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only the highest virtue, but also as the sum of all virtues. If Islam
entails performing the fundamental rites, and Iman entails doing
good deeds and avoiding evil ones, then Ihsan entails being
virtuous as such even when one is not doing anything or cannot
do anything. Its definition in the Hadith Jibril as ‘To worship God
as if you saw Him, for if You see Him not, yet sees He you’ indicates
this—since worshipping God as if we saw Him necessarily implies
impeccable and permanent virtue in all our actions. It also suggests
something further. The words ‘as if ’ suggest that there is
a possibility—or at least a virtual possibility—of ‘seeing’ God in
some way.
This is a complex issue which has been much debated in Islamic
history. We may summarize it as follows:
God cannot be encompassed by vision or seen physically by
human beings during this life, for He says:
Vision (al-absar) cannot attain Him, but He attains [all]
vision. And He is the Subtle, the Aware. (Al-An‘am,
6:103)
And when Moses came at Our appointed time, and his Lord
spoke with him, he said, ‘My Lord! Show me that I may
behold You!’ Said He, ‘You shall not see Me, but behold the
mountain, and if it remains, in its place, then you shall see
Me’. And when his Lord revealed Himself to the mountain
He levelled it to the ground and Moses fell down senseless.
And when he recovered his senses he said, ‘Glory be to
You! I repent to You, and I am the first of the believers’.
(Al-A‘raf, 7:143)
Nevertheless, in the next life, the blessed will be able to ‘look
towards’ their Lord (‘illa rubiha nathira’). God says: Some faces on
that day will be radiant, / looking towards their Lord. (Al-Qiyamah,
75:22–23)
Even in this life, though God cannot be seen through physical
vision, His greatest signs and His Light may be seen by the blessed
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