Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 23 Issue 5

© 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue V Version I 12 Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 ( ) A A Quranic Concept with Universal Appeal: The Innate Monotheistic Disposition ( Fitra ) Divine Institutes , II, I, 8-12 "This (recognizing and proclaiming a supreme god) they do not do when their situation is prosperous; but as soon as some heavy difficulty overwhelms them, there they are who remember God. If someone is tossed about at sea by a furious wind, it is he (God) whom he invokes (...) So they never remember God, except when they are in misfortune, but once fear has left them and perils have passed, there they are, running all gaily to the temples of the gods, offering them libations, sacrifices and crowns. As for God, whom they had implored in the midst of their needs, they don't even have a word to thank him for" (Here the worship given to God is non-sacrificial, as opposed to that given to the gods of paganism). Qur’an (17, 67) "When misfortune befalls you at sea, those you call upon go astray, except him, but when he has saved you and brought you to land, you turn away. Man is very ungrateful." (29, 65) "When they get on a boat, they invoke God with pure wor sh ip (monotheistic non-sacrificial). But when God rescues them by bringing them ashore, they give Him associates." In both the Qur’an and the Divine Institutes, the theme of the usefulness of fear is part of the controversy against polytheism. This motif is included in demonstrations relating to the argument that Pierre Monat, editor of many of Lactantius’s works, describes as a "commonplace of ancient philosophy", according to which worshippers of the gods often recognize and even proclaim a supreme God. Starting from this line, Lactantius produced a demonstration that was both polemical and rhetorical of the existence of an " anima naturaliter christiana ", which in many respects fulfills the role of a prefiguration of the Qur’anic fitra and is evoked in slightly different forms by Tertullian and Minucius Felix. 36 He draws on the theme of the impact of the sudden and violent fear experienced by a man on a sinking ship. It would seem, moreover, that the Nicomedian rhetorician drew his parable from the figuration of the boat in the storm in Aesop's fable The Navigators : "Some people embarked and set sail. One of the passengers, while tearing off his clothes, cried out and moaned to the gods of his homeland, to whom he promised ex voto if he survived. The storm ceased, and calm returned: then the passengers began to feast, dance and caper, like people who escape of an unforeseen predicament". It is this first part of the fable that probably served as Lactantius' inspiration. Indeed, it ends with a different conclusion which is that fortune varies and that having been saved once does not bod well for the future. The text ends as follows: "But the pilot, a man of strong character, spoke to them as follows: "Let us rejoice, my friends, but as people who may be in for another storm." 37 Lactantius did not keep this epilogue, but replaced it with the observation that men, having 43 Tertullien, Apol. 17, 3-6 : Ô testimonium animae naturaliter christianae! Minutius Felix, Octavius, 18, 44 Aesop, Fables, trad. Daniel Loayza, Flammarion, Paris, 1995, p. 105. proclaimed themselves faithful to a monotheistic conception of the divine at the moment of danger, turn to idols as soon as the threat has passed, an attitude identically mentioned in the Qur’an. It is also likely that Lactantius' use of the concept of fear as catharsis has a Greek basis, and more specifically an Aristotelian one. His approach is based on the view that divine wisdom sustains this catharsis of fear, which awakens in human nature a readiness to listen to the word of God, just as ancient tragedy, according to Aristotle, produced an upheaval which, through the pity felt for the hero, awakened in the spectators a fear for themselves likely to enable them to open up to the word of the gods. 38 Similarly, the Qur’an uses a description of the fear felt by sailors in danger to stimulate the reader to turn to the one God. Finally, it insists that it would be unreasonable to weigh the suffering caused by fear against the benefit it ultimately brings to humanity: (Q 2, 155): "We test you with a little fear (...)". Moreover, he affirms that there are individuals to whom the experience of fear confers a lasting, and even definitive, benefit: (Q 31, 32) "After God has saved them by bringing them back to dry land, some of them remain on the right path. Only the fickle ( khabbâr ) and the ungrateful ( kafûr ) deny our signs". By taking account of the diversity of human psychological dispositions in this way, he clearly steps back from theological thinking such as that in the Homilies , which is based on the idea that human weaknesses are incurable and that, once the fear has passed, everyone, without exception, returns to their 45 See Poetics , ch. VI, 2 : "Tragedy is the imitation of a serious and complete action, of a certain extent, presented in a pleasant language and in such a way that each of the parts which compose it survives separately, developing with characters who act, and not through a narrative, and operating by pity and terror, the purgation of passions of the same nature", and XIII, 2.