Dhawq
Taste: the direct perception of spiritual realities, as one tastes honey, without intermediary or outward proof.
Dhawq is taste, the act of savouring. The metaphor runs through the whole tradition: he who has tasted knows without demonstration, as one who has eaten honey knows sweetness without needing proof. Al-Ghazali makes it the classic argument of experience: one does not argue about taste with someone who has not tasted.
The term denotes the direct perception of spiritual realities, the first slice of Sufi experience: a foretaste of nearness, a sweetness of presence, an inkling of the truth the Law describes. Tradition ranks it beside the hal and wajd: what comes unbidden and passes. It is not yet stable knowledge, ma’rifa; but it opens the door: he who has tasted no longer debates the existence of the spring.
Dhawq is also a rule of modesty in transmission: the guide does not describe to disciples realities that would be empty words for them. He lets them taste. See hal and the sirr the path transmits.