The Liminal Ontology of Olive Oil: A Metaxic Inquiry into Quranic Fluorescent Epistemology

Introduction: Barzakhī Being and the Metaphysics of Thresholds

The ontological status of olive oil in the āyat an-nūr (Quran 24:35) constitutes neither substance nor accident, but rather what the Akbarian tradition would call a barzakhī reality – a liminal existent suspended between divine effulgence (tajallī) and material tangibility. This essay advances a radical rereading of the Verse of Light through the lens of ontological liminality, arguing that olive oil’s “neither eastern nor western” fluorescence epitomizes Islam’s metaxic metaphysics, where being is fundamentally amphibious, simultaneously participating in multiple ontological registers without full belonging to any.

1. Liminal Ontology: Olive Oil as Barzakhī Entity

1.1. The Amphibious Substance

Olive oil defies Aristotelian categories of being through its:

• Hylomorphic Paradox: Exhibiting qualities of both mādda (matter) and ṣūra (form) while transcending both
• Directional Negation: Its “neither eastern nor western” nature performs an ontological apophasis, marking it as pure betweenness
• Autogenic Luminescence: The “fire untouched” quality suggests an uncaused causation, placing it outside efficient causality

1.2. The Barzakh as Ontological Operator

Building on Ibn ‘Arabī’s concept of the barzakh, olive oil functions as:

• Epistemic Membrane: Filtering divine light into cognitive accessibility
• Existential Isopleth: The contour where divine attributes (ṣifāt) and creation (khalq) share equal intensity
• Fluorescent Threshold: A literal and metaphysical surface where photons and fayḍ (emanation) become indistinguishable

2. Liminal Epistemology: Knowing at the Threshold

2.1. The Lamp-Niche as Noetic Interface

The mise-en-scène of the verse constructs a tripartite epistemic architecture:

1. Niche (mishkāh): The structured limits of human cognition
2. Glass (zujājah): The transparent but distorting medium of perception
3. Oil (zaytūn): The liminal substance that both transmits and transforms illumination

2.2. Metaxic Knowing

The epistemology suggested operates through:

• Diastemic Resonance: Knowledge emerging in the gap between divine light and material receptacle
• Aporetic Luminosity: Understanding that increases precisely through recognition of its own limits
• Chiasmic Reversal: Where the knower becomes the known through fluorescent participation

3. Phenomenology of the Threshold

3.1. Liminal Perception

The oil’s light manifests as:

• Husserlian Abschattung: A shimmering that reveals through partial concealment
• Merleau-Pontyan Flesh: The visible-invisible membrane where divine and human perception intertwine
• Bachelardian Reverie: An oneiric luminosity that dissolves subject-object dichotomies

3.2. The Time of Thresholds

Olive oil’s fluorescence introduces:

• Messianic Temporality: The “almost as if” (ka-annahā) constructs a time of imminent epiphany
• Nunc Fluens: A flowing now that is neither past nor future illumination
• Sacred Delay: The oil’s slow combustion figures the differance of divine manifestation

4. Axiology of the Between

4.1. Liminal Ethics

The oil’s ontology generates:

• Interstitial Virtues: Patience (ṣabr) as dwelling in uncertainty
• Amphibious Justice: Equity (qisṭ) that operates in the interstices of law
• Fluorescent Charity: Giving that illuminates without expectation of return

4.2. Teleology of Thresholds

The eschatological dimension reveals:

• Barzakhī Eschaton: The oil prefigures the liminal state between death and resurrection
• Metaxic Salvation: Redemption as learning to dwell authentically in betweenness
• The Last Threshold: Where the oil’s light becomes the sirāṭ bridge itself

Conclusion: Toward a Liminal Tafsīr

This reading suggests that olive oil’s true significance lies in its ontological liminality, offering:

• A model for Islamic metaphysics beyond substance ontology
• An epistemology valuing threshold states over categorical knowledge
• A spirituality that sanctifies the “in-between” as the truest dwelling place of the believer

The Verse of Light thus emerges not as allegory but as precise phenomenology of barzakhī existence, where the fluorescent olive oil becomes the perfect symbol for Islam’s metaphysical amphibiousness – calling believers to become, like the oil itself, “neither of the East nor the West,” but beautifully, painfully, gloriously in between.