Perfection Of Faith (Ihsan).

[Abu Hafsat]

As-Salaam alaikum, 

In a well known Hadith reported in Sahih Muslim (1.37:hadith No. 8),otherwise known as Hadith of Jibril, alaihi Salaat Wassalaam, we have learnt that Ihsan (perfection of faith) is to "worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you see Him not, He nevertheless sees you". 

Here, we immediately realize that the means of seeing is not the eye, which can only behold physical things like itself, nor yet the mind, which cannot transcend its own impressions to reach the Divine, but rather certitude... the light of Imaan. 

We can see Allah with certitude, the light of faith (Imaan), whose locus is not the eye or the brain, but rather the Ruh, a subtle faculty Allah Ta'ala has created within each of us called the soul, whose knowledge is unobstructed by the bounds of the created universe. Allah Most High says, by way of exalting the nature of this faculty by leaving it a mystery:-

"Say: The soul is of the affair of my Lord" (17:85).

The food by which this Ruh (soul) is nourished is Zikr, or the Remembrance of Allah.. Why? Because acts of obedience increase the light of certainty and Imaan in the soul, and Zikr is among the greatest of them, as is attested by the Sahih hadith related by al-Hakim that the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, said :-

  "Shall I not tell you of the best of your works, the purest of them in the eyes of your Master, the highest in raising your rank, better than giving gold and silver, and better for you than to meet your enemy and smite their neck, and they smite yours?". They said," This - what is it, O Messenger of Allah? " and he said :" Zikrullahi Azza wa Jallah..the Remembrance of Allah, Mighty and Majestic".  (Al-Mustadrak ala-Sahihayn, 1.496).