Comparative Study of the Aesthetics of Light and Darkness in the Representation of Good and Evil in Suhrawardi’s Illuminationist Philosophy and John Milton’s Religious Poetry

The symbolic opposition between light and darkness as representations of good and evil is one of the most persistent structures in philosophical, theological, and artistic traditions. Across religious systems, light has been associated with truth, presence, knowledge, and proximity to the divine, while darkness has signified absence, ignorance, separation, and moral deficiency. This study presents a comparative analysis of the aesthetics of light and darkness in Suhrawardi’s Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq (The Philosophy of Illumination) and John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. The research aims to examine how metaphysical concepts of light and darkness are transformed into aesthetic and symbolic structures that articulate good and evil in Islamic philosophy and Christian religious poetry. Employing a qualitative, descriptive–analytical approach within a thematic comparative framework, the study demonstrates that in both systems, beauty functions as a mediating force between truth and ethics, while darkness signifies degrees of ontological, moral, or perceptual absence. Despite differences in epistemology and language, both thinkers articulate a shared aesthetic logic in which light constitutes the foundation of being, meaning, and moral orientation.