By attending to these explanations it becomes clear that the...

By attending to these explanations it becomes clear that the true gnostic is the one who follows a specific practical programme and attains an intuitive and direct gnosis of God, the Exalted, and His attributes and actions. Theoretical gnosis is, in fact, an account and interpretation of this gnosis, which, naturally, has many shortcomings.

If we are not very exact about the terminology and expand its scope we can use the term gnosis for all spiritual wayfaring which is undertaken to find the truth and attain felicity, as well as the resulting spiritual states and witnessings.

In this way, gnosis will include even the kinds of gnosis found in Buddhism and Hinduism and the gnosis of some of the tribes of Siberia and the native tribes of Africa, just as the term religion may be applied, with the same sort of extended meaning to Buddhism, totemism, and the like. Here it is appropriate to indicate the concepts of wisdom and philosophy, too.

The expression hikmah (wisdom), which is an originally Arabic word, means a firm and certain gnosis (ma`rifah), and it is often applied to practical gnosis, as the sense in which it is used in the Glorious Qur'an (17:39).

However, in current terminology it has the meaning of divine philosophy as well as practical philosophy and the science of ethics, and in ethics itself it is used in the sense of a trait of the soul related to the use of reason, and as the mean between the extremes of cunning and stupidity.

In any case, it is not applied to atheistic philosophies or skepticism, to the contrary of philosophy which is derived from Greek roots meaning any intellectual or rational efforts to understand the problems of all existence, even if this leads to the rejection of certain and established gnosis, or even the rejection of objective existence. Previous…