A Review of the Stages of Life Based on the Islamic Sources

Human growth and development is gradual and stepwise. Man’s mental structure, characteristics and behavior differ in each stage of life. Knowledge of these stages is important because it can help us to define and to design certain types of training and to use different training principles and methods. Many scientists have focused their research on investigating and identifying these steps. Therefore, analysis of this issue in religious texts and identifying the stages of human development and growth from the perspective of religion is of great importance for the scientific and religious community. This research deals with the division, staging and description of age and life in religious texts. The findings show that religion divides human life into three stages and nine sub-stages. The stage of initial weakness includes the sub-stages of development inside the womb, breast feeding, pre-discretion and discretion stage. The stage of strengths comprises adolescence, youth and middle age, and the stage of secondary weakness includes old age and Arzal al-Omr (the vilest state of life).