Islamic Philosophical Perception on the Nature of Human 1/2

To my professor in Humanities at PATTS College of Aeronautics.


"I did not create the Jinns and the human beings except for the purpose
that they should worship Me." - The Noble Qur'an 51:56

Human Nature is what makes us different. There are five philosophical
point of views on the nature of man: the Religious View, Rational View,
Scientific View, Existential View and Eastern View.

Philosophers, scholars and great thinkers argued "why do I exist?" , "is
there a God, if yes, why did God create human beings?" The Greek
philosopher Plato [428-348 BC] argued that the everyday world of
changeable things, which man comes to know by the use of his senses is
not the primary reality, but is a shadow world of appearances. [New
Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 25. p. 552]

The Islamic philosophical point of view can be classified among the
religious view - the Judeo-Christian thought. But unlike the
Judeo-Christian thought, Islam teaches that mankind was not created in
the image of God nor endowed godly divinity, thus Christian scholars
themselves argued with each other whether man is spiritually dead
[Augustinian thought] or spiritually well at birth and chooses his own
destiny [Pelagianism thought].

Islam believes in destiny [qadar] - the predestination of something
that would happen in the future and when the predestined event comes
true. One can not grasp the meaning of destiny properly with human
knowledge and measurements. Whatever happens according to predestination
is appropriate and expedient. For example, the movement of the sun is
set up in such a perfect manner that nobody feels any doubt about its
movement or gets worried whether the sun comes closer to the world and
burns it or moves distant to endanger life on it. Both Muslims and
non-Muslims believe that the sun rises from the east and sets in the
west every single day without any defect.

In Genesis, God create the world and Adam and Eve in six days and 'rest'
from His work on the seventh. Adam and Eve disobey God and are punished
and their son Cain kills their other son Abel and goes to live in the
land of Nod. And God was 'sorry' that he had made man! Why are the
answers not there in clear and unmistakable terms? Why is so much of the
language symbol, leaving the reader to guess at its meanings? For
example, in Genesis 6:6 it is stated; "When men begin to multiply on the
face of the ground,and daughters were born to them, the 'sons of God'
saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took "sons of Gods" ?
Each Jewish sect and each of the many Christian sects who followed them
have their own interpretations? The truth is that the purpose of man's
creation was taught by the prophets of old, however, some of their
followers - in collusion with the devils - later changed the scriptures.
The answers became vague, and much of the revelation was hidden in
symbolic language.

"Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation
of the night and the day, and the [great] ships which sail through the
sea with that which benefits people, and what Allah has sent down from
the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its
lifelessness and dispersing therein every [kind of] moving creature, and
[His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the
heaven and the earth are signs for a people who use reason." - The Noble
Qur'an 2;164