Mosque Lamp of Sultan Hassan

Thinking Through Henri Bergson (1859-1941)’s “Creative Evolution”

This silver-inlaid glass lamp is not simply a physical object but a metaphysical image of divine emanation. Bergson’s critique of spatialized thought is transcended here: the lamp does not hold light but participates in the revelation of pure becoming. The Qur’anic verse inscribed upon its surface (“Light upon Light”) mirrors duration's layers—each illuminating and generating the next in an indivisible flow. The lamp, like the spirit, glows not with external fire but with the radiance of interior intuition. Silver inlay weaves the visible with the invisible, becoming the rhythm of mystical contemplation. It is the soul’s own light—intermittent, living, and uncontainable.