The Breadth of Humanity and Faith

Author: Abd al-Wahhab al-Messiri

Abd al-Wahhab al-Messiri selected a group of Western and Muslim thinkers from Europe, the Arab world, and Islamic Asia who are concerned with the general national, pan-Arab, and religious issues of their peoples, unlike those thinkers who live in ivory towers, far removed from the concerns and problems of reality. This study reveals that these thinkers are more open and accepting of ideas derived from other civilizational experiences, and are less rigidly attached to the literal religious text without considering its spirit and essence, despite their keenness not to deviate from the tenets of religion. The study also answers a question that long haunted Dr. al-Messiri regarding the intellectual commonality among these thinkers, despite the diversity and variation of their cultural and civilizational backgrounds. The answer lay in the humanistic tendency that affirms the existence, effectiveness, and independence of the human self within the overall vision of existence and beyond existence. Dr. al-Messiri's choices are governed by a clear and coherent logic of a mind that is engaged and capable of benefiting from every human creation that supports human value, while at the same time critiquing any thought that is hostile to human humanity.