All worldviews agree that man is different from any other kind of animal. Man has been distinguished to have these three important characteristics: knowledge and creativity, virtue and morality, free choice and discretion.
From the western scientific worldview, however, although man possesses all these characteristics, another characteristic that is more important than these is animal nature of man. Man, ultimately, is just like any other animal, and the origin of man is also from an animal. This theory is called the theory of evolution and one of the important founder of this theory is Charles Darwin (d.1882), with his work such as Origin of species and The Descent of Man.
The Islamic worldview, on the other hand, accept that man has this animal nature, which is called an-naf-sul-ha-ya-wa-ni-yah (the animal soul). This part of man is what man shares with other animals, but he has another part that is more important than this, which is called an-naf-sun-na-ti-qah (the rational soul). It is this latter part of man that differentiate man from animal, and which carries those distinguished characteristics: knowledge, virtue and freewill.
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