Introduction to Human Anthropology
Before taking this course, please ensure you studied Islamic Belief System course
This Course will discuss anthropology. Human beings created by Allah (SWT) for a special purpose, to be His vicegerents on earth. So we need to know more about human beings, ourselves, and our relation with God. We will study the way human beings are made of bodies and souls or spirits. We will prove the immateriality of the soul, we will talk about the theory of evolution and explain that Islamically, although this theory is not a scientifically proven theory, we don’t have any problem with it. We think that it is one way of explaining how God has created the world. He can create the world in a way in which it evolves or not; we believe that when it comes to this particular generation or line of human beings, starting with Adam, the Qur’an suggests that we are not the product of evolution. We are the product of Allah’s direct and immediate creation of this line of human beings from Adam and Eve.
We will then talk about some aspects of man’s creation, about the human mind, fitrah and dignity. We will talk about the different types of desires that exist in human beings; although we have physical desires there are also other types of desires such as psychological, intellectual and spiritual desires which we need to meet, and not only focus on meeting and satisfying physical desires.
Another important discussion in this unit is on free will. Human beings are created as free beings who can choose between good and bad, right and wrong, they can choose what kind of people they want to become.
