God has created man in the best of moulds (The Quran, 95:4). He has been granted all the intellectual capabilities by which he may achieve realisation of the Lord of the worlds. Besides this, in the external world that is nature, all those elements are hidden which may assist him in this journey. Now it is man’s task to discover these elements of maarifah in nature and experience such an elevated level of maarifah as will enable him to develop a divine personality.

Source: Discovering God

Maarifah or realization or discovery of God is the essence of faith. When a man consciously seeks out and finds God, and thereby has access to divine realities that is what constitutes faith.

This discovery is no simple matter. God is the Creator and Owner of all things. He will award or punish all, according to their deeds; none is free from His grip. The discovery of such a God shakes to the core of the whole life of man. His thinking is revolutionized, for God becomes the centre of all His emotions.

With God as the principal focus of his attention, man becomes God’s servant in the fullest sense of the word. He becomes a man whose living and dying is all for God.

Such a faith ultimately results in all of man’s behaviour and his dealings taking on the hue of God. When the believer speaks, he is conscious of the fact that God is listening to him. When he walks, he does so with modesty so that his gait may not be displeasing to God. When he deals with people, he is always worried lest he deal unjustly and be punished by God in the next life.

The impact of this degree of faith makes the entire life of man akhirat-oriented. In all matters his eyes are focused on the Hereafter. Instead of immediate gain he makes gain in the next life his goal. Whenever there are two aspects of any matter, one pertaining to this world and the other to the next world, he always prefers the latter.

Faith, another name for the recognition of the Supreme God, becomes for the believer a fountainhead of limitless confidence in his Creator. When this recognition takes root in an individual’s heart and soul, his whole personality becomes regenerated. Knowing that in all circumstances he may depend upon God, he becomes a new man.

Source: Discovering God

The realization of God is the essence of religion. Realization of God (maarifah) is the beginning as well as the end of religion. The position of maarifah in God’s religion is that of the seed. Just as a seed grows gradually into a full tree, similarly maarifah shapes the entire personality of a person. Without maarifah, religion is reduced to a spiritless form. With maarifah, religion is like a lush green tree and without it, religion becomes like a dried-up tree. If religion is the body, maarifah is its spirit.

The journey of realization begins with a questing spirit. Seeking is an intellectual journey. If a person is sincere and one hundred percent honest in his search, if there is no negativity in his thinking, if he is free from prejudices, if he has become a completely complex-free soul, attainment of maarifah for him is as certain as the dawn of light after the rising of the sun.

In the words of the Angel Gabriel, the Prophet of Islam once said: “Worship God as if you were seeing Him.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 50) This is the most correct definition of maarifah. This may be put in a different way: God-realization is to have conviction in God’s existence as if you were seeing Him. How can one achieve this kind of maarifah? The way to achieve maarifah is to, first of all, discover creation and then, through creation, reach the Creator. For if there is creation, there must be a Creator.

Source: Discovering God

There are two aspects of God realization—Love and Fear. On the one hand, God is very compassionate, and on the other hand, He is very just. When man thinks of the unbounded mercy of God, he develops the feeling which has been called in the Quran, “Loving God Most.” (2:165) Similarly when man thinks of God as being just, he has that feeling which has been alluded to when the Quran speaks of: “those who stand in awe of none but God.” (9:18)

The personality of a believer is made up of these two feelings. On the one hand, he loves God the most. And on the other hand he fears God the most. The love of God is such as is filled with agony. Similarly, the fear of God is such as is filled with the love of God. This is a relationship which man hopes to have with the Being he fears lest He deprives him of His blessings. This is the combination of love and fear which can be felt but cannot be expressed in words.

This is the sign of a high level of realization, in which there is peace as well as agony. A high level of realization implies hope as well as fear. A high level of realization brings conviction as well as uncertainty. A high level of realization embraces closeness as well as distance. A high level of realization is a place where sometimes the believer is sure that he has reached his destination, while sometimes he is in doubt as to whether or not he is on his way to the right destination. At times he has this feeling that he has reached a full stop, while at other times, he is in doubt as to whether he is still at the stage of the comma. This feeling of love and fear is true realization, another name for which is maarifah.

Source: Love of God