Ways to attain the ultimate reality (ma rifa), gnosis from Sheikh Mahmud Shabestari's point of view

Sheikh Mahmud Shabestari, mystical poet and the great thinker of the 8th century Hijri believes that one can attain the ultimate certainty by reason (aql) and oriental Illumination (Ishraq). He attempts to merge the religious sayings with philosophical argumentations and with illuminations of the oriental thinkers and thus plays the role of a Moslem philosopher, gnostic and oriental thinker.
Like Ghazali, Shabestari believes that beyond the theoretical reason, there is another way available to man with which he can recognize the mysteries hidden from the reason.
Like all mystical poets, he is overtly opposed to the Greek philosophy and reason yet he is not against wisdom and philosophy hence although he is inclined towards oriental Illumination in mystical matters, he is inclined towards reason and arguments in scientific matters. Shabestari praises the religious wisdom, the kind discussed by the prophets and thousand and one verse in Koran is attributed to it. Meanwhile Sheikh believes in having a master and a perfect man, an intermediary guiding us towards the truth. According to him the nearest path towards the truth is thinking and a two way search (ascending and descending curve) a dialectic search in which movement from multiplicity to unity, from many to one, from noumenon to phenomenon from drop to the sea and the vice versa, the soul of man is refined and refreshed and the dust of otherness is removed from his heart and the perfect man attains real Truth.