Rational Knowledge and Inner Realization

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here are two levels on which learning takes place. One is that of the acquisition of rational knowledge and the other is that of inner realization. Rational knowledge is only primary knowledge. Superior wisdom lies in the realization of truth at the level of inner insight. For instance, your awareness about your neighbour is based on rational knowledge. But what you know about your mother is at the level of conviction. Without using logic or reason and without the slightest doubt, you know that a certain woman is your mother. This is possible only at the level of total conviction.

This is true also of God, Who is the Creator and the Lord of man. Man’s primary discovery about God takes place at the rational level. But such discovery ascends to a higher plane when man realizes without any doubt, through his inner perception, that God exists in the same way that he does. This is the case with the truths pertaining to God, for example, the truth that the Quran is the word of God and the Prophet is God’s Messenger. This knowledge is gained through rational thinking. But this is on the primary level of the realization of truth. The higher level of the realization of truth is the firm belief that man’s inner perception becomes enough to accept these truths beyond any shadow of a doubt. There are two levels of knowledge in this matter: rational knowledge and divine knowledge. Rational knowledge is based on data, in comparison to which divine knowledge is that level of truth on which a person himself tries to reach this level of confidence on the basis of inner perception, where he does not need any data. His own inner feelings are the source of his conviction. It is that level of knowledge on which every individual has the conviction that a certain woman is his mother.

What is Islam?

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he literal meaning of Islam is submission, that is, submission to God’s will. Submission, in fact, is the name of that natural response from a person to God, the response that is expressed by human beings after their realization of God. It is with this submission that that life has developed which is called a religious life.

What is realization of God? The realization of God is the realization of that Being who has created man, who has granted man with a personality which is unique throughout the vast universe, Who has created the planet earth for man and who has established a unique arrangement for man’s survival which is called the life support system.

A person’s quest does not stop here but rather becomes a part of his life in the form of a process of discovery. Now, he discovers his relationship with God. He grasps the reality that he is not free but is under the command of God. In the process, he realizes that he is not free but has to act at God’s behest and be accountable to Him. Death is not the end of his life, for another life begins after death, where he will stand before God, so that God may declare His final decision about his eternal future.

This process of discovery continues until he realizes that the end of his life is going to culminate in the form of either eternal Paradise or eternal Hell. This quest makes him extremely serious about the course his life should take. Now he plans his life anew. Now he redefines everything. If at first all his activities were self-oriented, now they are God-oriented. It is this very lifestyle which is called Islam.