ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Spiritual Discourses Discourse 1: The Criteria for Humanity I have been asked to discuss the question of the criteria for humanity. If we were to do so from the viewpoint of biology, this would be an easy matter since we would be dealing with the human body and the place of human beings in the animal world, in which case there is no difference between individuals.

By the standard of anatomy, medicine, and, even to some extent, psychology, there are no major differences between two or more individuals. But is humanity limited to the body? Is human perfection and mobility confined to man's physical aspect? In humanistic sciences there is talk of perfect and imperfect man, of the low and high kind.

What type of human being is ethically and socially worthy of respect because of his or her perfection, or deserving of contempt because of his or her imperfections? This is a topic which has always attracted attention not only in human knowledge, but also in various religions. For example, the Quran speaks of human beings who are higher than angels and worthy of homage by the latter. It also mentions human beings who are inferior to animals.

What is the criteria which measures the differences between human beings? This question is not only related to religion. Materialistic philosophers, too, who do not believe in God and religion, discuss the question of man, humanity and superior and inferior beings. What is the criteria according to these philosophers? Can we say that human beings are equal genetically, but that they differ in knowledge.

That is, something which is acquired not inherited, so that a person with more knowledge is higher than one with less? Is this related to academic knowledge which gives superiority according to the level and stage of one's studies? Do we respect people only in proportion to their learning? Is Abu Dharr honoured because he was more learned than his contemporaries? Is Mu'awiyah blameworthy and disliked because he had inferior knowledge? I do not believe that learning is a criterion for humanity.

If it were so, we should say that Einstein was the most endowed with qualities of humanity since he was the most learned man of his time. Another view is that although knowledge is one of the requisites of humanity, and although the importance of awareness of the self, of the society and of the world cannot be denied, it is inadequate.