Exploration of indicators of talent from the perspective of the Quran

Talent is a fundamental quality in humans that entails personal and social differences. However, despite its importance, relatively few empirical studies have addressed identification and assessment of talents. An adequate exploration of any topic will require extensive knowledge about it. The Holy Quran, as the very words of the Creator, who created humans with a certain structure of existence, presents the most comprehensive knowledge. Therefore, this study drew on the Quran to present indicators for talent assessment using a qualitative approach. First, among all verses of the Quran, those with words somehow related to talent were selected, leading to a semantic web, which was then used to create a list of the most relevant words. Next, lexical and conceptual analyses and Quranic usage analyses of these words, along with content analyses of the verses containing them using tadabbur (Quranic Contemplation) methods, marked three words (ni’mah – pleasant asset, sabīl – course, and faẓl – added privilege) as the main indicators for talent assessment. The findings showed that each of these indicators could be assessed in three areas, or axes, which included level of knowledge, level of yearning and level of access. Finally, the study suggests that, thanks to the comprehensive nature of the knowledge provided in the Quran, exploring the characteristics, components and dynamics of the three main words results in a far more wholistic framework for assessing human talents, which allows for more reliable and applicable results - compared to those provided by individualistic frameworks.