ABSTRACT
THE CONTEMPORARY MIND LOOKS for consistency both in ideologies and in any general system of concepts. Consistency may well be seen as the test of their validity. We may not agree with the Marxist view of man or the Freudian view, but we acknowledge that each system has its own internal logic even though we may not accept the assumptions upon which the system is constructed. This expectation must be put aside when we approach the Islamic view of man. Here we are dealing not with a consistent pattern of concepts devised by the human mind functioning within its own limitations but with the paradoxes and ambiguities inherent in the created world and in the shattered reflections, perceived here and now, of what lies beyond creation and infinitely transcends it. We can no longer insist that man must be either this or that. We are obliged to admit that he may be both this and that.
