Knowledhe of god in terms of theology and mysticism

As important disciplines of Islamic thought, Theology and Sûfism have discussed both believe in God and knowledge of God in detail. In this respect, some answers have been sought whether which aspects Allah can be known in, or not. In the current study, first of all, the approaches of both disciplines regarding to knowledge of God have been addressed separately. After that, the approaches have been compared in terms of methodology, terminology, and inference. From the point of methodology, these two disciplines have both common grounds and opposite discourses with respect to their knowledge sources. So, both accept wisdom, information, and the five senses. Additionally, on one hand, Theology remarkably emphasizes that intuition and inspration would not be an objective and obligatory evidence, on the other hand, Sûfism clearly agrees intuition and inspration as a fundamental knowledge source. Besides that, Theology sees knowledge of God issue as an epistemological problem, and discusses knowledge of God with a rational and logical base in terms of its theory aspect. Accordingly, theology just addresses that Allah cannot be known in the sense of his entity; however, he can be known in terms of his existence, oneness, characteristics and actions. In other words, it does not discuss the practical side of the issue and the essentiality of knowledge of God by leaving it to other scientific fields. Conversely, without an epistemological approach to knowledge of God, Sûfism employs it as a main purpose and issue. Consequently, rather than assessing it in a theoretical base, Sûfism points out knowledge of God based on its practical side, essentiality, impact on life, and the interplay between action and knowledge of God. As they have utilized mutual concepts with regard to the terminology, they also have used different ones. Nonetheless, Theology has considered a knowledge based theory and terminology while Sûfism has employed knowledge of God based one. In other words, Theology has aimed to organize a wisdom-based terminology, whereas Sûfism has made effort to use a hearth-based one. So, Theology terminology has had objective concepts, such as wisdom, senses, muteeatir (successive) information, certitude, information. On the contrary, Sûfism terminology has had subjective concepts, such as hearth, intuition, inspration, spiritual observation, knowledge, lore. With respect the results that these two disciplines have, they concluded that Allah cannot be known in the sense of his entity; however, he can be known in terms of his existence, oneness, characteristics and actions. Additionally, they have different approaches regarding to what the responsibility source of knowledge of God is. Moreover, there has not been a mutual ground among theologians. In this sense, most of the scholars who are Mutezile and Mâturîdî have seen knowledge of God as a rational responsibility by agreeing that knowledge of God is rationally obligatory. Almost all Eş'arî and all sûfies have agreed knowledge of God as a shari'a responsibility by asserting that knowledge of God would be merely obligatory with Shariah. According to these different results that the scholars have, the consequence of human beings, who do not know Allah as the divine message does not reach them, has varied. In this respect, scholars who see knowledge of God as a rational responsibility have suggested that human beings who do not know Allah will have perdition whereas scholars who see knowledge of God as a shari'a responsibility have claimed that human beings who do not know Allah will have perdition. Keywords: Theology, Sûfizm, Knowledge of God, Information, Knowledge.