SOURCE: Adang, Camilla. “Islam as the Inborn Religion of Mankind: The Concept of Fitra in the Works of Ibn Hazm.” Qantara 21, no. 2 (2000): 391-410.

In the following essay, Adang probes Ibn Hazm’s views on the subject of fitra (inborn nature), especially his literalist notion that all human beings are born as Muslims and remain so until reaching adulthood, whereupon they either formally adopting the Islamic faith or renounce it in favor of Judaism, Christianity, polytheism, or another system of belief.

Introduction1

A question much debated in religious communities is that of identity, of belonging: who belongs to the group, and how does one become a member of that group in case one was not born into it? According to Jewish law, for example, a Jew is someone who is born from a Jewish mother—regardless of the ethnic or religious background of the father—or someone who has...