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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Theoretical Gnosis and Doctrinal Sufism and Their Significance Today With What Does Theoretical Gnosis Deal? Before turning to the significance of theoretical gnosis and doctrinal Sufism, it is necessary to mention a few words about what subjects this Supreme Science treats. And before delineating the subjects made known through theoretical gnosis, one needs to know how one can gain such a knowledge.

The knowledge of the Supreme Reality or the Supreme Substance is itself the highest knowledge and constitutes the very substance of principial knowledge. As Frithjof Schuon, one of the foremost contemporary expositors of gnosis and metaphysics has said, “The substance of knowledge is Knowledge of the Substance.”59 This knowledge is contained deep within the heart/intellect and gaining it is more of a recovery than a discovery. It is ultimately remembrance, the Platonic anamnesis.

The faculty associated with this knowledge is the intellect (al-‘aql), the nous, not to be confused with reason. The correct functioning of the intellect within man is in most cases in need of that objective manifestation of the intellect that is revelation.60 In any case its attainment always requires intellectual intuition, which is ultimately a Divine gift, and the ability to “taste” the truth.

In the Islamic tradition this supreme knowledge or gnosis is associated with such qualities as dhawq (taste), hads (intuition), ishrāq (illumination) and hudūr (presence). Those who are able to understand gnosis must possess certain intellective gifts not to be confused with powers of mere ratiocination.

Also in Islam gnosis has always been related to the inner meaning of the revelation and its attainment of the initiatic and esoteric power of walāyah/wilāyah which issues from the fountain of prophecy and about which so many Muslim gnostics from Ibn ‘Arabī to Sayyid Haydar Āmulī and from Āqā Muhammad Ridā Qumsha’ī to Muhammad ‘Alī Shāhābādī to Ayatollah Khomeini have written with differing interpretations.

Turning now to the subjects with which theoretical gnosis and doctrinal Sufism deal, we must mention that it is not our intention here to expound its teachings, but only the subjects which are of concern to this School.61 The supreme subject of gnosis may be said to be the Supreme Principle or Reality which is absolute and infinite and not even bound by the condition of being absolute and infinite.