ʿilm

…kashf as the alternative to ʿilm (“knowledge”), which applies systematic theology, logic, and speculative philosophy to the study of the nature of God. When the Muslim jurist and theologian al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) felt that philosophy and speculative theology had failed him, he turned wholeheartedly to Sufism, abandoning his teaching profession…

…ideas of a special, divine ʿilm that was supernaturally inherited. Under Neoplatonic influences of the 9th–10th centuries ce, this doctrine matured in its expression as infallible illumination by the Primeval Light, God, through divine appointment (naṣṣ). But already in the mid-8th century this nascent view of the imamate was being…

…be known as ʿulūm (singular ʿilm) and the persons who pursued them as ulama (ʿulamāʾ, singular ʿālim), a role that provided new sources of prestige and influence, especially for recent converts or sons of converts.