Kashf

Others In terms of Ihsan: Kashf (Arabic: كشف) "unveiling" is a Sufi concept dealing with knowledge of the heart rather than of the intellect.

Kashf is etymologically related to mukashafa "disclosure"/ "divine irradiation of the essence",[1] which connotes "gain[ing] familiarity with things unseen behind the veils".

[2] For those who have purified their hearts, and who come to know the Divine Names and Attributes to the fullest of their individual capacities, the veils in front of the purely spiritual realms are opened slightly, and they begin to gain familiarity with the unseen.

[5]This Hadith is quoted somewhat differently by Ibn Majah as follows: God has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness; if He were to remove them, the radiant splendors of His Face would burn up whoever (or ‘whatever creature’) was reached by His Gaze.

[6]It is said that Muhammad's cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib prayed: My Lord, grant me complete severance of my relations with everything else and total submission to You.

He then illustrates three stages in progression towards understanding the Real: Al-Ghazali—This Sufi scholar discusses the concept of kashf, not purely in its mystical sense, but also with respect to theology in general.

Peripatetic scholars such as Avicenna, al-Kindi, and al-Farabi argue that the intellect unaided by divine unveiling (kashf) is sufficient in order for man to attain ultimate truth.

Sufis such as Bayazid Bastami, Rumi, and Ibn al-Arabi, hold that the limited human intellect is insufficient and misleading as a means of understanding ultimate truth.