Sunanī Man between Modernist Thought and the Values of Vicegerency (Istikhlāf) and Civilizational Advancement (ʿUmrān)

Abstract

Man’s preoccupation, since early times, with the question of the origin and development of the universe as a systematic construct has generated three central trends. The first is agnosticism, which propagated superstition and magic, relying on coincidence in its interpretation of all cosmic phenomena. The second is pantheism, which postulates that the universe is autogenous. It consists of one notion that has taken a multiplicity of shapes expressed by philosophers, each in his own way while repeating the same thing from Democritus’ and Heraclitus’ time to the present. The third believes that the universe is created by an independent power, separate from it. This last trend further branches into two divisions: the religious trend that believes in God the Creator, and the Greek philosophical trend that proposes a creative maker. Due to the fact that modern civilization has risen as a reaction to the Church, it is essentially materialistic, leading Western people mostly to moral and spiritual emptiness, leaving them with no purpose in life other than the quest for pleasure; for man himself has become the source of legislation. Thus, he has lost the ability to distinguish what is intrinsically natural from what is aberrative, or the ethical from the animalistic, while living in a world oscillating between agnosticism and pantheism. Hence, this study aims to explore the concept of “man the vicegerent”: its origins and the dimensions that formulate its substance and quiddity when ascribed to humanity. It also seeks to uncover the characteristics of Sunanī (Divine-Law) man, through observing “man the vicegerent” and his relationship with the universal, psychological, and intrinsic Divine Laws (Sunan). Then, it considers, from a Sunanī perspective, the epistemological roots of modernist thought, re-orienting it towards the values of vicegerency and civilizational advancement.