The Crisis of Humility Before the Sacred in the Humanities
Mohammad Kawrani — 2026.08.06
The history of modern humanities records a striking paradox: while these disciplines emerged under the claim of liberating humanity from superstition and ignorance, we now see them, in many cases, being employed to serve agendas that have little to do with human truth. Critical reviews, including those produced by some of the West’s own leading thinkers, reveal that researchers have often become instruments guided by institutions that do not necessarily uphold ethical values. Instead, they legitimize research through funding, academic pressures, and a publishing system that reinforces a new hierarchy of knowledge.
This article is an objective appeal — indeed, a serious academic admonition — to scholars, professors, and researchers to reassess themselves and return to humility before the sacred truth that divine revelation has placed within the human primordial nature (fitrah). Despite all historical attempts at distortion, this truth remains the solid foundation upon which any authentic human knowledge should be built.
First: Ethical Deviation in Research Practice
Sociological studies reveal a painful reality: many researchers are not searching for truth as much as they are searching for the prestige of publishing in highly ranked journals, obtaining large research grants, and securing professional positions at universities that impose their ideological visions. This transformation from the “truth-seeking researcher” into a “knowledge employee” has produced a dangerous phenomenon: the enclosure of reason under the guise of false objectivity.
Just as Pierre Bourdieu pointed to the “symbolic violence” exercised through academic language, we can argue that the institutional structure of universities and research centers exercises an epistemic violence upon the researcher himself. It can compel him to deny his primordial nature and conscience and to adjust his vision according to the dictates of those who fund him. A researcher studying poverty or underdevelopment while receiving a salary from an institution that has interests in perpetuating that poverty cannot be entirely free from bias, whether he realizes it or not.
Second: Financial Incentives and the Purchase of Consciences
It cannot be denied that the modern age has turned science into a commodity and the researcher into a product within an intensely competitive market. This reality has led many academics to sacrifice ethical depth in exchange for academic prominence. Research topics are no longer necessarily chosen according to the innate needs of human society, but according to the interests of institutions that finance research.
This has contributed to what may be called a “crisis of objectivity,” in which major thinkers have acknowledged that “knowledge and power are two sides of the same coin,” in Michel Foucault’s analysis, and that funding can create a discourse of knowledge that reproduces the dominance of the funder. As a result, we find studies that justify racial discrimination, others that question family values, and still others that strip the unknown transcendent being of its sacredness — all under the banner of supposed “academic freedom.” It is as though the universe revolves around a single pole: the human being, with no other intelligent being existing in creation.
Third: Human Primordial Nature as an Absent Reference
The deeper tragedy lies in the contemporary researcher’s neglect of one of the most important foundations of the humanities: the human primordial nature and its innate orientation toward monotheism. All human beings are born with an innate capacity to receive truth, goodness, and beauty. This is affirmed by the teachings of the heavenly religions sent by the Creator, who revealed His guidance to the prophets and messengers.
Yes, distortion has occurred in certain texts or interpretations throughout history. Yet the essence of revelation — represented in the human being’s humility before that sacred Being — remains constant and radiant. It serves as the moral compass by which every rational researcher should be guided. To deny this compass is a major reason why the humanities have, in some historical contexts, become instruments of domination and exploitation, as witnessed in colonial anthropology and forms of Orientalism that served imperialism.
Fourth: A Call for Humility Before the Supreme Being
Returning to the essence does not mean abolishing modern critical methodologies. Rather, it means that the scholar should humble himself before a truth greater than himself: the truth of the sacred Creator who inspired humanity and revealed to it the path of guidance. Humility here is not merely a religious attitude; it is an epistemological necessity, because recognizing the limits of human reason is the first step toward wisdom.
Just as physicists today acknowledge their inability to fully explain consciousness, and neuroscientists acknowledge the mysteries surrounding perception and cognition, scholars of the humanities should recognize that morality is not merely a secondary product of economic structures or social conditioning. It is rooted in the human primordial nature and completed through heavenly revelation. The time has come for researchers to recognize that reverence for and veneration of divine revelation is not a defect, but rather a foundation of honest human knowledge — so that knowledge may serve humanity rather than serve institutions.
We Are Not Calling for Epistemological Naivety
Nor are we calling for the abolition of criticism. We are calling for an ethical revolution within the academic institution, in which the researcher returns to his conscience, frees himself from the temptations of money and power, and humbles himself before sacred truth. Genuine scientific renaissance will not be achieved by accumulating funding or obtaining prestigious positions. It will be achieved when the university professor and researcher realize that they are accountable to their conscience and to their Creator; that the human dignity they study is a divine trust; and that revelation, despite the distortions that have affected certain aspects of it throughout history, remains the authentic source that quenches the human soul’s thirst for pure knowledge.
Our final call to them is: Humble yourselves, devote yourselves, and return to your primordial nature. Only then will you discover that true knowledge does not lie in arrogant theorizing, but in serving the transcendent and sublime Being, and in recognizing that there is always a truth higher than every methodology and greater than every university: the truth of sacred divine revelation given to the ignorant and weak human being, when it rescued him from the frailty of ignorance and weakness.
https://mohammadabbaskawrani.com
#حضارة_عالمية_مشرقة_قادمة #Merciful_Dignified_Civilization
#العلوم.الانسانية.الاسلامية
