What is a Human Being?
Ever since we have been convinced that human beings come into the world without a given meaning and are defined by the functions or roles they assume from the moment they open their eyes, it has become increasingly difficult to expect anything from human beings. Moreover, such expectations have always been pitted against demands for freedom. This book was born out of a strong conviction that the question "What can we expect from a free human being?" can still be meaningfully asked. For all their differences, the different conceptions of the human being in the Islamic intellectual tradition are optimistic about our expectations of the human being. However, how this expectation can be justified has found different answers within the philosophical, theological, Sufi and jurisprudential perspectives in the Islamic intellectual tradition.
Fourteen essays investigate how different disciplines in the Islamic intellectual tradition and different schools within these disciplines answer the question of what man is and what is really expected of him. For these perspectives, all of which view human life as a long story that unfolds in a state of perpetual testing, the human being is something that is always "becoming". The basic factors that guide our ability to "be", where this ability should be directed towards, and the areas of its accrual constitute important topics of evaluations of what human beings are. The essays in this volume proceed through these questions, investigating the nature of the human being in the traditions of philosophy, theology, Sufism and fiqh, while deepening the contemporary possibilities of these perspectives.
ISBN: 978-605-69007-2-3
Page Count: 566
Print Year: March, 2019
Publisher: Ilem Publications
