The Concept of Fitrah (Human Innateness): A Possibility to Propose a Theory in Philosophy of History

The notion of fitrah (human innateness) plays a significant and a unique role in the Mortaza Motahari’s views. He considered this notion as the issue of the highest importance and himself as the human innateness philosopher. Because of his familiarity with western philosophy, Motahari was the first Islamic philosopher who payed attention to special philosophies. The notion of human innateness is a foundation for Motahari upon which he established other theories he proposed in ethics, philosophy of law, and philosophy of education, etc. Furthermore, the philosophy of history, where, according to Motahari, human innateness plays a central role, was another realm of thought that he profoundly delved into. What we are trying to address in this paper is the possibility of proposing a theory of philosophy of history based on human innateness. According to the theory of human innateness, the existence of the human is prior to his/her essence and human being is a free-flowing existence moving toward its perfection through substantial motion. According to Motahari, the rule of the individual existence of the human also applies to his/her social existence. In other words, the human society is a free-flow existence that has no essence and this existence, i.e., the historical-sociological existence of the human being, moves uninterruptedly toward its perfection and ultimate actuality.