"QUR'AN ANTHROPOLOGY" BY PROFESSOR SAFVET HALILOVIĆ PUBLISHED IN ARABIC LANGUAGE

Hafiz Safvet Halilović, full professor of tafsir and Qur'anic anthropology at the Faculty of Islamic Pedagogy of the University of Zenica, is the author of several original scientific and professional works in the field of tafsir - interpretation of the Qur'an, sirah - the biography of the Prophet, Qur'anic anthropology, Islamic thought, upbringing and education. He writes his works and papers in Bosnian and Arabic. Some of his works have been translated into English, German, Slovenian, Korean and Turkish. A few years ago, his work "What the Qur'an Says About Man - An Introduction to Qur'anic Anthropology" was translated into English and published by the renowned Dar al-Salam publishing house in Cairo, under the title: "What the Qur'ān says about the Human Being – An Introduction to Qur'anic Anthropology" (ISBN 978-977-717-116-8).

This book was recently translated into Arabic, and the translation was made by prof. Ph.D. Hadeer Abo El Nagah, professor of English language and literature at several well-known universities in the world (Prince Sultan University, Tayba University, Al-Azhar University, etc.). Translation titled: “Al-Insān fi al-Qur'ān – Madkhal li dirāsa al-anthrubūlūgiya al-qur'āniyya” It was published in October 2019 by El-Kalem, the publishing center of Rijaset Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The book is softcover, 288 pages, 21 cm (ISBN 978-9958-23-517-7).

He wrote the preface to this Arabic edition Ph.D. Husein Kavazovic, reisul-ulema of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This reisul-ulama extremely meaningful, inspired and analytical text, which is entitled: "As-Sura al-anthrubulugiya li al-insan fi al-Qur'an" (Anthropological picture of man in the Qur'an), below, in its entirety we transmit:

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMAGE OF MAN IN THE QUR'AN

"As creative thought, created through human thought effort, theology, as a distinct thought expressiveness, has become a search tool for the Truth. In an effort to provide answers, it seems to have further deepened doubts and strengthened old forebodings, offering new images, symbols and metaphors, which tore apart the rigid frames of long-established doctrine, the stock of time-worn "truths". It originated within the changing human consciousness, its perception of itself and the world around it, as a reflection of God's being and His continuous creation, and it changed together with man, his new knowledge and delusions.

Theological thought in Bosnia and Herzegovina slowly grew and was built through its peers from the past and created its own experience together with them. Perhaps the greatest contribution, in the last twenty-five years, to theological thought in our country was precisely the diversity and multiplicity of views, which manifested themselves in several waves, which brought with them new experiences of the modern world. The world is changing with accelerated steps in spiritual and material transformation. The acceleration of the rhythm of life through the means of modern movement and communication, the ever-present generalization of human knowledge and experience, creates a new image of consciousness through interaction that leads to the creation of new forms, the emergence and dissolution of consciousness. Theology is not exempt from that, but it, unlike other forms of human consciousness, brings into the theological consciousness a deep inner experience, created through a look into the inner being of man and his imaginative abilities. This is why exactly theological "truth" proves to be irreplaceable, as a gauge between our inner and outer being. Theological thought, based on the Source that constantly attracts it to itself like a vortex in which it circulates, searches for the primordial unchanging Source of Consciousness, which reveals and more closely determines the changing human nature, its place and role in the created world.

Book by Dr. Safvet Halilović is such a search. It is an attempt to determine, through a deep look into the inner human consciousness, the "pivotal forms" around which the changing human consciousness revolves, exposed to external influences that act on it and change it. From the theological aspect, he looks at the nature of faith in man as a "necessity" and not as a "freedom of choice". He tries to defend his hypothetical position, also referring to the written argument contained in the Qur'an, in the words "to me is my faith, and to you is your faith", where every form of manifestation of religious, "sanctified" consciousness is called faith (dīn), but also with rational arguments, quoting a multitude of views of Muslim and non-Muslim authors with which he supports his position. Introducing rational and traditional arguments into challenging and undermining the foundations of materialistic philosophy, based on Darwin's theory, dr. Safvet Halilović tries to build a strong argument in favor of faith, reaching for the rational arguments of idealistic philosophy, and even for the very confessions of certain followers of materialism among scientists.

Certainly, the axis of his argumentation about the anthropological basis of man is based on the Qur'anic verses and hadiths of the Prophet, peace be upon him, which he cites and analyzes. He presents all the forms of consciousness that the Qur'an talks about in relation to man in general.

The following chapters seem particularly important to me: Quranic texts about man (insan); Man and work – Islamic view; Quranic understanding of the phenomenon of death; Man and the Qur'an; Man and sin - the Qur'anic concept.

With a series of verses and hadiths, he illustrates the existence of a clear anthropological image of man in the Qur'an, and based on written theology and anthropological research of the human being and his more or less sensitive, spontaneous, reflection of consciousness through its external manifestation, he points to the existence of a rounded anthropological image of man. Man is a multidimensional being, layered in his structure, a being of spirit and matter: good and evil, vice and virtue, faith and unbelief, spiritual ups and downs. It is a being, unlike other creatures, with a certain structure of determination within which there is a significant field of freedom that implies human responsibility, to which dr. Safvet Halilović especially points out.

What dr. It seems to me that Halilović especially wants to say and draw attention to the fact that the Qur'an is the basis for theological and anthropological considerations, which were less common in our country. He clearly emphasizes that man is the central theme of the Qur'anic revelation and that the Qur'an is basically a book about man and for man who builds his happiness in community with other people. Man builds his awareness of the world from generation to generation, he believes, referring to the root meaning of the Arabic word insān, a man. Man develops and changes, acquires and transfers experiences and is capable of reproducing them again and again in a new way. In this way, he changes himself and the world around him, but he will never be allowed to remain alone, lonely, without spiritual guidance, without God's help and support.

In particular, it should be noted that the book has already had its second edition in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that it has also been translated into English, and that its edition in Arabic is also being prepared. In this way, dr. Safvet Halilović, along with our other authors, pushes the boundaries of the Bosnian interpretive teaching of Islam, giving him the chance to try his hand at the lived interpretation of the Islamic doctrine of our age.

The book will no doubt be an important incentive, which is the intention of the author, for younger researchers to dare to deepen the trough on the route he mapped. She tells us that it is necessary to move with the times, that theological and anthropological awareness must be expanded, in order to become a core within the mental and emotional movements of the human being. dr. Safvet Halilović shows us that the Qur'anic word cannot be petrified in any form of consciousness. On the contrary, it can express every condition and every human phenomenon with its multiple echoes and associations, because it expresses the spiritual being of man and his religious vision of the world.

This book, it is now certain, lives its own life, independent of the author. She will enter into a dialogue with other books and authors. We want it to be a fertile field, both for initiation and criticism, because only through these two prisms will its true value be seen.

I ask the Almighty Allah to give the author strength and health to continue his work for the good of all people," said dr. Husein Kavazović, reisul-ulema of the Islamic Community, in his foreword to the book by dr. Hafiz Safvet Halilović.