Question

the story on the struggle of human life​

Answer 1

Answer:

This series of five lectures are structured so as to explore the theme of human struggle, suffering and hope in a comparative and interdisciplinary manner that analyses the writings of both Christian and western scholars alongside those of Muslim writers. This distinctive way of working has marked the style and approach to constructive theology in Professor Siddiqui’s most recent publications, opening up unique insights that afford the important work of contemporary comparative theology greater depth and import.

Struggle is often construed as jihad by Muslims and non-Muslims alike: spiritual and personal striving in the way of God, the internal struggle, the greater struggle, the journey of the self, an idea much reduced in contemporary discourse to denote a species of war erroneously called 'holy war'.

In these lectures the word struggle is used in its broadest philosophical and theological sense where it is often aligned to suffering.  Exploration of these two words suggests a distinct difference between struggle and suffering: struggle concerns hope in the midst of all kinds of moral, societal and personal uncertainties, whereas suffering identifies a certain despair and anguish, a lostness of the human condition. Struggle is part of a learning process and as such it is both expected and honoured. We witness one another’s struggles and find mutual respect in the process, aware that the end of struggle is a sense of personal achievement. Suffering, by contrast, seems simply to befall us as something to be endured without edification or aim.

Very often, of course, struggle and suffering overlap. People generally―and those who believe in a higher reality in particular―are not concerned with avoiding suffering and struggle but rather with the question of how we live well with these two realities. For Viktor Frankl, this was the cardinal theme of existentialism: 'to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in this suffering'. These lectures aim to suggest, further, that living with suffering is a consequence of living with desires, i.e., living with and in the distance between what we have and what we want.

The overarching purpose of these lectures is to open up new literary, theological and philosophical ways of thinking about the theme of struggle through close consideration of the lives and works of significant figures drawn from the history of Christian and Islamic thought. We will consider how such figures dealt with personal struggle and conscience amidst the political and social realities of their times. In view are the diverse perspectives these traditions afford upon the question of human spiritual struggle and the various challenges such experiences raise for religious faith. We are drawn to ask: Do our experiences of struggle and suffering, doubt and inward striving finally tell of spiritual ambition or spiritual emptiness, or both?

Explanation: