ABSTRACT
“The Goal of the first and the last, al-awwalin wa'l-ahirin, is happiness [in the next world], s…ada” 1 This happiness as the objective aim of the individual is attainable by devoting oneself to the exclusive service of the Lord. This service, Hbada, in turn, consists essentially in an attitude of unqualified obedience. 2 Obedience is realizable only through knowledge, Him, of God's will and action, ‘amai, consistent with this knowledge. Even as the Hebrew Proverb recognizes “the fear of the Lord” as “the beginning of knowledge,” 3 so the Koran notes that, “of His servants only those who have knowledge fear AllÂh.” 4 “And God Himself,” explains al-GhazzÂlÎ, the representative theologian of Islam (d. 1111), “has stated to Abraham: I am the Knowing … I love every knowledgeable one.” In the same vein, GhazzalI goes on, “The Prophet regarded any day as lost in which he did not increase in that knowledge that would draw him closer to his Lord.” 5 According to an oft repeated Prophetic Tradition, the search for knowledge is incumbent on every believer, male or female. The kind of knowledge to be sought is indicated by the purpose of the search.
The honor [or nobility, sharaf] of knowledge [or a science] depends on the honor of its object, maSltim; the rank of the learned, on the rank of the knowledge. There can be no doubt that the most excellent, the highest, the most noble, and the most glorious of things to be known is God, the Maker, the Creator, the Real, the One. Thus, knowledge of Him, which is the science of [His] Unity, taubid, will be the most excellent, most glorious, and most perfect branch of knowledge. It is “necessary knowledge/’ the acquisition of which is required of every intelligent person, ‘dqil. 6
In the concise formula of the Persian mystic HujwM (d. ca. 107277) “the object of human knowledge should be to know God and His Commandments.” 7