MISHKAT

MISHKAT

Analysis of the Qur’anic Concept of “Aknowledgent” from the Perspective of General Anthropology: An Inquiry into Human Dignity in the Holy Qur’an

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mohammad Hassan Shirzad 1
Mohammad Hossein Shirzad 2
1 , Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran (Corresponding Author)
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran
10.22034/mishkat.2026.548251.2648
Abstract
Over the past several decades, the expansion of global human interaction, alongside the growing prominence of modern discourses such as human dignity and human rights within the Islamic world, has renewed scholarly interest in Qur’an 49:13. This verse has been revisited through contemporary theoretical frameworks, including the philosophy of the social sciences, intercultural communication, international relations, and civilizational studies.
This article offers, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of this verse from the standpoint of general anthropology, a discipline comprising four subfields: biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeological anthropology. Qur’an 49:13 presents human beings as inherently diverse, differentiated across gender, social‑group, and tribal lines. According to the verse, the purpose of this divinely ordained diversity is aknowledgent; a concept that, when approached anthropologically, signifies a three‑stage process: knowing the other, making oneself known to the other, and, most crucially, coming to know oneself through the presence of the other. 
Within this interpretive framework, each stage of aknowledgent corresponds to one of the four domains explored in general anthropology, encompassing the biological, cultural, linguistic, and historical dimensions of human communities. The Qur’anic vision of aknowledgent thus challenges egocentrism and reinterprets the figure of the other not as a threat but as a necessary condition for a fuller understanding of the self. 
Based on this Qur’anic framework, all human beings irrespective of their biological, cultural, linguistic, and historical differences possess inherent human dignity. Yet this dignity is gradational, its degrees measured by one’s level of piety before Almighty God.
Keywords
Qur&‌rsquo
anic anthropology, human dignity, al‑Ḥujurāt Surah, ethnocentrism, self and other, Islamic anthropology
Subjects
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