Islamic Ethics by Sachedina Abdulaziz;

Author:Sachedina, Abdulaziz;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Theological Underpinnings of Juridical Discourse

In Islamic philosophical theology, the opposing conceptualization of human moral agency and ethical responsibility has paradoxically served as a conversation stimulator among Muslim modernist-secularist and traditionalist religious thinkers.22 These thinkers have confirmed or negated Islam’s ability to withstand modernist demands for the reformation of discriminatory rulings of classical juridical formulations about interhuman relationships to accommodate, for instance, constitutional democracy and universal human rights. The ongoing debates among traditionalist and modernist scholars about the relevance of certain questionable juridical decisions in the area of intercommunal relations and their disagreement about extending the notion of human dignity and the ensuing equality of all humans reveal a complex and contemporary development of Islamic religious thought’s preoccupation with individual autonomy in the context of the dominant traditionalist divine command ethics.

Islam, as Muslims understand it, is a comprehensive system of beliefs and practices that relates private and public, individual and society, spiritual and mundane. The best interests of humanity can be preserved when the two realms of spiritual and temporal work together in providing the values that regulate interhuman relationships in the public sphere. As a matter of fact, the prevalent doctrine about moral obligation in the scriptural sources speaks about the sense of responsibility generated by God’s creation of humanity on earth. Human creation in the Qur’an reminds humanity about the two elements that make up the responsive human person, namely, the divine spirit (rūḥ) and the earth. These two elements serve as naturally endowed potentials to inspire a person to work diligently toward disciplining the self internally and providing imperatives of interaction externally by discharging responsibilities in society. Additionally, this reference has epitomized the union of body and spirit that generates the sense of accountability for maintaining equilibrium between the demands of the spirit and the body.23 In view of that, human relationships are at the heart of religiously inspired morality in which people learn to balance the challenging demands of mutual rights and obligations toward one another. As such, contradictory theological doctrines about moral epistemology do not undermine the naturally instilled need for fairness and justice in building social and political institutions that reflect that balance.

The groundwork for an inclusive foundational conception of equality of all human beings in the Sharī‘a, then, can begin with a search for pluralistic formulations of the moral principle of public interest (istiṣlāḥ, maṣlaḥa) in juridical tradition and inherent human dignity and moral agency in theological interpretations. That there is room for such a foundational source for universal morality and human moral worth based on some of the pluralistic features of Islamic revelation and Muslim culture is dependent on the authenticity of my presentation of aspects of the inherited tradition that have been downplayed by contemporary traditionalist Muslim scholarship. Contemporary Muslim scholarship on Islamic creed and practice is oblivious to the Qur’an’s universal and, as yet, particularistic, message for humanity. This scholarship has intentionally overlooked or ignored the Qur’anic impulse that inspired juridical-ethical formulations about interpersonal justice in all religiously and morally required conduct.

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