Paimana

Abstract:  A well-known maxim in the Islamic tradition states that knowledge of the self conduces to knowledge of the Lord. This essay presents a Shiʿi metaphysical and epistemological account of that claim. First, it situates the maxim “man ʿarafa nafsahu faqad ʿarafa rabbahu” within the hadith record, noting issues of attribution. Second, it explicates key concepts, including al-Wājib al-Wujūd (the Necessary Existent), nūr (light), and the symbolic nuqṭa (primordial “point”), in dialogue with classical kalām and later theosophical metaphysics. Third, it treats the cosmological role of the Muḥammadan Reality (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya) and examines narrations about reciprocal recognition among God, the Prophet (ṣ), and ʿAlī (ʿa). The conclusion articulates a graded epistemology: God’s Essence remains beyond comprehension, while knowledge proceeds by way of signs, names, and attributes, and is perfected by ethical and spiritual self-knowledge.

Keywords: self-knowledge; al-Wājib al-Wujūd; nūr; nuqṭa; Muḥammadan Reality; Shiʿi theology; ʿirfān

1) Framing the Foundational Maxim

Text of the maxim

Arabic: من عرف نفسه فقد عرف ربه

Transliteration: man ʿarafa nafsahu faqad ʿarafa rabbahu.

Translation: “Whoever knows his self, knows his Lord.”

Attribution and use. The aphorism is widely transmitted in Islamic literature. Many Shiʿi and Sufi authors cite it, often attributing it to the Prophet (ṣ) or to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (ʿa). Classical compendia of ʿAlī’s sayings, for example Ghurar al-Ḥikam, include it with variants; major hadith encyclopedias, for example Biḥār al-Anwār, quote it extensively. Its precise chains are debated in both Sunni and Shiʿi hadith criticism. As a result, scholars frequently treat it as a theologically sound maxim whose meaning coheres with Qur’anic teaching rather than as a legally probative report. This essay proceeds in that vein and explores its theological and spiritual sense.

A related Qur’anic orientation underwrites the maxim:

• Q 6:10
  Arabic: لَا تُدْرِكُهُ الْأَبْصَارُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ الْأَبْصَارَ
  Transliteration: lā tudrikuhu al-abṣār wa huwa yudriku al-abṣār.
  Translation: “Sight does not encompass Him, yet He encompasses all sight.”
  
• Q 42:11
  Arabic: لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْءٌ
  Transliteration: laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ.
  Translation: “There is nothing comparable to Him.”
  

These verses locate theological knowledge not in comprehending the Divine Essence, but in recognizing signs, attributes, and the limits of creaturely cognition.

2) Self-Knowledge as Recognition of Contingency and Orientation

To “recognize oneself,” in the present argument, is not a merely psychological act. It is a metaphysical acknowledgment of origin, station, and end: whence one comes, where one stands, and whither one goes. In classical kalām and peripatetic metaphysics, such recognition exposes the creature as contingent (mumkin al-wujūd), dependent for existence at every instant on the Necessary Existent (al-Wājib al-Wujūd). Seeing one’s finitude, which includes limits, need, and mutability, is therefore already a tacit orientation toward the non-finite, non-derivative ground of being.

This recognition has a twofold epistemic function:

1. Negative or apophatic. It purifies the intellect from imagining God as a magnified creature (tashbīh) and honors the Qur’anic tanzīh (incomparability).
2. Affirmative or kataphatic. It disposes the heart-intellect to recognize Divine attributes as they are disclosed in creation, revelation, and sanctified persons.

3) Attributes, Signs, and the Symbol of the 

Nuqṭa

Because the Divine Essence remains transcendent, God is known through His names and attributes (bi‑asmāʾihi wa‑ṣifātihi). Devotional-metaphysical literature often symbolizes the first self-disclosure of the Real (al-Ḥaqq) as Light (nūr). Drawing on a long exegetical and mystical tradition, the primordial Point (nuqṭa) is used to figure the principle from which multiplicity is articulated.

• Nūr (Light): a metaphor for intelligibility, guidance, and theophany.
• Nuqṭa (Point): the principial “seed” of differentiation; in some Shiʿi ʿirfān it acts as a symbol for the first determination of undivided Unity (aḥadiyya) toward knowable attributes (wāḥidiyya).

These are hermeneutical symbols, not physical entities. They help articulate how the One can be known in and through the many without compromising Divine transcendence. The Qur’an’s Light Verse supports this register:

Q 24:35 (opening)

Arabic: اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ

Transliteration: Allāhu nūru al-samāwāti wa-al-arḍ.

Translation: “God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.”

4) The Reality and Mediated Recognition

Shiʿi metaphysical discourse, along with wider Islamic theosophy, frequently describes a Muḥammadan Reality (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya). This is a principial reality by which prophetic guidance, cosmological order, and salvific knowledge are mediated. In this register:

• God, in Himself, is not grasped by creatures.
  
• God is recognized in His signs, foremost revelation (waḥy), the Prophet (ṣ), and the purified Imams from his Household (ʿa).
  
• The Prophet (ṣ) is the locus of the most luminous self-disclosure of guidance. ʿAlī (ʿa) is, in Shiʿi doctrine, the gate to that knowledge and its protector.
  

This perspective coheres with the idea that self-recognition, when deepened into moral purification and intellectual rectitude, prepares one to recognize and follow these luminous guides. Thus knowledge of God is not private gnosis severed from normativity. It is perfected through prophetic-imamic mediation in belief, practice, and character.

5) On the Narration of Reciprocal Recognition

A frequently cited Shiʿi narration, with variants, emphasizes reciprocal recognition among God, the Prophet (ṣ), and ʿAlī (ʿa):

Arabic:

يا عليّ، ما عرفَ اللهَ إلّا أنا وأنت، وما عرفني إلّا اللهُ وأنت، وما عرفكَ إلّا اللهُ وأنا.

Transliteration:

yā ʿAlī, mā ʿarafa Allāha illā anā wa anta, wa mā ʿarafanī illā Allāhu wa anta, wa mā ʿarafaka illā Allāhu wa anā.

Translation:

“O ʿAlī, none has truly recognized God except I and you; none has truly recognized me except God and you; and none has truly recognized you except God and I.”

Scholarly note. The report circulates in devotional and theosophical literature and is invoked to stress the singular epistemic station of the Prophet (ṣ) and ʿAlī (ʿa). Chains and textual loci are debated. Major hadith critics mark it as theologically meaningful yet not juridically probative. Read in the horizon of Section 4, it conveys that the full reality of these sanctified persons, and thus the fullness of Divine disclosure through them, exceeds ordinary human comprehension.

6) Cosmological Titles as Epistemic Metaphors

Classical sources ascribe to God cosmological titles, including al-ʿArsh (Throne), al-Kursī (Footstool), and al-Lawḥ (Preserved Tablet). Devotional literatures sometimes extend these titles, analogically, to describe the scope of prophetic-imamic knowledge as derivative signs of Divine governance. Properly framed:

• God alone is the source.
  
• The Prophet (ṣ) and the Imams (ʿa) are loci of manifestation and guidance.
  
• Language about nuqṭa, nūr, ʿarsh, and kursī functions to index realities beyond literal spatialization, warning simultaneously against anthropomorphism and against dissolving guidance into abstraction.

7) Epistemic Humility and the Limits of ʿIrfān

Even the most accomplished knowers (ʿurafāʾ) are limited. Their unveilings (mukāshafāt) are, at best, participations in light, not possession of Essence. This is consistent with the Qur’anic insistence on Divine incomparability and with Shiʿi teachings about the elevated yet created status of the Prophet (ṣ) and the Imams (ʿa). Hence the essay’s final claim: recognition is graded, from introspective acknowledgment of one’s contingency, to recognition of signs and attributes in creation and revelation, to adherence to prophetic-imamic guidance, and finally to an ethical transfiguration in light.

Conclusion

“Self-recognition” is not an inward detour away from God. It is a theological discipline of locating oneself as contingent and accountable, thereby becoming capable of recognizing Divine guidance. In Shiʿi terms, the path runs through the Light of Muḥammad (ṣ) and the Gate of ʿAlī (ʿa). God’s Essence remains beyond comprehension. Yet His signs are near, and the human being, when truthful about origin, station, and end, can “know the Lord” in the only way given to creatures: by submitting to truth, embodying virtue, and cleaving to those whom God has designated as guides.

Notes on Terminology (concise)

1. al-Wājib al-Wujūd (Necessary Existent): the One whose existence is non-derivative and cannot not be.
   
2. Nūr (Light): Qur’anic symbol for guidance and intelligible disclosure; not a physical luminosity.
   
3. Nuqṭa (Point): a symbolic figure for principial determination of unity into the many; used in mystical-theological discourse.
   
4. al-Lawḥ, al-Kursī, al-ʿArsh: Qur’anic or cosmological titles functionally employed to signify Divine knowledge, decree, and sovereignty; in devotional speech sometimes used analogically for the scope of prophetic-imamic mediation.
   
5. Nafs (self or soul): the human essence as contingent, dependent, and teleologically ordered to God.

Primary Texts Cited (with transliteration and translation)

1. Q 6:103
   
   Arabic: لَا تُدْرِكُهُ الْأَبْصَارُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ الْأَبْصَارَ
   Transliteration: lā tudrikuhu al-abṣār wa huwa yudriku al-abṣār.
   Translation: “Sight does not encompass Him, yet He encompasses all sight.”
   
2. Q 42:11
   
   Arabic: لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْءٌ
   Transliteration: laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ.
   Translation: “There is nothing comparable to Him.”
   
3. Q 24:35 (opening)
   
   Arabic: اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ
   Transliteration: Allāhu nūru al-samāwāti wa-al-arḍ.
   Translation: “God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.”
   
4. Maxim
   
   Arabic: من عرف نفسه فقد عرف ربه
   Transliteration: man ʿarafa nafsahu faqad ʿarafa rabbahu.
   Translation: “Whoever knows his self, knows his Lord.”
   
5. Narration of reciprocal recognition (devotional usage)
   
   Arabic: يا عليّ، ما عرفَ اللهَ إلّا أنا وأنت…
   Transliteration: yā ʿAlī, mā ʿarafa Allāha illā anā wa anta…
   Translation: “O ʿAlī, none has truly recognized God except I and you…”
   
   Note: the report’s chains are disputed. It is used here for theological exposition, not for legal inference.
   

Select Bibliography (orientation)

• ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Āmidī, Ghurar al-Ḥikam wa Durar al-Kalim (sayings attributed to ʿAlī, including self-knowledge aphorisms).
  
• al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār (encyclopedic Shiʿi hadith collection; includes chapters on knowledge, light, and the virtues of Muḥammad [ṣ] and the Imams [ʿa]).
  
• al-Ṣadūq, al-Tawḥīd (doctrines of Divine Unity in early Imami tradition).
  
• Mullā Ṣadrā, al-Asfār al-Arbaʿa (metaphysics of existence; wujūd, wājib/mumkin, gradation).
  
• al-Fayyāḍ al-Kāshānī, al-Maḥajjat al-Bayḍāʾ (ethical-gnostic recensions with frequent use of the self-knowledge motif).
  
• Studies on the authenticity of “man ʿarafa nafsahu” in hadith criticism and on the doctrine of al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya in later Islamic theosophy.