الفطرة بوصفها نظرية أنثروبولوجية : رؤية لسجال منهجي مع العلوم الإنسانية الحديثة

Abstract EN

This essay approaches a highly sensitive and complicated topic in anthropology which looks upon man as a distinguished entity in the world of existence.

This study establishes a metaphysical viewpoint which emanates from the concept of the human fitra, a distinctive feature of humans.

Even though this distinctive feature acquires aspects closely linked to the origin of divine creation, it also has aspects which may be reflected in anthropology.

In our modern day, it seems that Darwin’s theory on the nature of man has been taken as a basis for modern humanist anthropology, and all aspects related to humans are analyzed by considering man an animal and in light of natural instinct.

In contrast, Islamic texts and teachings declare that man is a distinguished creature due to his possession of a transcendent reality: the “spirit”, or the “human fitra”.

Despite the fact that some Islamic intellectuals consider that the fitra is the “mother of knowledge”, but in truth the fitra until now has not been clarified and presented within an integrated and harmonious theory which can demonstrate its points as other competitive opinions have done in humanities and social sciences.

This essay strives to reformulate the concept of the fitra in contrast to some significant theoretical dualities in western thought, and to implicitly define some of its angles and dimensions within the anthropological sphere, in an anthropology which exceeds mere generalities and may be employed as a principle in humanities and social sciences in the face of western theories.