Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
The Niche of Lights
Al-Ghazālī's late 'Niche of Lights' — Sufi-Neoplatonic exposition of the Qur'ānic Light Verse
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Niche of Lights (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | not engaged |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | not engaged |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Total |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Passive |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Revelation |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Energy · Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | not engaged |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Niche of Lights
c. 1106-1111. Al-Ghazālī was 48-53, in his late teaching period at Nishapur, three to seven years before his 1111 death at Tūs.
Space
The Niche of Lights
Nishapur (al-Ghazālī's late teaching base after his return to teaching) and Tūs (his birthplace and the site of his late retirement and 1111 death).
Matter
The Niche of Lights
Single short mystical treatise (~50 pages in standard editions). Form is sustained essay-treatise in three parts.
Observer
The Niche of Lights
Late al-Ghazālī. The observer is the philosopher-theologian-Sufi after the crisis and the Sufi-practice period, integrating philosophical, theological, and mystical resources into a single late synthesis.
Energy
The Niche of Lights
Late-mystical energies. The book combines the philosophical clarity of the early al-Ghazālī with the mystical-experiential depth of the late period.
Information
The Niche of Lights
Single short Arabic volume. The metaphysics-of-light framework provides the central informational structure.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Most controversial late-al-Ghazālī treatise — sometimes read as anticipating Ibn 'Arabī's waḥdat al-wujūd. Read continuously in subsequent Sufi-Islamic philosophical tradition; the central reference point for the philosophical-mystical Light metaphysics that would shape Suhrawardī's Illuminationism (twelfth century) and Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Theosophy (seventeenth century).