The work presented here was originally written for delivery at a Mawlid celebration in Abidjan, Ivory Coä in 2011. It concerns ma¢rifat-All¿h, the experiential knowledge of God, sometimes translated as gnosis or cognizance. Ma¢rifa is often considered the essence of the Sufi path, for it meant to äualize the lä ¿age of the Islamic religion: after al-isl¿m (submission) and al-¿m¿n (faith) comes al-i¿s¿n (excellence), "to worship God as if you are seeing Him, and if you are not seeing Him, know that He is seeing you."
