Abstract

One of the most important purposes of education is to train a "perfect man". However, the concept of the perfect man is one of the topics that have been discussed by philosophers, sages, and gnostics since long ago. It is also of interest to psychologists nowadays. The Iranian ancient schools of thought showed their attention to the idea of the perfect man by referring to certain concepts such as the "eternal man" or the "primary man". Nevertheless, the origin of this idea is considered to be the Islamic-Iranian gnosis. Hallaj, Ibn 'Arabi, 'Abdulkarim Gilani, 'Aziz al-Din Nasafi, Shams Tabrizi, and Rumi are among the most prominent gnostics who, due to their interests, have portrayed the picture of the perfect man following a gnostic approach based on love, unveiling, and intuition. Iranian philosophers and sages such as Farabi, Ibn Sina, Miskawayah, and Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi followed a philosophical and rationalist approach towards the perfect man. However, Mulla Sadra described perfection based on both approaches. In this paper, which is the result of a comparative study, the writer has initially tried to discuss the significant theories of the above-mentioned philosophers and thinkers in this regard briefly. Then he has compared them with each other in order to determine their commonalities and differences.