The work presented here was originally written for delivery at a Mawlid celebration in Abidjan, Ivory Coa 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 a ualize the la 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."