It is for this reason that it has been said that knowing...

It is for this reason that it has been said that knowing Allah (awj) is innate and inherent to the human being, and as such, the arguments provided in proving the existence of Allah (awj) and the knowledge of Him serve only as reminders, not proofs. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the core of Divine Essence and Attributes are neither comprehensible to the philosopher nor to the gnostic.

However, other aspects of the Divine are accessible to both the intellect of the philosopher and the spiritual experience of the gnostic. In responding to this question, first the media of understanding must be introduced. The media of understanding are the physical senses, the intellect, and the heart.

The external senses merely deal with the appearances and the accidents of things without being able to delve any deeper, and despite the variety and abundance of knowledge they provide to the human being, they are limited by time and space. The intellect is a special faculty, the major role of which is the comprehension of universal concepts and in this sense possesses many aspects - among them reasoning. But the media of understanding are not restricted to these two.

The human being can reach great degrees of knowledge through the medium of the heart. By this way, the human being can spiritually witness [the reality of] what others understand [only theoretically] through reasoning. The gnostics’ endeavour is to comprehend Allah (awj) in this way.[^1] From another perspective, knowledge can be divided into two general categories: conceptual knowledge and presential or immediate knowledge.

Conceptual knowledge is obtained through mental concepts and the implementation of rational and philosophic reasoning. Presential knowledge is the knowledge arrived at without the mediation of concepts and mental pictures; that is, the reality of the known object is present within the knower. Presential knowledge is a type of gnostic and intuitive knowledge, in which the external reality [and not the mental concept] of an object is witnessed.

Of course, in the obtainment of rational conceptual knowledge, sensory and empirical premises can be employed. For instance, by reflecting on the signs of Allah (awj) and the existing order in the cosmos, one can achieve an understanding of Allah (awj) that is rendered by a simple reasoning. But in cases where one desires to achieve a greater understanding, purely rational premises are required.