Humanism as a Reading of Human Heritage with a View to Islamic Humanism

Humanism, as one of the pillars of the modern era, is defined by giving originality to man and usually in opposition to God-centeredness and divine sovereignty. However, one of the important aspects in the development and expansion of the meaning of humanism is its emphasis on the re-reading of human written heritage, including in the form of religious tradition, which has become the foundation of modern human sciences, and at the same time, contrary to the conventional view, it is a reading in agreement and compatibility with religions. This somewhat unfamiliar combination was proposed among thinkers of Christianity in the Renaissance period and has been used in the contemporary era by some thinkers like "Ali Shariati" to read the traditional intellectual heritage under the title of Islamic Humanism. The content of the present article is that despite the challenge in the possibility of fully combining these two concepts including a religion such as Islam with an ideology such as humanism, presenting this concept in the service of a critical reading of the previous Islamic tradition with a view to its similar experience in Christianity. The findings of such a study indicate that the distinctive feature of religious humanism, especially Islamic, instead of its anti-religious opposition, is based on what Shariati called "refinement of cultural resources" and a critical look at the heritage of the past.