The link between the characteristics of Yousaf (A.S) and the characteristics ofthe Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم)Study of Thematicanalysis in The Light of Surah Yousaf

Author(s):  
Muhammad Umar Farooq ◽  
Abdur Rasheed

The Holy Qur'an was revealed for the enlightenment of all human beings and the elimination of bad and sinful practices from the whole society. These changes have generally been outlined in the Holy Qur'an and particularly in the Prophets' tales. Among the Prophets' stories, the story of Prophet Yousuf (A.S.) has been deemed as one of the noblest stories and it has also been recognized as the best narrative of the Quran. In this discourse, Allah Almighty has specifically stated the traits and characteristics of Prophet Yousuf (A.S) that are closely linked to the life of Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him. Yet, in this article, we have discussed some specific attributes of Prophet Yousuf (A.S) in light of Surah Yousuf, which have been closely associated with the life of Prophet (PBUH).

Author(s):  
Rainer Forst

This chapter addresses the classical question of the relationship between enlightenment and religion. In doing so, the chapter compares Jürgen Habermas's thought to that of Pierre Bayle and Immanuel Kant. For, although Habermas undoubtedly stands in a tradition founded by Bayle and Kant, he develops a number of important orientations within this tradition and has changed his position in his recent work. The chapter studies this change to understand Habermas's position better. It also draws attention to a fundamental question raised by the modern world: what common ground can human reason establish in the practical and theoretical domain between human beings who are divided by profoundly different religious (including antireligious) views?


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 113-131
Author(s):  
O. A. Vinogradova ◽  
A. V. Ugleva (Yastrebtseva)

Starting from the Age of Enlightenment, a person’s ability of self-improvement, or perfectibility, is usually seen as a fundamental human feature. However, this term, introduced into the philosophical vocabulary by J.-J. Rousseau, gradually acquired additional meaning – largely due to the works of N. de Condorcet, T. Malthus and C. Darwin. Owing to perfectibility, human beings are not only able to work on themselves: by improving their abilities, they are also able to change their environment (both social and natural) and create favorable conditions for their existence. It is no coincidence that perfectibility became the key concept of the idea of social progress proposed by French thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment, despite the fact that later it was criticized, above all, by English authors, who justified its organic and biological nature and gave a different evolutionary interpretation to this concept, without excluding perfectibility from the philosophical vocabulary. In this article, we address the opposition and mutual counterarguments of these two positions. Beyond that, we draw a parallel with some of the ideas of S. Kapitsa, who proved to be not only a critic of Malthusianism but also a direct disciple of Condorcet. In the modern age, the ideas of human self-improvement caused the development of transhumanist movement. Condorcet is more relevant than ever, and today his theory of the progress of the human mind, which influenced the genesis of modern historical science, needs a re-thinking in the newest perspective of improving the mental and physical human nature with the help of modern technologies.


Author(s):  
Philip V. Bohlman

The translations in Song Loves the Masses close with Herder’s final large-scale essay on music, published in 1800 as a chapter in Kalligone, the culmination of his aesthetic work. With this late essay Herder, a polemic against his former teacher, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), reveals the extent to which he has moved into a fully aesthetic domain in his concern for the universal history of humanity. Embodying the subjectivity of song and singing, music acquires the force of transcendence, and it therefore aspires to the Enlightenment ideals of the sublime. In Herder’s “On Music,” human beings are endowed with a degree of understanding that allows them to perceive the traits that make music unlike any other form of expression.


Author(s):  
Rhys S. Bezzant

Among his many accolades, Jonathan Edwards was an effective mentor who trained many leaders for the church. Though his pastoral work is often overlooked, this book investigates the background, method, theological rationale, and legacy of his mentoring ministry. He does what mentors normally do—meeting with individuals to discuss ideas and grow in skills—but undertakes these activities in a distinctly modern or affective key. His correspondence is composed in an informal style, his understanding of friendship and conversation takes up the conventions of the great metropolitan cities of Europe of his day, his pedagogical commitments are surprisingly progressive, and his aspirations for those he mentors are bold and subversive. The practice of mentoring is presented in this book as the exchange between authority and agency, in which the more experienced person in the mentoring relationship empowers the one in the position of a learner, whose own character and competencies are nurtured. When Edwards explains his mentoring practice theologically, he expounds the theme of seeing God face to face, which recognizes that human beings learn through the example of friends as well as the exposition of propositions. The book is a case study in cultural engagement, for Edwards deliberately takes up certain features of the modern world in his mentoring and yet resists other pressures that the Enlightenment generated. If his world witnessed the philosophical evacuation of God from the created order, Edwards’s mentoring is designed to draw God back into an intimate connection with human experience.


2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer

Karl Barth’s gender perspective is often analysed with reference to his so-called “theoethics” or “creational theology”. This perspective perpetuates an asymmetry in gender relations that was prevalent in Biblical times, throughout Christianity and to some extent still is visible today. He based his view on the subordination of women on an exegesis of Genesis 1:27 as “intertext” of Ephesians 5:22-23. Barth’s asymmetrical gender perspective is a product of his embedment in Western Christian tradition which in turn, is rooted in early Christian patriarchal theology. The aim of this article is to focus on Barth’s ontological reframing of the traditional understanding of the Biblical notion of human beings as created in the “image of God”. The article consists of four sections: (a) Luther’s and Calvin’s gender perspectives; (b) the Enlightenment failure to achieve emancipation; (c) gender disparity in Reformed theology; and (d) a feminist alternative.


Author(s):  
Luigi Cajani

This article presents an overview of the different periodizations of world history. It discusses first world histories that originated as part and parcel of religious visions which connect Creation myths and human history; Greek and Roman historiography; the Christian synthesis of salvation; medieval European historiography of the Six Ages and the Four Empires; Muslim historiography; the European discovery of new histories; the challenges against biblical chronology; Voltaire and the Enlightenment; German Aufklärung; Eurocentrism during the nineteenth century; Marxist historiography; UNESCO's world history after World War II; and current trends. The discussion ends with the big history, which places human history within the wider framework of the history of the universe, thus starting with the Big Bang and going through the formation of the galaxies, the solar system, planet Earth, and the geological eras until the evolution of human beings, and down to the present day.


Horizons ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-282
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Matteo

AbstractAt least since the Enlightenment, religious thinkers in the West have sought to meet the “evidentialist” challenge, that is, to demonstrate that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a rational affirmation of the existence of God. Alvin Plantinga holds that this challenge is rooted in a foundationalist approach to epistemology which is now intellectually bankrupt. He argues that the current critique of foundationalism clears the way for a fruitful reappropriation of the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition's assertion of the “basic” nature of belief in God and its concomitant relegation of the arguments of natural theology to marginal status. After critically assessing Plantinga's proposal—especially its dependence on a nonfoundationalist theory of knowledge—this essay shifts to an analysis of the transcendental Thomist understanding of the rational underpinnings of the theist's affirmation of God's existence, with particular emphasis on the thought of Joseph Maréchal. It is argued that the latter position is better equipped to fend off possible nontheistic counterarguments—even in our current nonfoundationalist atmosphere—and, in fact, can serve as a necessary complement to Calvin's claim of a natural tendency in human beings to believe in God.


Author(s):  
Sante Arcangelo Viselli

The novel of the Enlightenment is rich in topoi evoking mentors: Madame de Tencin, in Les Malheurs de l’amour (1747) and Madame Élie de Beaumont in Lettres du marquis de Roselle (1764) are particularly keen to stage this character who has been evolving since Fenelon in quite a dramatic manner: in the texts studied, the mentor, a wise advisor, often a woman, alludes to a message that goes well beyond its ancient symbolism. However, this intellectual guide becomes the disillusioned spokesperson and, at the same time, the victim of the Enlightenment. S/he guides the mentee through the dark forest of deceptive passions, such as the obvious example of love, but also those passions born, above all, of the contradictory game of interests between social classes, the behaviour of a bourgeoisie desperate to be recognized, and the impoverished, decadent and libertine aristocracy. The 18th Century witnesses a transformation of the mentor as s/he was classically portrayed. The latter keeps on fulfilling his/her original role as an advisor, but also becomes a narratological model – particularly in Madame de Tencin’s fictions, for whom Madame de Lafayette, for example, remains the intellectual model to imitate. Moreover, the mentor becomes, during the Enlightenment, a being in the flesh, sensual, passionate, whose ethic is merely anthropological, who surveys and examines the laws through reason. The Age of the “libertine” is also the era of a reconsidered mentorship: a calculating character, the libertine-mentor is often tinged with existential evil, a resurgence of a double-edged “ego” which characterizes human beings, a philosophy inaugurated by Montaigne and echoed by Descartes and Pascal, among others. Evil lingers during the entire Enlightenment despite the optimism conveyed by reason. Although this analysis will focus on the two aforementioned novels, it would also be stimulating to further the study of this topos, by including several other novels which would expand and enrich the SATOR database.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 132-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Kriman

The article discusses the modern philosophical concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism. The central issue of these concepts is “What is the posthuman?” The 21st century is marked by a contradictory understanding of the role and status of the human. On the one hand, there comes the realization of human hegemony over the whole world around: in the 20th century mankind not only began to conquer outer space, invented nuclear weapons, made many amazing discoveries but also shifted its attention to itself or rather to the modification of itself. Transhumanist projects aim to strengthen human influence by transforming human beings into other, more powerful and viable forms of being. Such projects continues the project of human “deification.” On the other hand, acknowledging the onset of the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene, there comes the rejection of classical interpretations of the human. The categories of historicity, sociality and subjectivity are no longer so anthropocentric. In the opinion of the posthumanists, the project of the Vitruvian man has proven to be untenable in the present-day environment and is increasingly criticized. The reflection on the phenomenon of the human and his future refers to the concepts that explore not only human but also non-human. Very often we can find a synonymous understanding of transhumanism and posthumanism. Although these movements work with the same modern constructs and concepts but interpret them in a fundamentally different way. The discourse of transhumanism refers to the Cartesian opposition of the body and the mind. Despite the sacralization of technology and the desire to purify the posthuman from such seemingly permanent attributes of the living as aging and death, transhumanism in many ways continues the ideas of the Enlightenment. For posthumanists, the subject is nomadic and a kind of assembly of human, animal, digital, chimerical. Thus, in posthumanism the main maxim of humanism about the human as the highest value is rejected – the human ceases to be “the measure of all things.”


Author(s):  
Colin Burrow

Imitating Authors analyses the theory and practice of imitatio (the imitation of one author by another) from early Greek texts right up to recent fictions about clones and artificial humans. At its centre lie the imitating authors of the English Renaissance, including Ben Jonson and the most imitated imitator of them all, John Milton. Imitating Authors argues that imitation is not simply a matter of borrowing words, or of alluding to an earlier author. Imitators learn practices from earlier writers. They imitate the structures and forms of earlier writing in ways that enable them to create a new style which itself could be imitated. That makes imitation an engine of literary change. Imitating Authors also shows how the metaphors used by theorists to explain this complex practice fed into works which were themselves imitations, how those metaphors changed, and how they have come to influence present-day anxieties about imitation human beings and artificial forms of intelligence. It explores relationships between imitation and authorial style, its fraught connections with plagiarism, and how emerging ideas of genius and intellectual property changed how imitation was practised. Imitating Authors includes detailed discussion of authors who imitated (notably Virgil, Lucretius, Petrarch, Cervantes, Ben Jonson, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, and Kazuo Ishiguro) and of the theory of imitating authors in Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, Longinus, Castiglione, the Ciceronian controversies of the sixteenth century, in legal and philosophical discourses of the Enlightenment, and in recent discussions about computer-generated poems.


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