Recognition (maʿrifa)

Maʿrifa and the less commonly used ʿirfān are verbal nouns derived from the root ʿ-r-f (for the various meanings of this root, see Lane’s Lexicon, s.v. ʿ-r-f). Like ʿilm, which is often considered its synonym, maʿrifa means ‘to know’. Scholars in all disciplines have offered definitions and explanations for the word ʿilm, frequently explaining that maʿrifa has a comparable meaning, though with distinctive connotations. The best overview of the countless scholarly disquisitions on ʿilm remains Franz Rosenthal’s Knowledge Triumphant (2007; see especially 53–55, 108–129, 165–168). Here we focus on the distinctive meaning given to maʿrifa by Sufis and philosophers who have paid special attention to ʿilm al-nafs, ‘knowledge of the soul’ (usually translated as ‘psychology’), which they saw as preparation for maʿrifat al-nafs, ‘recognizing the soul’. Specialists have not reached a consensus about how to translate maʿrifa. Most commonly they use ‘gnosis’, but this word has no verbal form in English, so the frequent use of the verb in the Qur’an, Islamic literature, and everyday language is lost to sight. Moreover, ‘gnosis’ suggests a heresy left over from pre-Islamic times, and some scholars have been happy to think that this is indeed the case. Other terms have been suggested when the word is not simply a synonym for ʿilm. These include ‘mystical knowledge’, ‘experiential knowledge’, ‘intuition’, and ‘theosophy’ (see, inter alia, Arnaldez 2012; Renard 2004; Shah-Kazemi 2002; Treiger 2011; Rustom Forthcoming). Authors writing in Persian have typically translated maʿrifa as shinākhtan, ‘to recognize’ (not dānistan, ‘to know’) (Dihkhudā [n.d.], s.v. ‘maʿrifat’; Rustom 2023; Sajjādī 1991: 730–732). The opposite of maʿrifa is nakar, non-recognizing. In grammar, maʿrifa designates the use of the article al- to indicate a definite noun; nakira then refers to an indefinite noun, namely one that is not recognized. Although maʿrifa and ʿirfān are linguistic synonyms, from about the seventeenth century onwards ʿirfān has often been used to designate the theoretical side of Sufism (Anzali 2017; Asghari 2025; for ʿirfān as ‘philosophical/theoretical Sufism’, see Ali 2022; Dagli 2016; Nasr 2005). This has led some scholars to read this understanding of ʿirfān back into Islamic history (Böwering 2012). Recent studies have looked at the continuing attention given to maʿrifa in cultures as far apart as those of West Africa and Iran (Ogunnaike 2020; Golestaneh 2023).