Matemkar
Active Member
The Free Man and Freedom of the Man - Dr. Ali Shariati
Ladies and Gentlemen: Tonight, as long as time permits, I would like to investigate the following questions:
1. Does Islam recognize man as a helpless creature whose ultimate goal and ideal is to stand powerless in front of God?
2. Does Islam recognize humanness as a nobility?
3. Is helplessness in man a pre-requisite of belief in Islam, or on the contrary, is belief in Islam enough to bestow originality upon man and a respect for his virtues?
The issue of man is an extremely important one. Today's civilization has based its religion upon humanism; that is, the originality and worship of man. It is assumed that various religions in the past shattered man's personality, and forced him to sacrifice himself for his gods, admit his powerlessness, and forced him to ask favors from them through prayer, supplication and begging. Humanism is a post-renaissance religion which set itself across the providential orders and those religions which were based upon the supernatural and the unseen, which aimed to bestow nobility upon man. The roots of humanism go back to Athens, and as a universal religion it has become the foundation of today's Western culture. As a matter of fact humanism is a reaction against the scholastic creed and Christianity of the Middle Ages.
In order to find out how man was interpreted in various religions of the past, or to understand the role of humanism in religions, one should study the philosophy of creation. Since I do not have time to survey all the Eastern and Western religions relative to the philosophy of man's creation, I will only emphasize the philosophy of man's creation in Islam (and the religions of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of which Islam is a sequel and culmination).
How does Islam interpret and recognize the creation of man? Is it possible to realize man's position from the quality of his creation narrated in the Qur'an or the sayings of prophet Muhammad (PBUH)? By investigating the quality of Adam's creation, which stands as the symbol of man in the Qur'an, we can infer the kind of status he occupies in the sight of God in Islam, as well as in other religions.
As a preface I should say that the language of religions, especially the Semitic ones, whose prophets we believe in, are all symbolic. This is the finest language accessible to man and it is superior to expository language which is lucid and straightforward. An expository language may be more suited and simpler to utilize in instruction, but it is not lasting. Why? Abd-Alrahman Badawi, the contemporary Egyptian philosopher, states that
A school or a religion which expresses all its facts and connotations in direct, clear-cut, and one-dimensional sentences will not last long, since it is addressing diverse individuals from all walks of life. Further, these people include various strata and classes who vary in thinking, viewpoint, and outlook. And so, a language which is selected for a religion must be multi layered and multi-dimensional so that each generation can decipher one layer and each group can understand one dimension at a time.
This is why all the literary symbolic works are immortal. Hafiz's poems are everlasting due to the fact that the more we read them, depending upon our tastes, the more new areas we can infer and discover. But such is not true for the History of Bay-haghi or Golestan of Saadi, their meanings are relatively obvious. We enjoy their dialects, but from a spiritual point of view most of their contents are obsolete. But Hafiz's words, being multi-dimensional and symbolic, allow each one of us, depending on our tastes and mentality, to infer a new meaning and a new outlook from them. And since religions were brought for various types of peoples and generations, it was necessary that they contained symbolic languages. Most of the meanings existing in religions were not clear at the time they emerged. However, since such meanings had to be explained to people, they had to be in plain language so the masses could comprehend them. On the other hand, if the concepts were plain enough, such religions would contain no new meanings. This is why languages were symbolic so that future generations, relative to their mental and scientific maturity, could discover new meanings and concepts. This is why in European literature symbolism is the finest style. Thus, the story of Adam's creation was told in symbolic language so that now, after fourteen centuries in the midst of scientific progress in all areas, it remains worthy of study.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Tonight, as long as time permits, I would like to investigate the following questions:
1. Does Islam recognize man as a helpless creature whose ultimate goal and ideal is to stand powerless in front of God?
2. Does Islam recognize humanness as a nobility?
3. Is helplessness in man a pre-requisite of belief in Islam, or on the contrary, is belief in Islam enough to bestow originality upon man and a respect for his virtues?
The issue of man is an extremely important one. Today's civilization has based its religion upon humanism; that is, the originality and worship of man. It is assumed that various religions in the past shattered man's personality, and forced him to sacrifice himself for his gods, admit his powerlessness, and forced him to ask favors from them through prayer, supplication and begging. Humanism is a post-renaissance religion which set itself across the providential orders and those religions which were based upon the supernatural and the unseen, which aimed to bestow nobility upon man. The roots of humanism go back to Athens, and as a universal religion it has become the foundation of today's Western culture. As a matter of fact humanism is a reaction against the scholastic creed and Christianity of the Middle Ages.
In order to find out how man was interpreted in various religions of the past, or to understand the role of humanism in religions, one should study the philosophy of creation. Since I do not have time to survey all the Eastern and Western religions relative to the philosophy of man's creation, I will only emphasize the philosophy of man's creation in Islam (and the religions of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of which Islam is a sequel and culmination).
How does Islam interpret and recognize the creation of man? Is it possible to realize man's position from the quality of his creation narrated in the Qur'an or the sayings of prophet Muhammad (PBUH)? By investigating the quality of Adam's creation, which stands as the symbol of man in the Qur'an, we can infer the kind of status he occupies in the sight of God in Islam, as well as in other religions.
As a preface I should say that the language of religions, especially the Semitic ones, whose prophets we believe in, are all symbolic. This is the finest language accessible to man and it is superior to expository language which is lucid and straightforward. An expository language may be more suited and simpler to utilize in instruction, but it is not lasting. Why? Abd-Alrahman Badawi, the contemporary Egyptian philosopher, states that
A school or a religion which expresses all its facts and connotations in direct, clear-cut, and one-dimensional sentences will not last long, since it is addressing diverse individuals from all walks of life. Further, these people include various strata and classes who vary in thinking, viewpoint, and outlook. And so, a language which is selected for a religion must be multi layered and multi-dimensional so that each generation can decipher one layer and each group can understand one dimension at a time.
This is why all the literary symbolic works are immortal. Hafiz's poems are everlasting due to the fact that the more we read them, depending upon our tastes, the more new areas we can infer and discover. But such is not true for the History of Bay-haghi or Golestan of Saadi, their meanings are relatively obvious. We enjoy their dialects, but from a spiritual point of view most of their contents are obsolete. But Hafiz's words, being multi-dimensional and symbolic, allow each one of us, depending on our tastes and mentality, to infer a new meaning and a new outlook from them. And since religions were brought for various types of peoples and generations, it was necessary that they contained symbolic languages. Most of the meanings existing in religions were not clear at the time they emerged. However, since such meanings had to be explained to people, they had to be in plain language so the masses could comprehend them. On the other hand, if the concepts were plain enough, such religions would contain no new meanings. This is why languages were symbolic so that future generations, relative to their mental and scientific maturity, could discover new meanings and concepts. This is why in European literature symbolism is the finest style. Thus, the story of Adam's creation was told in symbolic language so that now, after fourteen centuries in the midst of scientific progress in all areas, it remains worthy of study.