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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Pioneer Culture to the Rescue of Mankind - An Introduction to Islamic Culture Preface The Definition of Culture Culture has been defined in many different ways by cultural experts and scholars. The Encyclopaedia Britannica has so far[^1] cited 164 various definitions of culture. By studying these definitions carefully, it may be concluded that some of them intend to identify certain cultural elements, e.g.

scientific culture, artistic culture, literary culture and moral culture, all of which serve only to describe various aspects of the cultural phenomenon such as art. Some definitions refer to pursuant culture, and some others depict pioneer culture, although they do not directly do so. Let us consider a simple example to elaborate on the fact that all the existing definitions fail to put forth a thorough explanation of culture.

Suppose a number of people are trying to find the centre of a circle by considering many points in it. Clearly, none of them would prove to be the real centre; thus, cultural scholars and sociologists have not taken into serious consideration the true identity of man, which lies in the boundary between nature and the supernatural.

دوسر هر دو حلقهء هستى به حقيقت به هم توقيوستي “Truly, it was you who made the circle of the universe whole.” (Sheikh Mahmoud Shabestan) Instead, they have merely studied some of the cultural elements, especially physical phenomena and cultural activities. Therefore, it is obvious that the number of physical outcomes could lead to countless definitions, much higher than 164. In proof of this, notice the neglect toward the innate virtues of culture, the aspect of virtual beauty to name one.

On the contrary, culture consists of two parts: internally virtual and externally virtual. The most complete definition that can be derived from most of the present ones is: “Culture is the necessary or proper quality in man's physical mental activities, based on sound logic and emotions rising from sensible evolutionary lifestyles .[^2] The elements and examples presented in the current encyclopaedias and lexicons refer to qualities of both necessity and appropriateness.

In other words, they consist of proper facts and also necessities for human life.