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DEPARTMENT OF FUNDAMENTAL AND INTER-DISCIPLINARY STUDIES

Man & Creativity: A Contrastive Analysis between Western

and Islamic Psychologies By:

Mohd Abbas Abdul Razak Muhammad Adil Khan Afridi

Introduction

Concept of Man in Western Mainstream Psychology

Concept of Man in Islamic Psychology

What is Creativity

Creativity According to Psychoanalysis

Creativity According to Behaviorism

Creativity According to Humanistic Psychology

Creativity According to Islamic Psychology

Appraisal

Conclusion

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Nye(1986), states that although at times many of the ideas on man in the Western paradigms complement one another in answering the intricate questions on human nature, there are also times when they contradict each other

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Painted a negative image of man

There is no difference between man and other members of the animal kingdom

Man is an intellectual beast doomed for destruction

Man is enslaved to his sexual impulses

Man has no freedom to cut loose from the shackles of his psychosexual development

Freud’s concept on man is a pessimistic and deterministic one

Man is driven by two psychic forces; Eros

(Life Instinct) and Thanatos (Death Insticnt) 5

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Pavlov(1849-1936)

J.B.Watson

(1878-1958)

B.F.Skinner

(1904-1990)

Based on the ‘tabula rasa’ theory, man is neither good nor bad

Man is nothing more than an outcome of his environment

Radical Behaviorism: Man and animals can be conditioned by stimulus and response and reinforcement

Man becomes a mechanical being.

They emphasized on man’s learning experience

They do not believe that man is born with innate knowledge

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Maslow

(1908-1970)

Carl Rogers

(1902-1987)

Man is born with a good nature but reacts negatively due to situations which he gets into

They did not believe that all human actions can be reduced to a stimulus-response type of action

They believe, man has a subjective inner dimension

Man has the freedom to choose either to respond or not to the demands of the environment

Man’s state of consciousness is more important than his unconscious

Man has the tendency for growth to experience

‘Self-Actualization’ and ‘Fully-functioning Person’

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• Man has a pre-existed before he came to this world

• Human beings are the progeny of Adam

• Man is the Khalifah/vicegerent of God on earth

• Man was taught by Allah - as such, he possesses the creative intelligence

• Man was created in the best of moulds

• Man was given the natural disposition

• Man is placed on the highest pedestal in the hierarchy of creations

• Man was not the First Creation of Allah SWT

• The world was prepared for Man before his coming 10

At times man’s position can go higher than the angels and lower than animals

Man is forgetful

Man is given the freedom of choice to choose his way, either to be thankful or ungrateful to Allah

Man is given the ‘Amanah’

Man has a dual nature; soul and body

The spiritual dimension of man

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Creating or able to create,

Having or showing imagination and artistic or intellectual, Inventiveness(creative writing),and

Stimulating the imagination and inventive powers

(Webster’s New World Dictionary)

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Able to generate new ideas;

The ability to generate alternative ways to do things;

An individual’s ability to look at a situation from multiple dimensions and perceptions;

The ability to see things in a broader perspective; and

The ability to bring new added values to a thing/matter; (p.8)

(Maimunah Osman,2005)

Creativity is within man

Creativity is not related to the environment

Id impulses transformed into something creative by using one of the ego’s defense mechanisms

Sublimation changes aggressive and sexual impulses into something athletic and creative art works

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Creativity is in the environment

It exists outside of man

Man learns to be creative by responding to the stimulus that comes from the environment

Man has to be in the right environment to be creative

Reward can make man creative

Creativity is not innate but a learned behaviour

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Every individual has the capacity to be creative

In a free society, man is able to bring forth creativity which is existing in his inner self

Man by actualizing his creative potentials becomes a ‘Self-actualized person’, ‘Fully-functioning person’ one who goes through ‘Peak Experience’

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Man has been given the creative intelligence

Creativity is within Man and outside of him

Everyone has the potentials to be creative

Creativity is within the Human Soul, Fitrah given to Man & in the Al-Asma given to Man

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Allah’s attributes like Al-Khaliq, Al-Khallaq, Al-Badi, Al-Musawwir, Al-Fatir that explain God as the Creative Creator are also shared by Man at a lesser degree.

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And He taught Adam all the names, then He showed them to the angels and said: “Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful.”

They said: “Glory be to You, we

have no knowledge except that

which You have taught us. Indeed,

it is You, the All Knower, the All

Wise.”

Surah Baqarah2: 31-32

All concepts of creativity are based on the concept of human nature

To understand the different concepts of creativity, we have to understand their concepts on Man.

Among all Western concepts, only the Humanistic concept is closer to the Islamic concept- ‘Similar but not the same’

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Islamic Psychology gives a comprehensive understanding on the concept of man and creativity

There is creativity in the human soul that needs to be actualized

Parents, teachers and school system should cater to bring out the creativity that is latent in children

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Syukran Jazilan

Thank you

Terima Kasih

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