , 10 (3), 22–128.
42. Cohen-Tannoudji, C., Dupont-Roc, J., & Grynberg, G. (1997). Photons and Atoms: Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics . Wiley-VCH.
43. Drory, A. (2022). Constancy of the speed of light and the unit matching problem. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics , 72 , 107-120.
44. Einstein, A. (1905a). On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light. Annalen der Physik , 17 (6), 132–148.
45. Einstein, A. (1905b). On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Annalen der Physik.
46. Einstein, A. (1905c). Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content? Annalen der Physik, 18 (13), 639–641.
47. Einstein, A. (1951). Letter to Michele Besso. In H. Einstein (Ed.), The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Vol. 8, p. 221). Princeton University Press.
48. Einstein, A., & Rosen, N. (1935). The Particle Problem in the General Theory of Relativity. Physical Review , 48 (1), 73.
49. Feynman, R. P. (1964). The Feynman Lectures on Physics, (Vol. 3). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
50. Fresnel, A. J. (1819). Mémoire sur la diffraction de la lumière. Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 11 , 246–296.
51. Gale. (2003). Light, Metaphysics of. In New Catholic Encyclopedia (2nd ed., Vol. 8, pp. 583-584). Detroit: Gale.
52. Grandy, D. (2002). Light as a Solution to Puzzles about Light. Journal for General Philosophy of Science , 33 (2), 369–379.
53. Grosseteste, R. (1942). De luce – On light (C. C. Riedl, Trans.). Marquette University Press. (Original work published c. 1225–1240)
54. Halliday, D., Resnick, R., & Walker, J. (2013). Fundamentals of Physics (10th ed., Vol. 1). Wiley.
55. Huygens, C. (1912). Treatise on Light (S. P. Thompson, Trans.). Macmillan. (Original work published 1690).
56. Kittel, C., & Kroemer, H. (1980). Thermal Physics (2nd ed.). W.H. Freeman and Company.
57. Kosso, P. (1989). Observability and Observation in Physical Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
58. Maxwell, J. C. (1865). A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 155, 459–512. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1865.0008
59. Maxwell, J. C. (1873). A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Clarendon Press.
60. Michelson, A. A., & Morley, E. W. (1887). On the relative motion of the Earth and the luminiferous ether. American Journal of Science, 34(203), 333–345.
61. NASA Science. (2020). Electromagnetic spectrum. Retrieved August 6, 2025, from https://science.nasa.gov/ems
62. Newton, I. (1952). Opticks: Or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (4th ed.). Dover. (Original work published 1704).
63. Newton, I. (1999). The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (I. B. Cohen & A. Whitman, Trans.). University of California Press.
64. Particle Data Group, Workman, R. L. et al. (2022). Review of Particle Physics. Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics , 2022.
65. Particle Data Group. (2023). Review of Particle Physics. Physical Review D.
66. Peacock, J. A. (1999). Cosmological Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
67. Peskin, M. E., & Schroeder, D. V. (1995). An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory . Westview Press.
68. Puccini, A. (2005). About the Zero Mass of Photon. Progress in Electromagnetics Research-pier , 55 , 117-146.
69. Rashed, R. (1990). A Pioneer in Anaclastics: Ibn Sahl on Burning Mirrors and Lenses. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy.
70. Razmi, H., Baramzadeh N., & Baramzadeh H. (2019). Dispersive property of quantum vacuum and the speed of light. Modern Physics Letters A.
71. Resnick, R. (1968). Introduction to Special Relativity . Wiley.
72. Rivas, M. (2021). Considerations about photons and antiphotons. Indian Journal of Physics .
73. Ryden, B. (2017). Introduction to Cosmology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
74. Schaffer, J. (2009). Spacetime the One Substance. Philosophical Studies , 145 (1), 131–148.
75. Tu, L.-C., Luo, J., & Gillies, G. T. (2005). The Mass of the Photon. Reports on Progress in Physics , 68 (1), 77.
76. Weinberg, S. (1977). The First Three Minutes . Basic Books.
77. Wheeler, J. A. (1990). A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime. New York: Scientific American Library.
78. Wilczek, F. (2008). The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. Basic Books.
79. Young, T. (1802). On the Theory of Light and Colours. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , 92 , 12–48.
80. Zeilinger, A. (2021). The quantum century: From entanglement to quantum computers. Europhysics News, 52 (3), 19–22.