Sufism

Knowledge (ma'rifa) is not information but a taste (dhawq) that transforms the knower

Al-Ghazali distinguishes between knowing facts about God and undergoing a shift in the knower's own character, insisting only the second deserves to be called ma'rifa.

In Book 1 of the Ihya Ulum al-Din, the Book of Knowledge, al-Ghazali, who had himself been one of the most celebrated scholastic theologians of his era, draws a sharp line between 'ilm as accumulated, transmissible information and ma'rifa as dhawq, literally taste, a form of knowing that alters the one who has it rather than simply adding to what they possess. His argument is that a person can correctly state every proposition about God's mercy without that mercy having touched them at all; genuine ma'rifa, by contrast, is inseparable from the transformation it produces, such as increased humility or love. This distinction gave Ghazali grounds to criticize scholars of his own former profession without rejecting rigorous scholarship itself. The taste metaphor is deliberately unshareable: one cannot transmit the taste of sugar through a definition, only through the actual experience, which is why this kind of knowledge requires spiritual practice, not just study.

Ihya Ulum al-Din

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• What Sufism says about doubt

  Ghazali separates 'ilm, transmissible information, from ma'rifa, which he calls dhawq, taste. A person can state every true proposition about God's mercy without that mercy having touched them. This is why the tradition does not answer doubt with more facts: the missing thing was never information.