 With his metaphysic of lights, Suhrawardi proposes what he may have deemed a more satisfying argument for the difficult philosophical and theological problem of God’s knowledge of particulars. The concepts of self-knowledge and knowledge by presence, at the heart of the knowledge by presence of all light-beings, provides a means to explain God’s self-awareness, as the Light of Lights, as well as Its self-knowledge and It’s knowledge of all things other than itself (creation), such as particulars. Knowledge by presence serves to explain the presence of God’s knowledge of Itself to Itself, as it does for the self-knowledge of all beings of light: “Its knowledge of Its essence is Its being a light in Its essence and evident to Its essence”. At the same time, God is able to be aware of what is other than It, such that “Its knowledge of things is their being evident to It, either in themselves or in their connections” (PI, §162). Hence, God’s knowledge by presence is now conceived in terms of the “existence of a ‘relation’ (idafa) between it and whatever is known to it”, whereby this “purely relational” nature of God’s knowledge enables the Light of Light to know material particulars without there being any changes or effects on its light substance (Sinai 2013, 320–1, 2016, 288–93; Eichner 2001, 137–9). For a good overview of Suhrawardi’s light ontology, see Walbridge (1992, 40–78, 2004, 212–6). 