Faith: Maarifah of God

Realization of God Paradise, where they will live in a world of unending happiness and comforts. The first thing that God desires is that faith should enter in one’s heart (Quran 49:14). Just mouthing some words is not an act which will earn God’s acceptance or which will establish the utterer of those words as a believer. Words which fall from the tongue are, in fact, only a verbal expression of the acceptance of faith. To God, the truly desirable faith is that which so penetrates to the innermost recesses of one’s heart, that it becomes the most important part of one’s consciousness. It is from this that a person’s spirituality begins to build. From another verse, we learn that faith is another name for the realization of truth. That is, when man is truly able to realize faith and his Creator and is deeply aware of the fact that he is a helpless, powerless servant of God. When he reserves all greatness and all perfection for God, belief has so become a part and parcel of his personality that he surrenders himself before God. It is this deep experience of faith which is called maarifah or realization. Maarifah is the beginning of faith. Unless faith becomes a deep realization, it has no value in the eyes of God. One sign of this realized faith is that when man experiences it, then his eyes overflow with tears. This experience produces tremors in his inner being. There is a great spiritual turmoil within him and his tears testify to this inner revolution. Any so-called realization of truth