Anthropology for Muslim Students

This present work takes as its point of departure the origin of man and traces, in a “historical” fashion, his movement away from that origin. It concludes with the arrival of man on the material plane of existence and his accelerating descent into the modern world. By lucidly describing this journey and the symp-toms and underlying causes of the present quagmire, it suggests a solution and a general course of action to be taken. This resolu-tion of the current crisis and discord corresponds to man’s return to his origin and the ascent towards his final destination and goal. On the individual level, it means to embark upon the spir-itual journey towards God, a journey that includes self-knowledge and self-purification. On the social plane, it means to cultivate a society that accords with Divine Guidance and conforms to Divine Law and which provides an environment that attracts, nourishes and sustains its inhabitants on a path of spiritual wayfaring. The text in hand is a modified and abbreviated version of the book Existence and the Fall: Spiritual Anthropology of Islam by Hamid Parsania and is intended to be used as a final year high-school textbook in Islamic schools that teach humanities.