The true Beloved is our Lord, the Merciful and Everlasting. Company with Him is to feel His presence all the time, with our entire being. One thing we should note before we expand on this companionship is that we need to be careful when we speak about God Almighty, for we cannot conceptualize the Divine within our limited mental capacity. Our human standards are not the right measure to make assessments on God and on matters related to Him. This is a matter that calls for extreme sensitivity. The Messenger of God prohibited his followers to think about the “essence” of God. We can only contemplate on the Divine names and attributes, as well as on His creation. Our intellect is not designed with the capacity to comprehend the truth of His essence. Going in that direction may lead us to attribute certain material, human qualities to the Divine. This is not a domain where a person can freely make claims.

Companionship in the world

Companionship with God is when a person can transcend his or her bodily remoteness and the physical veils they are wrapped in, allowing them to reach the Divine with first-hand experience (dhawq) and inner discovery (kashf). This is a spiritual station we always seek in our prayers. Once a familiarity with this companionship is felt, then people always seek Him, think about Him, do everything in His name, begin with Him, and circle only around His good pleasure. Being in the presence of a saintly figure even once, you cannot help but feel their aura having an influence on your feelings, thoughts, and actions. The secret behind the greatness of the Companions of the Prophet is connected with this. They were honored with the company of the Prophet and colored from his paint. Imagine the state of a person honored with the company of God Almighty.

The company of God, even though we always ask for it in our prayers, is not an easy target. The path in this world that leads to this company goes through absolute faith, knowledge of the Divine (marifa), and love of the Divine (mahabba). This means that if you can attain true faith, turn that faith into knowledge, crown it with love and sincere enthusiasm, then God will take you in His company. You will feel this presence in proportion to the vastness of your knowledge. This is something that can be experienced by those who sincerely seek this honor when they turn to God as they bow and prostrate in the joyful moments of the night. They can feel this in the form of a breeze; if that breeze comes when they put their foreheads on the ground, they wish for prostration to never end.

Company in the Afterlife

We do not know the exact nature of company with the Divine in the Afterlife. Things will be very different there as opposed to here—colors and shapes will be different, perhaps non-essentials and essentials will change places. Company with the Divine, then, will also be beyond our imagination. Bediuzzaman says that thousands of years in paradise would not be worth a moment of seeing the Beauty of the Divine. Everything lived in this world is metaphorical compared to Afterlife – the worldly life is “nothing but a pastime and play,” according to the Qur’an (29:64). Life here is like a sleep, and death is when we make up. The real life is in the Afterlife. This means true companionship with the Divine will also take place in the Afterlife. There, you will witness and feel the source of life, all beauties, and Divine manifestations.

All the words and actions in this world, your prayers, commitments, horizons of your Divine knowledge, fervor, and relationship with Him will appear in the Afterlife in the form of different surprises. Some narrations report that God will manifest with His perfect beauty on Fridays—whatever Friday stands for in the calendar of the Afterlife. We do not know how this manifestation will take place, but the Prophet said it will be as if we see the full moon on the horizon, as clear as without any veils in between. (Ibn Abi Shayba, Musannaf 1/477; Tabarani, al-Mu’jamu’l-awsat 2/314).

These are all descriptions to help our minds better connect with the phenomenon. Otherwise, the nature and truth of this manifestation is far from our knowledge. What we only know is that everyone will be enraptured, as it were, with the experience, and that every individual’s experience will be in accordance with the depth of his or her Divine knowledge. It is told in Bad’ul-Amali, a work that narrates the Islamic creed in a poetic form, that those who will see the Divine beauty will forget all the blessings they otherwise enjoy in paradise. Their eyes do not seek any of those gifts in that moment after what they saw as the beauty of God.

The first step, then, is of course to attain Divine companionship in this worldly life. What we will be blessed with in the Afterlife will be based on what we attain in this life. For instance, those who do not believe in this gift of “seeing God,” who are not at ease with this idea and do not feel anything about it deep down, will not be blessed with this honor in the Afterlife. As expressed in the verse, “And that human has only that for which he labors, and his labor will be brought forth to be seen” (53:39-40), what one will find in the Afterlife will be rewards for his or her true belief, sincerity, supplications, prayers, enthusiasm, and efforts.

Conversations on the Beloved

Companionship of the Beloved is an important blessing and honor, and the best road that leads there is conversations on the Beloved. This entails a deep love for God, and for such lovers to orient every thought and conversation back to Him. In a well-known prayer of the Prophet he said, “O God, indeed, I ask You for Your love and the love of those who love You, and for the action that will cause me to attain Your love” (Tirmidhi, Daavat 75).

Conversations on the Beloved may sometimes come about by speaking directly on the All-Merciful, and at other times through indirect means that lead to Him. It is sometimes the holy scripture when you stroll through verses. Other times, it is the Prophet in whose footsteps you reach your goal. At other times, it is the book of the universe which you contemplate on to increase your knowledge. All of this will carry you to the companionship of the Divine.

To conclude, it is important to saturate one’s heart, mind, spirit, intellect, conscience, and all the faculties in his or her possession with contemplation of the Divine so one can reach His companionship. It is God’s right, and our duty, that we free ourselves from all worldly affairs and turn to Him with a sense above all neediness to reach His company.

Ma’rifa is a special knowledge that is acquired through reflective thought, sincere endeavor, using one’s conscience and inquiring into one’s inner world. It is different from (scientific) knowledge (‘ilm). (Scientific) knowledge is acquisition reached through study, investigation, analysis, and synthesis, while ma’rifa is the substance of knowledge attained through reflection, intuition, and inner perception. The opposite of (scientific) knowledge is ignorance, while the opposite of ma’rifa is denial.

Knowledge means comprehending or encompassing something thoroughly, while ma‘rifa means familiarity with or recognition of something—that something may be the Divine Being—in some of its aspects. For this reason, the One of Unity is called the All-Knowing (‘Alim), but He has never been called the One having familiarity with something (‘Arif). In addition, the exacting scholars of truth view ma‘rifa, which also means information, talent, and skill, as the culture acquired by conscience or one’s conscious nature. It has other meanings such as the ability to feel something with the spiritual faculty that humanity has been endowed with, the image of something known in the mind, and the knowledge kept in the memory which gains strength through repetition. From another perspective, it is consciousness, perception, and sufficient information which helps distinguish one thing from another. Ma‘rifa can be summed up as having concise knowledge about something or someone through their acts or works and attributes—knowledge which can be developed and detailed.

In order that one can be among those who have knowledge of God and who are regarded by God as being one of such people, one should have certain theoretical knowledge about God and the ways that lead to Him, recognizing the obstacles on the way, and knowing how to overcome these obstacles. One should also have enough willpower to apply what one knows. One who has true knowledge of God is a perfect human being who knows the Unique One, Who is the Eternally Besought, with His Acts, Names and Attributes, and is a person in whose everyday life this knowledge shows itself. He or she is also one who always keeps the heart purified and pursues sincerity and purity of intention, who can remain free of negative or evil moral qualities as far as possible, overcoming whatever dark emerges from the spirit and threatens to darken one’s horizon, and thereby demonstrating loyalty to the All-Watchful Guardian. Such a one can bear everything that befalls on God’s way to obtain His approval, and invites others to the way of the Prophets, which shows itself through God’s confirmation in every step, and whose lights he or she always feels with pleasure.

There is another approach to ma‘rifa that ma‘rifa is the ability to perceive something as exactly what it is in itself, in its true nature and identity, and based on the thing itself. According to this approach, knowledge of God is knowing the Divine Being with His Essential and Affirmative Attributes beyond all conceptions of modality. This is different from comprehending, perceiving and establishing other things, and is based on perception and knowing by conscience. This knowledge and perception should not be confused with modern intuitionism. The Divine Being is beyond all concepts and cannot be comprehended, perceived or scientifically known, although a certain knowledge or familiarity can be acquired of Him through His Acts, Names and Attributes.

The acknowledgment that The inability to perceive Him is the true perception, excellently expresses the inability of anything limited to perceive Him and the imperceptibility of the One Who is Infinite. The same meaning is exquisitely expressed in the saying, We have not been able to know You as knowing You requires, O the One Known.

It is only God Whose existence is absolute, and the greatest truth is acknowledging His Existence and Oneness. The first step in acquiring knowledge of Him is the attainment of belief, being a Muslim, and excellence—worshipping Him as if seeing Him. In realizing such a blessed aim, one should continue one’s traveling to the True Source of all gifts and blessings without turning to anything else as a source. One should be able to feel a new joy of reunion in every gift and blessing with which one is favored, and as the final point, gain familiarity with the mysteries of His Names and Attributes, and, if possible, of His Being.

This consideration is expressed as follows in Lutfiya by Wahbi:

Try your hardest and be one who has ma’rifa of Him,
One favored with knowledge of Him!
For the All-Loving declared, “so that I may be known;” [1]
Knowing God is the ultimate cause for the creation of the two worlds;
and knowing God is the adornment of humanity.
Those devoid of knowledge of Him are low in rank.
Knowing Him is a spiritual kingdom,
and Knowing Him is a Divine gift and blessing.
….
When you, O moving spirit, receive this gift and blessing;
the two worlds will be yours.

The following words, which are narrated in books concerning Sufism as a hadith qudsi—a saying, the meaning of which is from God and the wording of which was inspired in the Messenger—are the gist or kernel of all explanations concerning knowledge of God:

O humankind! One who knows his self also knows Me; one who knows Me seeks Me, and one who seeks Me certainly finds Me. One who finds Me attains all his aspirations and expectations, and prefers none over Me. O humankind! Be humble that you can have knowledge of Me; accustom yourself to hunger so that you can see Me; be sincere in your devotion to Me so that you can reach Me. O humankind! I am the Lord; one who knows his self also knows Me; one who renounces his self finds Me. In order to know Me, renounce your own self. A heart which has not flourished and been perfected through knowledge of Me is blind.

Knowledge of God sometimes becomes a source of wonder and astonishment for initiates, as has been said, “One who knows the Ultimate Truth becomes dumbfounded and tongue-tied.” But it sometimes becomes a means of expression for them, as has been said, “One who knows the Ultimate Truth finds his voice.” The voice finds its overflowing expression in one’s excitement and speech and echoes in many other ears. Although opposites, both the saying of Muhammad Parisa, [2] “There is none who knows the Divine Being other than Himself,” and the saying, “I know none else save God,” are true each in its own context.

There is none other than Him who has a true, substantial existence, and there are no true acts other than those done by Him. Other beings have a relative existence when compared with Him, and other acts, which take place in the cycle of causality, is of a relative nature. For this reason, knowledge of God is when an initiate melts away in the light of the Ultimate Truth and gains a new, “true” existence. This may be viewed as self-annihilation in God and subsistence by Him. I think the author of al-Minhaj stresses this fact in these verses:

If you can see with the lights of certainty,
then do not see one who knows and the One Known differently.

Fuduli [3] expresses this depth of knowledge of God as follows:

One who knows God is not one who knows
the wisdom of the world with what is in it.
One who knows God is he who does not know
what the world is with what is in it.

Sufis have made other descriptions concerning knowledge of God. According to these descriptions, knowledge of God is knowing the truths of the Divine Names and Attributes, grasping the phenomenon of the manifestations in existence and the discovery of the existential mystery, deeply perceiving the truth of existence with its originality and shadows, and understanding and representing in life the truth of religion according to the Will of the All-Desired One, Who is the final goal of those who set out to reach Him. Each of these descriptions requires a voluminous work to explain and is therefore beyond the scope of this study. We will only cite here some verses from Diyaiya (“The Book of Light”) which point to some dimensions of the subject matter:

The third chapter is about knowledge of God, O valiant young one;
to describe it the wheel of speech is unable to work.
….
There is no scribe nor a pen to write about it;
one cannot get his tongue around it to express it.
….
The mirror of reason is veiled from understanding it;
the ability of perception has nothing to say in it.
Only the bird of imagination can fly toward it;
there is no example that we can coin to explain it.
….
Here the gift comes only from God;
this is a light-diffusing, sacred rank.
….
The whole of creation is immersed in this realm,
which is more spacious than all the worlds.
….
There is no true existent save He Who is the One,
perceiving this is the real vision.
Do not interpret this vision in another way, or else,
it will mean unbelief and heresy, O one with body of light.
It is not the eyes in the head which have this vision;
The All-Loving One is all-free from vision by these eyes.
The innermost faculty—secret—discerns this truth,
when you find this faculty in you, you can understand it.
Human scientific knowledge and perception have nothing to say;
the merit is in wonder and helplessness in this field.
Perception of one’s helplessness is perception of the Ultimate Truth;
listen to what Abu Bakr, the truthful one, says concerning it. [4]

The rank of knowledge of God (ma‘rifa) is a rank of wonder, utter astonishment, and awe. It is possible to see this in almost all the reflections of the scholars of Sufism on knowledge of God. Some of them see it in direct proportion to the excess of the feeling of awe and have concluded that the deeper one is in knowledge of God, the deeper one’s feeling of awe is. Others regard knowledge of God as being the base of serenity and peacefulness and emphasize that inner peace and self-possession increase in proportion to the depth of knowledge of God. Still others consider knowledge of God as the heart’s attainment of friendship with God and the initiate’s following a way to nearness to God.

The approach of ash-Shibli opens new windows on the knowledge of God. According to him, it means that an initiate has an essential relation with none save God, making no complaints when burning with His love, is a sincere, obedient and faithful servant of God who avoids any claims of superiority, and one who worries about his or her end. A person with true knowledge of God and who has a strong connection with the sources of this knowledge, one who has taken refuge in the guidance of the spirit and meaning of Prophethood, and who has built sound relations with the truths that lie beyond human horizons, cannot feel any essential interest in transitory things nor does lower him or herself to feel attachment to others than the Lord. The Qur’an alludes to this highest point in (35:28), Of all His servants, only those possessed of true knowledge stand in awe of God, reminding the traveler of the relation between knowledge and awe or reverence of God. The greatest of those who have knowledge of God, upon him be peace and blessings, said concerning the same point: I am greater than you in knowledge of God, and more intense in fearing Him.[5]

In the books on Sufism, in which the intellect guided by Revelation is operative, and which contain numerous gems of wisdom concerning the “garment of piety” of those who have true knowledge of God, with Whom their hearts are deeply connected, we can find many gems concerning knowledge of God. The following are only a few of them:

• In the view of one favored with knowledge of God, the world with its material aspect becomes so small that it seems no greater than a cup.
• The souls that have gained profundity in knowledge of God expand to the extent that it is as if they have no
• Those who taste the pleasure of knowledge of God, which is regarded as the sweetest of all honey, pursue no other wealth than nearness to the Ultimate
• The richness of the honeycomb of knowledge of God in the heart is one of the most essential sources of love and An initiate burns with the zeal of reunion in proportion to how much this source overflows its banks, which he or she sees as the price of the favors received.

The following points which differentiate those who have a sound knowledge of God from others are important. The former have no selfish expectations from whatever good they do, never think of competition for either material or spiritual ranks nor feel jealous of anybody. They do not see themselves as being greater than anyone else, nor do they moan because of missed opportunities, anymore than they feel arrogant because of their accomplishments. Even if they were granted the kingdom of the Prophet Solomon, they would only seek God’s company, regarding it as futile to turn to other things. They feel no relation with beings other than the Almighty with respect to their worldly existence and corporeal selves, and know that one moment of God’s friendship is worth the entire world. They consider being with God among people as a victory that has been granted to their willpower, and see the Divine Will reflected in the face of their determination, recognizing the help of the Lord in the result of their endeavor, alongside many other instances of wisdom and God’s extraordinary gifts. They observe the manifestations of the Divine Oneness in the multiplicity of the creation, and thereby they grasp how a drop is transformed into an ocean, and a particle into the sun. They witness in their conscience how nothingness or non-existence is a fertile land, to be planted with existence and live drowned in ecstasies and intoxication.

Self-possession, steadfastness, seriousness, profundity, and resolution are the clearest and most important signs of perfect knowledge of God. Those who have this degree of knowledge live under the shower of the manifestations of God’s friendship and company. No sign of any flaws can be seen in their inner or outer world, nor is any laxity witnessed in their behaviors. They never show impertinence or conceit, even when favored with the most abundant gifts. On the contrary, they always act in a self-possessed manner, trying to lead a self-disciplined, spiritual life.

Obviously, everyone cannot have the same degree of knowledge of God. Some travel on the horizon of perceiving the Attributes essential to the Divine Being and the favors that accompany His Acts. They observe and avail themselves of His proofs that are found within themselves and in the outer world, with the result that their love of truth and their relation with the Greatest of Truths are witnessed in their manners. They travel between the Divine Acts, Names and Attributes and are thrilled with the different melodies of belief, knowledge of God, love, attraction and the feeling of being attracted by God to Himself. They feel in their conscience the reflections of the Divine Acts or operations in the universe and pursue more and more the pleasure entailed in observing ever new colors and aspects. This is a way bequeathed by the Prophets and it is a way that can be followed by everyone. One who travels along this way of objective truth travels toward the Ultimate Truth under the arches of His regard and compliments.

On this path there are others who feel all the dimensions in existence ending in one dimension, who feel that everything is annihilated in God. It is as if they have reached a point where the lights and manifestations of the Divine Being and Attributes come together from the perspective of humanity and annihilate their very being in the Divine Being, attaining a new existence with the Self-Subsistence of Him Who is the All-Knowing and the Ever-Existent.

While those belonging to the former group travel in the realm of the Divine Attributes and Qualities, others have already directed themselves to the Source of these Attributes and Qualities. Therefore, their observations and sensations are not aimed at either the Attributes exclusively in such a way as to veil the Being in their minds or spirits, nor at the Being exclusively in such a way as to suggest the denial of the Attributes. For this reason, such an approach has been regarded as the way of the perfected and most advanced, and the main path that is followed by those who travel to the greatest nearness to God.

The Book, the Sunna, reason, and the Divine system in creation and human primordial nature bear witness to the truth of this way along which God’s works of Art show themselves brightly. Initiates who have firmly established their feet on this path witness at every step that God witnesses His Existence and Oneness, and they cannot help but utter, God bears witness that surely there is no deity but He (3:18). They hear in their conscience the confirmations of angels and those possessed of knowledge as a reflection of God’s Own witnessing, and continue to utter: and the angels and those possessed of knowledge (also bear witness to the same truth) (3:18). Then, they see that all means and causes that are not essential to His Being having vanished, and they are able to be at perfect rest and to find perfect peace.

There are others who have such abundant knowledge of God that proofs of God are no longer needed in their world; all the things that witness Him are humbled in the face of their being in the Presence of the True Witness; all the means tremble with the shame of making distant whatever is near, and all the heralds are silent and busy with correcting the words that they have uttered. At this point, where everything is seen by the conscious nature as witnessing Him beyond all concepts of modality, the eyes are dazzled by the brightest manifestations of the “Divine Facial Light,” and all other identities save His are lost. Those who have reached this point see that the True Source of existence and knowledge surrounds everything from all sides, tasting the pleasure of perceiving every being’s perception of Him according to their level, and feeling that everything is annihilated in Him. They sense the way in which the manifestations of the Divine Names are combined with those of the Being, Attributes and Acts. The conscience is saved from any feeling of dependence on causality and reaches the horizon of Surely we belong to God (as His creatures and servants), and surely to Him we are bound to return (2:156). But this never means, as some have assumed, “absolute annihilation” or “union with God.”

Our Lord! Grant us from Your Presence a special mercy and arrange for us in our affairs what is right and for our good! And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad, by whom the mysteries came to light and the lights shone brightly, and on his pure Family and Companions.

Notes

1. Here there is a reference to the Qur’anic verse, I have not created the jinn and humanity but to worship Me (51:56). To worship Me has usually been interpreted as “so that I may be known and worshipped.” (Tr.)
2. Muhammad Parisa (d., 822/1419) was a great scholar and saint from Bukhara. He passed away in Madina. Among his books al-Fusulu’s-Sitta (Six Chapters) is famous. (Tr.)
3. Mehmed Fuduli (1490-1556). The greatest poet of the Turkish classical literature. He lived in Iraq. His Diwan, (“Collection of Poems”), Layla wu Majnun (“Layla and Majnun”), and Hadiqatu’s-Su‘ada (“The Garden of the Holy Ones”) are some of his other well-known books. (Tr.)
4. The writer refers to Abu Bakr’s saying: “The inability to perceive Him is the true perception.” (Tr.)
5. 5. as-Sahawi, al-Maqasidu’l-Hasana, 21.

For Sufis, God is more than what the legalist scholars of the early Islam described. In Islamic legal terms, God is the One who created the universe and obligated people to show their obedience to Him through following His orders and refraining from the prohibited. For the Sufis, however, God is the One men can approach through genuine love and respectful fear.² Thus, Sufis teach not only joyful obedience to God, but also remembrance of God at all times, and setting aside everything in this temporary world to reach purity, and achieve a state of direct experience of God, in which one can even annihilate himself in God’s Divine being.³

For Junayd (d. 910), one of the greatest Sufis of the ninth century, the essence of Sufism is an attribute of God in mankind which involves the annihilation of human qualities.⁴ To annihilate the self in God, one has to separate himself from this world. In the words of one of the earliest of the Sufis, Abu al-Hasan Nuri’s (d. 907), “[s]ufism is the renunciation of worldly pleasures and Sufis are the ones whose souls have been freed from the stains of humanity, and whose carnal desires have been annihilated to be purified, so that they could find rest with God.”⁵

As this quote suggests asceticism has been a common feature in the lives of Sufis. Like Nuri, Junayd describes Sufis as people who “… did not take Sufism from talk or words, but from hunger and renunciation of the world and cutting off the things to which we were accustomed and which we found agreeable.”⁶ For Dhun-Nun of Egypt (d. 859), another well-known Sufi from the ninth century, Sufis are the ones who do not get tired of being asked for anything; they are not saddened by the loss of anything. They have preferred God to everything, and God, in response, prefers them to everything.⁷ For this reason, early Sufis mainly focused on God and God’s oneness (tawhid), and their spiritual paths were composed of acts and rituals which aimed at interiorizing Islam in the hopes of understanding God in a deeper way.

The exact time when certain Muslim mystics called themselves Sufis for the first time is not known. Mysticism and living an ascetic life had been practiced since the time of the Prophet. Prophet Muhammad’s life (peace be upon him) was a model ascetic life for Sufis. Ali (d. 661), the Prophet’s cousin, son-in-law, and the fourth Caliph of Islam, is the main figure among the Prophet’s companions who transmitted his mysticism to the next generations. Thus, he appears in almost every Sufi chain (silsila) as the first link in the spiritual lineage from the Prophet to the present Shaykh. Names of other companions appear at the top of a few other chains.⁸ Sufis believe that the Prophet taught his mystical ways and esoteric knowledge (ilm al-ladun) to his companions, and they, in turn, transmitted these to the next generations and became the first link in a spiritual chain.

Unlike followers of the Sufi orders that appeared after the eleventh century, the first generations after the Prophet never considered mysticism as a separate way within Islam. They simply regarded the ascetic practices of the Prophet and the companions as a part of the Prophet’s Sunna (traditions). Nonetheless, by the eighth century, the term Sufism was already in use as a distinguished practice within Islam. Yet, it had not been systematized, nor had it produced any organized groups like the Sufi orders, which would come later. Thus, until the twelfth century, Sufis functioned as independent individual scholars who taught their own ways of mysticism to students who were in search of esoteric knowledge. Very few people had the means to become Sufi, as few people knew, or had connections to, the proper way to being accepted into a Sufi training circle. Still, knowing the procedures, and even having connections, would not be enough. One had to go through rigorous purification processes, the least of which was renunciation of the benefits of this world. Hence, if the prospective student was seeking a bright scholarly future, then following the Sufi path would not be appealing.

The formative period

The period between the eighth century and the twelfth is the formative period to which Sufi orders trace their origins. The Sufis became visible for the first time in the political arena in the eighth century, when they openly criticized the extravagancy of the Umayyad dynasty. Islam had expanded to three continents, and prosperity came as cash flowed from the newly captured territories. Palaces were built, and luxury became the norm of the ruling class.⁹

The Sufis’ reaction was quiet but highly political. They began protesting the government by stressing the virtues of asceticism (zühd) in their teachings.¹⁰ They encouraged their audiences to abhor anything temporary (fani – or of this world) in exchange for the eternal (baki – Godly). As one of the earliest Sufi manuals states, the Sufis considered purity a necessity for getting closer to God. Repentance was mentioned heavily as a tool for spiritual cleansing whereas abstinence and poverty were regarded as two virtues that would help one shed their worldly materials. Patience would help one endure the hardships of abstinence and poverty, and resist sinful temptations. Humility, fear of God’s punishment, piety, and sincerity were just some of the other qualities that the early Sufis considered as tools to train one’s soul in order to get closer to God, be intimate to Him, and possibly reach a state of intimacy with God.¹¹

Unlike the organized and institutionalized structure of the Sufi orders of later times, Sufis of the formative period functioned as individual scholars who were committed to passing their esoteric knowledge to the new generations. There were not established standards for such activities, nor was there a tradition of establishing a lodge – tekke – in which to conduct their activities. Abu Hashim (d. 767) from Kufa, who used the term Sufi for the first time, was also the one who established the first lodge of Sufism in Ramla, a city in Palestine on the road from Cairo (Fustat) to Damascus, the Capital of the Umayyads, where he lectured on Sufism to visiting students.¹² Unlike the twelfth century Sufi lodges that functioned as hospices where students of a particular Sufi order lived, studied, and were trained in the Sufi way, Hashim’s lodge was in the form of contemporary educational facilities, where wandering students heard lectures on Islamic sciences. Sufi masters of the formative period lectured either at their homes or at local mosques and educational complexes.¹³

Sufis of the formative period mostly lived in the vicinity of Baghdad, which had become a center for learning after the Abbasid takeover of the Caliphate in 750 CE. This area is the only location that superseded Khorasan (Transoxania) as a center for Sufi learning. The Abbasids generously funded learning activities and students seeking knowledge began visiting Baghdad, and they stayed if they could carve out a place for themselves.

As freelance scholars who championed ascetic lives along with teaching Islamic sciences, the Sufis of the formative period drew numerous students. However, they could not build a strong following resembling any of the post-eleventh century Sufi brotherhoods. This was most probably due to the fact that the later Sufi practice of strict allegiance to one master-shaykh had not been developed yet, and thus the students were not devotees of a certain Sufi tradition but were seekers who constantly travelled between several different masters in search for esoteric knowledge. Still, the great shaykhs’ of the period must have had charismatic influence as they left their tracks in the Sufi world in the form of distinguished traditions which we now think of as “schools” within early Sufism. Hujwiri, in Kashf al-Mahjub, mentions twelve distinguished Sufi schools – ten genuine and two reprobated. Two of these – the Junaydiyya of Junayd al-Baghdadi (d. 910), and the Tayfuriyya of Abu Yazid Tayfur al-Bistami (d. 874) – represented two opposite poles in Sufi tradition. The Junaydiyya’s doctrine was based on sobriety (keeping consciousness despite the intoxicating spiritual influence of the love of God) and observing Islamic Law (Shari’a), whereas Tayfuriyya represented the school of rapture (ghalabah) and intoxication (sukr, jazbah), a spiritual state of unconsciousness with the love of God.¹⁴

The sober Sufis of the formative period were the closest to the legal scholars of early Islam in their understanding of the religion. Thus, these Sufis were mostly on good terms with the legalists who had gained political influence through their legal professions.

The first known sober Sufi was Hasan al-Basri (d. 728), whose key tools in reaching God were fear of God and sadness. Based on the Prophet’s saying that if people had known what the Prophet knew, they would laugh little but weep much, Hasan al-Basri and the followers of the school of sobriety would constantly weep for the miserable state of the world and their own shortcomings.¹⁵ Basri’s sober school was carried by much celebrated Sufis like Habib al-Ajami (d. 767), Davud al-Tai (d.800), Maruf al-Karhi (d. 815), and Sariyy al-Saqati (d. 867) to Junayd al-Baghdadi, in whose personality the school of sobriety found its most refined form. Junayd was born in Baghdad in 830. According to Farid al-Din Attar (d. 1221), one of the most famous biographers of the Sufis, Junayd’s way was that of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s traditions, as only these two would save one from destructive doubts about belief and bad innovations within the religion.¹⁶ Therefore, in Hujwiri’s words, Junayd was accepted by both the externalists (legalists) and the spiritualists (Sufis).¹⁷

Abu Yazid Tayfur al-Bistami’s Tayfuriyya school would be a perfect example of the schools of intoxication. Al-Bistami was born in the early ninth century in Bastam, a city in the north of what is today Iran, near the Caspian Sea, in the early ninth century. He was best known for his piousness, and for his rapturous longing for God and the intoxication of his love of God.¹⁸ Bistami’s school of intoxication suggests that once a man is intoxicated with love of God and enraptured upon his spiritual experiences with God, he does not notice anything else in creation since he is blinded with the love of God and loses his consciousness.¹⁹

The systematization of Sufism and the formation of the Sufi orders

The school of intoxication attracted much attention from the legalists, who accused the Sufis of polytheism. As their state of intoxication affected Sufis as a whole, Sufi intellectuals authored books and treatises in the defense of Sufism against extreme manifestations of intoxication. These works were crucial in the development of Sufi orders in later centuries, as these works ignited a long tradition of scholarship which helped formulate Sufism.²⁰

Manuals of Sufism and biographical works were the final two intellectual steps in the development of organized Sufi groups. Sufi scholars authored manuals on Sufism to prove that the true Sufism belonged to mainstream Islam (sirat al-mustaqim, or the straight path). Biographical works on great Sufis of the past followed the manuals. In these hagiographical dictionaries the authors narrated stories of the early Sufis, and provided later generations with their educational and training backgrounds. While manuals helped the Sufis theorize their ways of Sufism, biographies provided later Sufis with an indispensable tool to track their spiritual lineages to the Prophet for authenticity and legitimacy purposes.

Sufi orders started emerging by the twelfth century. One of the earliest orders, the Suhrawardiyya, emerged in Baghdad as Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi (d. 1168) started disseminating his way of Sufism in the area. Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), the eponymous leader of the Qadiriyya tariqa, was Suhrawardi’s colleague in training under Muhammad Ibn Muslim al-Dabbas (d. 1131).²¹ Around the same time that Suhrawardi established his order, Jilani was conquering people’s hearts through emotionally moving sermons, a popular profession which brought him much fame and helped him disseminate the Qadiri way to a wide range of people.²² The Chistiyya and the Mawlaviyya were founded almost a century later, in Afghanistan and Anatolia respectively.

Another colleague of Jilani at al-Dabbas’ place was Abu Yaqub Yusuf al-Hamadani (d. 1140), a freelance Sufi scholar who was among the ones who brought Sufism from Baghdad to Transoxania.²³ His silsila (spiritual lineage) could be traced back to Junayd through various famous Sufi shaykhs.²⁴ Al-Hamadani is considered to be one of the most influential Sufis of the formative period as two of his disciples, Ahmed Yesevi (d. 1167) and Abd al-Khaliq Ghujduwani (d. 1179) were among the founding fathers of two distinguished and widespread Sufi tariqas of Transoxania, the Yeseviyye and the Naqshbandiyya.

When its origins are taken into consideration, it is clear that Sufism has been well rooted in mainstream Islam. Its origins go back to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his companions through the first generation Muslim scholars in the late seventh and early eighth centuries.

Notes

1. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 24
2. Fudayl b. Iyad says he worships God out of love. See Abd al-Rahman Jami, Nafahat al-Uns, trans. Lamii Çelebi (Istanbul: 1289 AH / 1872 CE), 91.
3. Ali bin Usman al-Hujwiri, The Kashf al-Mahjub, trans. Reynold A. Nicholson (Lahore: Zia-ul-Quran Publications, 2001),101-105.
4. Hujwiri, The Kashf, 107.
5. Hujwiri quotes Abu al-Hasan Nuri (d.907), one of the greatest Sufis of the formative period. See Hujwiri, Kashf, 107-108.
6. Schimmel, The Mystical, 58.
7. Abu Nasr as-Sarraj, Kitab al-Luma fit-Tasawwuf, Ed. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leyden: E.J. Brill and London: Luzac &Co, 1914), 25. Schimmel quotes the same text but in the English version of her book the Arabic word of A-TH-R is translated as “choose”; however, “prefer” would be a better translation since “choose” distorts the meaning to some extent. See Schimmel, The Mystical, 15.
8. Schimmel, The Mystical, 28.
9. Schimmel, The Mystical, 29
10. Abu’l Qasim Qushayri, al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fi ilm al-Tasawwuf, trans. Alexander Kynsh (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing Limited, 2007), 17; Abdülkerim Kuşeyri, Kuşeyri Risalesi, trans. Süleyman Uludağ (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1978), 49.
11. Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi, Kitab al-Taarruf li-madhhab ahl al-tasawwuf, Trans. A.J. Arberry (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1978), 82-102.
12. Jami, Nafahat, 86.
13. See Schimmel, The Mystical, for detailed information how early Sufis functioned.
14. Hujwiri, Kashf, 263-361.
15. Schimmel, The Mystical, 31.
16. Fared al-Din Attar, Tadhkira al-Awliya, trans. Mehmed Zahid Kotku, 60, accessed November 22, 2014 http://www.erimsever.com/Mevlana/Buyukler/TezkiretulEvliya_FAttar.pdf.
17. Hujwiri, Kashf, 208.
18. Jami, Nafahat, 66.
19. Hujwiri, Kashf, 273.
20. Schimmel, The Mystical, 55-7.
21. Diyanet Islam Ansiklopedisi, s.v. “SÜHREVERDI, Ebü’n-Necîb.”
22. Diyanet Islam Ansiklopedisi, s.v. “Abdülkadir-i Geylânî.”
23. Jami, Nafahat, 409, 588.
24. Jami, Nafahat, 409.

The first rank of ma‘rifa is discerning the manifestations of the Divine Names surrounding us, and spectating the amazing climate of the Attributes behind the door of mystery, half-opened by these manifestations. During this journey, lights flow continuously from the traveler’s eyes and ears to his or her tongue, and one’s heart begins to direct those acts, which serve as a tongue confirming and proclaiming the Ultimate Truth. This tongue becomes, so to speak, a diskette of “good words,” and various lights from the light-giving truth of: To Him pure words ascend, and the righteous deed causes them to rise (35:10) begin to be reflected on the screen of his or her conscience.

One who has acquired such ma‘rifa is immune to all evil and is enveloped by breezes blowing from the realms beyond. As Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum states, “God said: ‘I can be contained by neither the heavens nor the earth.’ He is known by the heart as a Hidden Treasure in the heart,” translating the allegorical hadith qudsi: “Neither the heavens nor the earth can contain Me, but the heart of a believer contains Me,”2 corridors of light are opened from his or her spirit toward the One known by the heart. The traveler is so enraptured with observing such scenes that he or she does not think of returning to a normal life.

A traveler who is completely closed to all else save God, who has resisted all corporeal desires and impulses in order to be carried by the tides of Divine company, has reached the stage of ma‘rifa. One who travels around this point is called a traveler to ma‘rifa; one who has reached it is called an ‘arif (one who has spiritual knowledge of God).

The differences found in commentaries on ma‘rifa are based on the temperaments and schools of thought or levels of ma‘rifa itself. Some have sought ma‘rifa in those who have it, and they have seen the feeling of awe observed in them as the manifestation of ma‘rifa. Some others have seen it as connected with serenity, and judge the ma‘rifa’s depth according to the vastness of serenity; still others have seen it as the heart’s complete closure to everything but God; while there are still others who have understood it as the heart’s wonder and admiration amidst the tides of Divine manifestations. Such hearts always beat with wonder and amazement, for the eyes of their owners open and close with amazement, and their tongues pronounce with wonder and admiration: I acknowledge that I am unable to praise You as You praise Yourself.3

With the spirit always flying upward toward eternity, and the heart enraptured with the pleasure of finding peace or being at rest, but always self-possessed and cautious, a life lived in ma‘rifa is as calm and peaceful as that lived in the gardens of Paradise. Side-by-side with the angels, those who have acquired ma‘rifa are included in the meaning of: They do not disobey God in whatever He commands them, and carry out what they are commanded (66:6). With feelings that are like buds waiting for daylight to blossom, such souls open fully with ma‘rifa in “daylight” and experience the pleasure of intimacy with Him at every moment with a new dimension of ma‘rifa. So long as they keep their eyes fixed on the door of the Ultimate Truth, they are intoxicated by meeting with Him several times a day or even every hour, and are enraptured with a new manifestation at every moment.

While those supposing themselves to be scholars continue to “crawl,” and philosophers continue to philosophize and struggle to build on the information they have, an ‘arif (one who has attained knowledge of God) always tastes peace and talks about peace in an effusion of “light.” Even when ‘arifs quake with fear and awe of the Almighty, they feel infinite pleasure and, while their eyes weep, their hearts always smile.

There are differences of manners and tendencies among ‘arifs based on temperaments and schools of spiritual training. While some are deep and silent, like whirlpools, others “gurgle” like waterfalls. Some always weep for fear of committing sins, and never tire of praising their Lord; others continuously travel in awe, modesty, and familiarity and never think of leaving this “ocean.” Still others are like the earth which everybody else “treads,” as no one shows them respect or thinks that they are ‘arifs; or they are like clouds sending “water” to everyone under them, or like breezes, for they touch our feelings and blow us good and favor.

An ‘arif can be recognized in several ways: such a person expects favor from and becomes intimate only with the Known One; he or she lifts his or her eyelids and opens the doors of his or her heart only to Him; he or she turns only to Him in love; and experiences the greatest suffering when anyone other than Him is desired. One who has not acquired true knowledge of God Almighty cannot distinguish between the Beloved and others, and one who is not intimate with the Beloved cannot know separation’s torment and pain. Muhammed Lutfi says: “There is the light of knowledge of God in the eyes of the soul of an ‘arif. One with an ‘arif receives God’s help and knows what knowledge of God is.”

Our Lord! Be in our favor, and do not be against us; help us

and do not help others against us. And bestow blessings and

peace on our master Muhammad, chosen among and sent to

us, and on his Family and Companions, noble and godly.

Notes

1 al-‘Ajluni, Kashfu’l-Khafa’, 2:343.

2 Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, az-Zuhd, 81; ad-Daylami, al-Musnad, 3:174.

3 Muslim, “Salah,” 222; Abu Dawud, “Salah,” 148.

1) Organic integration (tawhid) vs artificial fragmentation. Whereas ma‘rifa presupposes the total application of the principle of tawhid on all levels-divine, cosmic and human-the modernist outlook is characterized by a tendency to divide and compartmentalize, separating for example, religion from society, ethics from knowledge.

2) Certainty vs doubt. Whereas for ma‘rifa, a preexisting faith, preferably based on verification, must become certitude, for the modernist, faith is itself something which must be proved, and this in a climate dominated by scepticism.

3) Metaphysical profundity vs positivist superficiality. Whereas in ma‘rifa all relative truths are seen as reflections of one Absolute Truth, the modern outlook is characterized by the view of modern science: only that is true which is empirically proven so.

4) Sense of the sacred vs profane materialism. Whereas in ma‘rifa, the surrounding world of nature is suffused with meaning and holiness, being so many ‘signs’ of God, for the modernist, nature is there to be manipulated and dominated for the sake of material goals.

5) Eschatological realism vs worldly naivete. The pursuit of ma‘rifa requires an initial detachment from the life of this world, an awareness of its relative and fleeting nature. The Qur’an stresses this in many places, referring to the life of this world as ‘play’ (la‘ib), for example: (29.64) ‘The life of this world is naught but sport and play; and the abode of the Hereafter, that is true life, if only they knew.’ The ‘they’ could easily apply to those who identify with the underlying dynamic of the modern world: an all-consuming hunger for things of this world, a preoccupation with terrestrial life that in marginalizes concern with God and one’s final ends: and this is truly a form of naivete, a deluded, implicit belief in the permanence of one’s life in this fragile world.

6) Spiritual virtue vs moral relativism. From the viewpoint of ma‘rifa, the virtues are reflections of divine qualities: ‘Acquire the character traits of God’, said the Prophet. The realization of the fundamental virtues is thus an absolute pre-requisite for any spiritual endeavour, any effective movement towards God. Virtue is a spiritual imperative, and it is for this reason that many Sufi treatises describe the virtues as stations on the way to God. On the other hand, the modernist will tend to reduce virtue to a purely ethical rather than a spiritual imperative, viewing it chiefly in respect of its social function. The modern liberal ethos of moral relativism erodes further the spiritual meaning of virtue.

7) Liberating objectivity vs inescapable subjectivism. Ma‘rifa both presupposes and produces a degree of objectivity both towards one’s self: according to the terms used in the Qur’an, one must pass from the state of the nafs al-lawwama, the self-accusing soul, to the nafs al-mutma’inna, the soul at peace in the presence of God. This transition comes about through a relentless war against one’s own vices, faults, and weaknesses, the war referred to by the Prophet as the jihad al-akbar, the greatest of all jihads. Such a war against oneself would be regarded in modern psychology simply as the imbalanced indulgence of a guilt complex. Modern psychology shies away from the notion of sin, preferring a false tranquility in the context of immorality to a true peace based on a wholesome effort of self- improvement. The essential shortcoming of modern psychology was summed by Jung in a moment of frank confession when he wrote: ‘The object of psychology is the psychic; unfortunately, it is also its subject’ (Sword of Gnosis, p.153). There can therefore be no objective view of the psychic except by something that by definition transcends the psychic: and this can only be the spirit, breathed by God into man at the time of his creation, and cultivated by man insofar as he conforms to the higher calling of his nature, or else stifled and suffocated by man insofar as he remains heedless of his true nature.

8) Theocentrism vs humanism. The way of ma‘rifa is centred on God here and now, taking to heart what the Qur’an says (50.16): ‘We are closer to man than his jugular vein.’ The aspirant to ma‘rifa, in other words, seeks fulfillment in God through this mysterious divine presence within his own being. Humanism is a caricature of this aspiration, a desire for fulfillment within the bounds of one’s own humanity, a quest for immortality apart from God -which is exactly what Satan promises man: ‘O Adam, shall I show you the tree of immortality and a kingdom that does not waste away?’ (20.120) For the modernist, the expulsion of the divine is ‘liberating’; it puts man centre-stage, his own authority in all matters, free to define his own ‘morality’: in its excess, this view claims that ‘gods come and go’, only the humanist enterprise remains!

9) Wise authority vs pedagogical anarchy. Whereas the modernist outlook encourages each student to seek originality and to be irreverent to received opinion, ma‘rifa envisages a teaching process in which the disciple humbly learns from a master. Al-Ghazali (Book of Knowledge, p. 129) advises the student to submit to his teacher with the same degree of trust and humility as a sick patient would submit to a skilled physician.

10) Spiritual realization vs epistemological rationalism. Whereas the modernist sees knowledge as something accessible exclusively by rational means, ma‘rifa regards ultimate knowledge as the fruit of spiritual realization. One of the central precepts of ma‘rifa is intensification of worship for the sake of realizing the ultimate truths in the heart and not just knowing them with the mind. This approach derives from clear Qur’anic commands, for example: ‘And worship your Lord so that (hatta) certainty might come to you’ (15:99). It is conveyed also by many hadiths of the Prophet: ‘For everything there is a means of polishing, and the polish for hearts is the remembrance of God (dhikr)’. Believers are exhorted to perform the dhikr so that the light of truth may dawn in their hearts. As for those modernist Muslims who regard the practice of dhikr as useless, an appropriate reply is the Qur’anic verse: ‘Woe be to those whose hearts have become hardened against the remembrance (dhikr) of God; they are in clear error’ (39:22).

11) Assimilative extinction vs cognitive individualism. Whereas in ma‘rifa ultimate knowledge is assimilated in a mode which is predicated on the effacement of individual identity, in the modernist outlook knowledge is something acquired by the individual and further reinforces the notion of individual identity. The essence of ma‘rifa is of course knowledge of God. But it is said repeatedly in the Sufi tradition that none knows God but God. What this means is that it is only that divine spark of consciousness within man that can know God. Al-Ghazali (Mishkat, p.59) writes that ‘everything has two faces, a face of itself and a face of its Lord; in respect of its own face it is nothingness, but in respect of the face of God it is being. Thus there is nothing in existence save God and His Face.’ This ultimate realization of La ilaha illa-llah, the summit of ma’rifa, presupposes the complete extinction of one’s own particularity, one’s own face, everything in oneself that is other than what Ibn ‘Arabi calls the huwiyya, the ‘He-ness’ of God. Thus one speaks of the ‘arif bi-llah the knower through God, not the knower of God. Ma‘rifa of the highest kind therefore consists in knowing-concretely, and not just theoretically-the true Subject of Knowledge: God Himself, before whom the individual is strictly nothing. All of this is expressed very succinctly in one of Ibn ‘Arabi’s treatises: ‘extinction in contemplation; the deepest meaning of this type of contemplation is conveyed by means of an esoteric interpretation of the Prophet’s description of ihsan: ‘that you worship God as if you saw Him, and if you do not see Him, He sees you’. The Arabic wording is such that, by effecting a stop in the middle of the phrase ‘if you do not see Him’, the meaning is completely transformed into: (in lam takun: tarahu) if you are not, see Him’ (Extinction, 48-9).

12) Primordial immutability vs evolutionary progressivism. Whereas ma‘rifa envisages human perfectibility as an inward spiritual quality that is primordially ingrained in human nature, the modernist strives after a material progress to be attained in the future on the outward plane of society. Ma‘rifa does envisage progress, but one that is spiritual and not sheerly material; and it regards man not as having evolved from a primitive ape to an intelligent human, but on the contrary, sees man as having been made in the finest stature, and then having been reduced to the lowest of the low, as the Qur’an says (95.4-5). The inevitable decline of mankind as a whole is also stated in the sura al-Wa qi‘a (56), where the foremost are described as being many in the early times and few in later times. There are several hadiths to this effect, one a prophecy that has truly come to pass in our own times: ‘You will follow the ways of those that were before you (that is, the Christians and Jews) span for span and cubit for cubit until if they went down into the hole of a poisonous reptile, you would follow them.’ It would be appropriate here to address one particularly striking way in which some modernist Muslims are following the West down into this hole: namely, the lamentable attack mounted by would-be re-formers of Islam on their own spiritual tradition, Sufism. This anti-Sufi attitude, in the name of ‘progress’ and reform, is a desacralization of religion or a form of unconscious secularism. For it must be remembered that secularism is not the direct antithesis of religion, as is atheism; rather, it is a force which first marginalizes religion, and then enters into religion itself. One has only to look at the Christian Church in our times to see how, instead of religion determining social norms, it is social fashions that determine religion.

In terms of the new progressive paradigm the eschatological realism referred to earlier becomes ‘pessimism’; to be detached from the world is deemed ‘irresponsible’; devotion to the jihad al-akbar is ‘selfish’; giving priority to contemplation over action is ‘decadent’; engaging in dhikr is ‘vain’, while entering a forty-day spiritual retreat, sheer ‘escapism’…

In contrast to this capitulation to modernism, let us cite the attitude of the great Sufi and mujahid, the Emir ‘Abd al-Qadir. In a remarkable document entitled Letter to the French, he explained how he was not at all impressed by their scientific and technological achievements. They arose out of a spirit of practical application, he wrote, which could lead to ‘damnable activities’. Whilst Islam, on the other hand, despite its decadence and material weakness, remained faithful to a spirit of metaphysics that opened onto knowledge of God. He thus urged the French, for their own good, to make an effort to understand Islam and its living spiritual tradition. Whereas the Emir was dismissive of the material advantages of the West, he was at the same time respectful towards its Christian tradition; many of today’s Muslim modernists, on the contrary, are contemptuous of the spiritual tradition of the West while emulating its material success. There is here a stark contrast between an inferiority complex that derives from implicitly material standards, and an unshakable conviction, derived from explicitly spiritual values. It might be said that today’s Muslims suffer from this inferiority complex in the measure that their criterion of value is determined by material, ‘horizontal’ norms; while only those in the spiritual tradition, those who benefit concretely from the baraka, or grace, of that tradition, are able to share with the Emir the knowledge both of the intrinsic and immutable value of the Islamic civilization, and of the ways in which this civilization, despite its aspects of decadence, is superior to modern civilization, despite the latter’s practical benefits. In fact, if one looks at the number of Europeans who have converted to Islam through Sufism, one sees that it is the very element that was most evidently lacking in mainstream Western society-the sacred-that proves most compelling; and, conversely, it is the ramifications of this same element that most embarrasses would-be Muslim reformers. It is above all else the perspective of ma‘rifa at the heart of Sufism that takes into account the ever-present possibility of regenerating the sacred, whatever the outward circumstances of life, since the original nature of man, his fitra, remains intact even if clouded by forgetfulness: the Qur’an says: ‘so set thy purpose for religion as one by nature upright, the fitra of God, that upon which he fashioned man. There is no change in the creation of God.’ Rather than striving to attain some imaginary future progress, the aspirant to ma‘rifa searches simply to be true to his human nature, made in the image of God.

In conclusion, this point must be stressed: the realization of one’s highest gift, the knowledge of God, is at the same time the fulfillment of the very purpose of creation. ‘I was a hidden treasure, and I loved to be known; so I created the world’. To marginalize ma‘rifa is to be unfaithful to the reason for our very existence as beings capable of knowing the hidden treasure.