A Comparative Study of the Humanistic Principles of Western and Islamic Humanities

Studying the human as the focal topic of humanities and addressing the humanistic principles as the most essential prerequisite of the evolution and production of Islamic humanities is of utmost importance. Each of the common, humanism-based paradigms in the Western humanities has a specific description of the human’s nature. The affirmative school with its objectifying and mechanical view of the human, the interpretive school with its semantic approach and concentration on the understanding of the human’s volitional acts, and the critical school with its belief in the freedom of the human and the domination of historical and social determinism are used to define the environment of the human. Contrarily, in the Islamic approach, the human is considered as a creature with divine nature that is two-dimensional and has volition and natural dignity and a high status, a status that is meaningful only in line with theocentrism. The overall outcome of comparing the humanistic principles that exist in the common humanities paradigms is the empirical and materialistic view of the West to the human, which shows its natural and essential difference with Islamic principles concerning the human.