Landolt • Stages Of God-cognition And The Praise Of Folly According To Najm-i Razi

Transcript

Islamic mysticism recognizes itself in the Koran as well as in a certain number of extra-Koranic tradition which, as guiding statements, are usually attributed to the Prophet Muhammad or in some other way ‘naturalized’ as part of Islamic tradition. Such extra-Koranic wisdom includes the Gnostic sentence “He who knows himself knows his Lord”, which is known in Arabic as man ‘arafa nafsahu faqad ‘arafa rabbahu. A very similar sentence has been found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria; and this in turn calls into play an even older model, the famous oracular saying of Delphi, “Know thyself...”.