Hanging from the ceiling of a religious building, this glass mosque lamp, made in Mamluk Cairo around 1350–57, symbolized God’s presence. Its inscription, from the Qur’an, sura 24, the Sūrat al-Nūr (Verse of Light), means, ‘God I the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His light is as a niche, wherein is a lamp’.

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