ABSTRACT
Gnosis in the sense of maʿrifa, the soul’s experience of the divine that is related to what some call the “mystical experience,” has always been important in Sufism (see ch. 30 ). Gnosis in this sense has also been important to Western Sufis, as we will see, though it is now often presented in deliberately ambiguous fashion, as the classic concept is not immediately compatible with contemporary Western understandings of spirituality. Gnosis has also been important to Western Sufis in a second sense, which has no precedent in “classic” Sufism. Gnosis has been understood by some Western Sufis to mean not the soul’s experience of the divine but a hidden system of knowledge and practice of which Sufism is one instance. Gnosis in this sense is comparable to two other Western concepts, the “perennial philosophy” and “esotericism.” In addition to these two ways in which Western Sufism understands “gnosis,” there is also the use of “Gnostic” to denote particular historical groups that existed in the Hellenistic world in the early centuries of Christianity, but this use has nothing Sufi about it, even when used in connection with discussions of Sufism, and will not be considered further.
