this book bets on the future. It tries as much as possible to respond to the needs of those who are rapidly becoming integrated in modern life, and to the aspiration of the rising generations to an Islamic thought that is capable of taking account of the four major revolutions witnessed by humanity since the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. The first revolution was Copernicus?s discovery that the earth is not the center of the universe, as the ancients believed, but only a small planet in the solar system, a fact investigated and proven by modern astronomy. The second revolution was the establishment of the theory of evolution since Darwin and man?s loss of that special status which was thought to distinguish him from the rest of the animals. Freud and the school of psychoanalysis represented a third revolution by inferring that man?s behavior is not fully controlled by the conscious will but is in fact subject to the influence of the unconscious, the repressed, and the hidden drives. The fourth revolution is what the world is witnessing now in the rapid progress of biotechnology and genetic engineering, with the resulting power to control life and to alter the natural qualities of plants, animals, and even humans, which were once thought to be stable and fixed.
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