I think a lot of it has to do with appearance, and how much 'hype' there is about the person. If you have been told that someone is a shaykh, wali of Allah, sahib e nisbat, etc ... As soon as you recognize the person, one who has love for the deen will obviously fall in love with them. If someone is wearing white Sunnah attire, a turban, etc ... similar feelings result in the heart. I've seen several examples of where people were wow'd by a person and claimed that they were seeing noor on their face, etc, etc ... and they turned out to be wretched. Heck, it even happened to me, lol. I had traveled to a hill station a few years ago, and stopped by someone's house for a few minutes. There was a religious TV program going on. There was a man on there talking to kids. He was of age, had an imposing figure, was dressed from top to bottom in the Sunnah attire, spoke beautifully, had a soothing voice, and from his eyes it seemed that he was deep in rememberence of Allah swt. I was really impressed by him and a subhan Allah came out naturally, hehe. My friend observed my for a few minutes, giggling ... after which he told me that this person actually had one of the darkest hearts .. he was a Qadiyaani/Ahmedi imam or something. Appearances, perceptions .. can be veerrryyy deceptive. Another incident I was told about .... There was a booth setup by Kashmiri fundraisers at an event. They showed pictures of people displaced, and injured by the Indian army in Kashmir. One picture had a man who was bloodied and badly wounded. Everyone looked at that picture and talked about how much noor there is on the persons face. They even looked at his facial expression and commented how much sukoon there is on it, masha'Allah, subhan Allah, etc... They were given the impression that this was a picture of a mujaahid who had been tortured to by the Indian army. Later it was found out that it was actually a picture of a spy/traitor who was beat up by the mujahideen to extract information out of him. LoL .. sigh .. I'm not denying the whole concept of people having a special spiritual light on their faces which one can actually feel or see .. I've felt this myself ... and know it exists. I'm just saying that with the exception of those who are spiritually very lofty, the most of us (including myself) *probably* end up 'seeing' this spiritual light on individuals who impress us in a way we have programmed ourselves to be impressed.