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Obviously such a conception of man differs profoundly from that of modern man, who sees himself as a purely earthly creature, master of nature, but responsible to no one but himself; and no amount of wishy-washy apologies can harmonize the two. The Islamic conception of man removes the possibility of a Promethean revolt against Heaven and brings God into the minutest aspect of human life.17 Its effect is therefore the creation of a civilization, an art, a philosophy or a whole manner of thinking and seeing things which are completely theocentric and which stand opposed to the anthropomorphism that is such a salient feature of modernism. Nothing can be more shocking to authentic Muslim sensibilities than the Titanic and Promethean 'religious' art of the late Renaissance and the Baroque, which stand directly opposed to the completely nonanthropomorphic art of Islam.
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In Islam man thinks and makes in his function of homo sapiens and homofaber as the `abd of God, and not as a creature who has rebelled against Him. His function remains, not the glorification of himself, but of his Lord, and his greatest aim is to become 'nothing', to undergo the experience of fanâ' which would enable him to become the mirror in which God contemplates the reflections of His own Names and Qualities and the channel through which the theophanies of His Names and Qualities are reflected in the world.
[2] see Knowledge and the Sacred; S H Nasr, ch.5
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[c] Everything is according to Allah's will, the sun and moon, the cosmos and creation, except for man himself:
{ The sun and the moon [move] by precise calculation,
And the stars and trees prostrate.} Sura 55, verses 5/6
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[d] There is nothing random in man's creation: see Qur'an: { annâ khalaqnâkum `abathan }
and:
{ Then did you think that We created you uselessly and that to Us you would not be returned?" } Sura 23-115
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[e] eschatological: dealing with the final destiny both of the individual soul and of mankind in general.
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- More texts by [S. H. Nasr]
First of all it is Islam that reigns (see Sura 5:3). Traditional Islam does not accept the notion that the world-religions (or even any other man-made belief systems) are equally valid roads to God - Allah, these are perennialist interpretations.
◊ Even so - except for elements of corruption and deviation - they still reflect some sacred truth, they did not turn into complete falsehood by being abrogated.
◊ In the words of Muhyiddín Ibn `Arabi:
”The religious laws (shara`í - of different religions) are all lights, and the law of Muhammad ( Allah bless him and give him peace ) among these lights is as the sun's light among the light of the stars…” [more]
And he wrote:
”So all paths return to look to the Prophet's path (Allah bless him and give him peace): if the prophetic messengers had been alive in his time, they would have followed him just as their religious laws have followed his law.…”
vs.2.5