An-Noor

The root. An-Noor comes from n-w-r, a root about light in the most direct sense — nūr is light itself, and the same root gives manāra, the lit place or lighthouse, and tanwīr, illumination. The root's spread from a physical phenomenon to an abstract one is one of the most natural in Arabic: light is the thing by which everything else becomes visible, so the same word extends easily to whatever makes truth or guidance visible to a mind that could not otherwise perceive it.

What it means here. An-Noor is read on two levels held together rather than chosen between: light as the reality by which the heavens and the earth are made visible and structured, and light as guidance, the illumination by which a person recognizes true from false and finds a way through what would otherwise be darkness. Classical commentary is careful that the name is not read as a claim that Allah is a physical light or made of light — the created light of a lamp or a star is read as one of His creations and a sign pointing toward Him, not as an image of His essence.

Where it is met. An-Noor appears once as a name in the Quran, opening the celebrated Ayat an-Nur, Surah An-Nur 24:35: "Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth," followed by the well-known image of a niche holding a lamp within glass, light upon light. The same verse states that Allah guides to His light whom He wills, tying the name directly to guidance in the very sentence that introduces it.