AL-Shaar An Islamic Approach to Moral Virtue (original) (raw)
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A Controversy Over Moral Virtue: The Problematic Interplay between Religion and Ethics in Islamic Tradition Ph.D., 2022
This Ph. D. dissertation investigates the problematic interplay between religion and ethics in Islam. Here, I argue that an ethical humanism emerged that distinguished between the ethical and the religious despite the Divine Command Theory's dominance in Islamic ethics. This humanism adhered to two unconventional principles: moral autonomy, which allows the agent to self-legislate via his rational capacity and therefore completely actualize his rational nature; and moral universalism, which makes moral values real and universal and hence transcends confessional bounds and boundaries. Ethical humanism, thus, opposed both moral heteronomy and moral relativism/particularism. To support this fundamental claim, the dissertation follows a tripartite form like a novel plot, with an introduction, a climax, and a resolution. The argument is first introduced by tracing the development of Muslim moral conscience from the early moral response to the Prophet Muhammad's call (sādiq amīn) to the later dominance of legalism, which subsumes the ethical under the religious while denying the first any autonomy. We also identified a number of ways explored by Muslim thinkers to circumvent the prevalent ethico-religious value of taqwā by appealing to some religiously neural moral values such a Murūwwa and adab. Second, we reach the climax of the uneasy interplay between religion and ethics as it builds up inside the minds of three Muslim thinkers: Ibn Muqaffaa, the litterateur and political counselor, Ibn Abi Addunyā, the tradionnist and hadith compiler, and al-Gazālī the Sufi philosopher and jurisconsult. Finally comes the resolution where the boundaries between religion and ethics were unambiguously drawn both in kalam and falsafa. The Mu’tazili mutakallimūn and the philosopher Ibn Zakaria al-Razī, albeit on different grounds, advocated for ethical humanism. As far as the episteme of the era would allow, the two held that moral values are truly universal and religiously neutral, and that the moral agent is genuinely autonomous in the sense that he needs no external commander since he is only abiding by moral principles that reflect his rational nature and which he may acknowledge as his own.
Virtue and Manliness in Islamic Ethics
Journal of Islamic Ethics, 2020
This is a short editorial introduction to the Journal of Islamic Ethics' special issue on virtue and manliness. Please access here: https://brill.com/view/journals/jie/4/1-2/article-p1\_2.xml The entire issue is open access. You can read and download all articles here: https://brill.com/view/journals/jie/4/1-2/jie.4.issue-1-2.xml?language=en
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 2021
Preserved in what seems to be a unique manuscript at the Bodleian Library, al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā (The Soul and the Spirit together with an Explanation of Their Faculties) of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) is a curious book. At the beginning, the author decribes the text as part of the philosophical sciences (as opposed to the religious ones) and clarifies that it deals with ʿilm al-akhlāq, meaning Aristotelian virtue ethics. The text is divided into two parts, the first explaining subjects of philosophical psychology, such as the nature of the soul, its faculties, and its survival after the death of the body. The second part explains how one can “treat” or “heal” the soul from certain negative character traits or vices. In both parts, the book makes liberal use of quotations from the Qur’an, from prophetical ḥadīth, and from sayings by other prophets and sages. This is quite unlike any other “book on philosophy” that Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī wrote. The article explains the distinction between philosophical and non-philosophical books in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and what it means for a book to belong to the former group. Al-Rāzī’s works in the theoretical fields of philosophy (logic, the natural sciences, metaphysics, and theology) do not use evidence derived from revelation and hardly ever refer to it. The relationship between revelation and the practical disciplines of philosophy (among them ethics), however, is different from the relation between revelation and theoretical philosophy. This difference leads in Avicenna to an almost complete abandonment of the practical disciplines. In authors who follow Avicenna in his Farabian approach to the relationship between philosophy and revelation it leads to hybrid works such as al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā that follow a philosophical agenda but employ means and strategies that mimic and imitate revelation.
Ethical Perceptions and Relationships in Islam: A Textual Abridged Summary of Al-Ghazali's View
Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 2019
Islam contains a general code of conduct; there is neither much doubt nor disagreement on this. That Islam as both a religion and way of life encompasses all religious issues and affairs affecting human's life is also a fact unchallenged by those of consummate mind. One important aspect of all facets of Islamic discussions is akhlaq (Ethics). Ethic cum conduct is pertinent in Islamic religion. It could be interpreted in many ways and forms; its perception differs from one person to the other, and sometimes within an individual, but seldom from one religion to the other. This paper thus seeks to explore the meaning of ethics and the perceptions it has in Islam, together with the types of relationship it denotes, through the major writings of some Muslim notable scholars, with major concentration on al-Ghazali. It is also the aim of the study to expatiate the importance of ethic in jurisdictions. The study commonly employs qualitative library approach in collecting and analyzing the data. The study maintains that Islam's concept of ethics, if carefully applied on most contemporary issues, suffice and proffer long-lasting solutions to various problems.
Islamic Ethics: Divine Command Theory in Arabo-Islamic Thought
Islamic Ethics: Divine Command Theory in Arabo-Islamic Thought, 2010
The book investigate the theories and ideas that are developed in Arabo-Islamic thought and underscore its ethical significance. The introduction sketches the development of Islamic ethical though, reviews previous literature on Islamic ethics, explains the framework and the methodology and explains concepts and theories used in the rest of the chapter such as normative ethic, metaethics and ethical voluntarism. First chapter: "Theoretical and historical backgrounds" analyses Euthyphro's dialogue and underscores its relevance to Islamic ethics and sheds light on some historical developments relevant to Euthyphro's dilemma. Second chapter: "Ethical Presuppositions of the Qur'an and the Hadith" focuses on Divine justice and human free will in the Qur'an, the ontological status of ethical values concepts and the source of ethical knowledge according to Islamic scripture. Third chapter: "Pre-Mu'tazilite Ethical Doctrines" focuses on the ethically significant doctrines of the Kharijites and the Murji'ites. The fourth chapter: "Mu'tazilites ethics" provides a moral interpretation of their five principles. The fifth chapter: "Ethics of 'Abd al-Jabbar" studies the presuppositions of ethical judgments of al-Qadi 'Abd al-Jabbar al-Asadabadi. The sixth chapter "Analysis of Normative ethical Judgments" analyses normative judgments developed by the Mu'tazilites and sheds some light on the post-Mu'tazilite or Ash'arite moral theory. The last two chapters are primarily concerned in interpreting Mu'tazilite ethics and reconstruct a moral theory, based on the Basrian Mu'tazilite moral thought, that can appeal to the contemporary reader interested in moral philosophy.
Muslim Moralists’ Contributions to Moderation Theory in Ethics
2020
Hossein Atrak1 Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Zanjan, Iran. Robab Khosravi Assistant Professor of English, University of Zanjan, Iran. Abstract Originally introduced by Plato and Aristotle, Moderation Theory in Ethics is the most prevalent theory of ethics among Islamic scholars. Moderation Theory suggests that every virtue or excellence of character lies in the mean between two vices: excess or defect. Every ethical virtue comes from moderation in actions or emotions and every ethical vice comes from excess or defect. This paper suggests that while Islamic scholars have been influenced by this doctrine, they have also developed and re-conceptualized it in innovative ways. Kindī, Miskawayh, Avicenna, Rāghib Isfahānī, Nasīr al-Dīn Ṭusī, and others are among the Islamic contributors to the subject. Some of their innovations in this theory are as follows: bringing together Aristotle's doctrine of the mean with Plato's psychology (by Kindī), dividing virtues in...
Al-Akhlaq (Ethics) Perceptions in Islam: A Textual Interpretation through Imam Muhammad Al-Ghazali
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2018
Islam contains a general code of conduct; there is neither much doubt nor disagreement on this. That Islam as both a religion and way of life encompasses all religious issues and affairs affecting human's life is also a fact unchallenged by those of consummate mind. One important aspect of all facets of Islamic discussions, that upon which all arguments sprout and agreements are either diverged and/or reached, that which for its effectiveness also relies on intellectual foundation, is al-Akhlaq (the Ethic). Ethic cum conduct is pertinent in Islamic religious facets. It could be interpreted in many ways and forms; its perception differs from one to the other, and sometimes within an individual, but seldom from one religion to the other. This is an area on which the paper is concentrated. This paper thus seeks to explore the meaning of ethics and the perceptions it has in Islam through the major writings of Imam Muhammad al-Ghazaali, an undeniably sounding ethical name among all noble Muslim scholars. It is also the aim of the study to expatiate the importance of ethic in jurisdiction according to al-Ghazaali. The study commonly employs qualitative library approach in collecting and analyzing the data. The study maintains that al-GhazÉlÊ's concept of ethics, if carefully applied on most contemporary issues, suffice and proffer long-lasting solutions to various problems intellectually, mechanically, and technically facing the Muslim nations.
Using Historical Islamic Sources to Promote Ethical Character
Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization
This article provides a survey of the development of Islamic ethical literature. It argues that this literature promotes not only submission to Allah Almighty and the divine law, it also portrays ethics as a path that offers a peaceful inner life and elicits cooperative behavior from others. This article surveys the most significant literary forms currently available in Persian and English from the first six centuries of Islamic civilization produced in West, South and Central Asia that provide appealing sources of ethics.
“Muslim Ethics: Sources, Interpretations, and Challenges,” The Muslim World 69:3 (July 1979) 163-77
Islam's potential as a positive moral force in the twentieth century has not infrequently been called into question by Western observers, casual and professional alike. When such doubts are expressed, they appear to arise largely from two sources: first, the belief that the generality of Muslims, under the burden of centuries of ethical determinism, live a life of uninspired acquiescence in the dispensations of Fate; second, the suspicion that Islam has only served to tighten the grip of traditionalism on numerous third world nations, thus rendering them incapable of responding to either the demands or the benefits of technology. In response, some Muslim modernists have gone to the other extreme to demonstrate that, in fact, Islam has virtually invented the qualities of initiative and adaptability. Somewhere in between lies a point at which mutual understanding may begin to grow.