Pub Date : 2024-03-08DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240005
Fadi Zatari, Omar Fili
This article is concerned with Islamic works on political ethics as a practical guide for competent governance. The article primarily focuses on the concept of luṭf (gentleness) in the works of al-ādāb al-sulṭāniyya (the ethics of government, i.e., Islamic mirrors for princes). The main argument is that Muslim writers of al-ādāb al-sulṭāniyya literature warned rulers against depending on coercive power as the basic mode of governance. Instead, the majority emphasized that the most practical way to govern a state was to practice governance based on a balance between rewards and punishments. Based on their advice, rulers should avoid cruelty in favor of an interdependent political order based on social cooperation between the different classes. The article first explains the concept of luṭf and the importance of avoiding cruelty. Second, the article relates how luṭf operates in the realm of public policy, ruler-people relations, and the responsibility of rulers. Finally, the article highlights how luṭf dictates a functional elite structure based on loyalty and mutual respect. The methodology of this article relies on primary sources, mostly analyzing the presence of luṭf as a concept and the details of governance surrounding the concept. The article seeks to show the intricacies of the state through understanding the concept of luṭf and its relation with practicing politics in a cohesive Muslim social structure.
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Pub Date : 2024-02-06DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240004
Hiroaki Kawanishi
The early modern Muslim world witnessed unparalleled development in theological discussion, of which the problem of evil is a part. This paper aims to uncover a new discourse on the problem of evil in the Ottoman period, by examining the eleventh/ seventeenth-century polymath ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī’s (d. 1143/1731) synthetic theology of evil. More specifically, the study will analyze the way al-Nābulusī discusses the issue of faith (īmān) and disbelief (kufr) in his Ashʿarī kalām and Akbarian Sufism. Looking first at al-Nābulusī’s kalām metaphysics of īmān and kufr and then his mystical metaphysics, the paper corroborates how between the two sciences, there is a coherent logic in al-Nābulusī’s concordia theology.
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Pub Date : 2024-02-06DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240004
Hiroaki Kawanishi
The early modern Muslim world witnessed unparalleled development in theological discussion, of which the problem of evil is a part. This paper aims to uncover a new discourse on the problem of evil in the Ottoman period, by examining the eleventh/ seventeenth-century polymath ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī’s (d. 1143/1731) synthetic theology of evil. More specifically, the study will analyze the way al-Nābulusī discusses the issue of faith (īmān) and disbelief (kufr) in his Ashʿarī kalām and Akbarian Sufism. Looking first at al-Nābulusī’s kalām metaphysics of īmān and kufr and then his mystical metaphysics, the paper corroborates how between the two sciences, there is a coherent logic in al-Nābulusī’s concordia theology.
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Pub Date : 2024-02-05DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240003
عبد الرحمن حللي
تنحت هذه المقالة إجابة عن سؤال: ما المبادئ التي يمكن استمدادها من القرآن الكريم لتأسيس أخلاقيات بيئية؟ وهل يمكن أن نجد فيه أسسًا يُبنى موقف إسلامي من قضايا البيئة استنادًا إليها؟ انتهت الدراسة إلى تمييز أربعة مبادئ تعد منطلقات دينية للتنظير البيئي. الأول: اعتراف الإنسان بحدود علمه مقارنة بعلم الله المحيط (الإيمان بالغيب)، وهذا الإقرار العقدي هو المدخل الديني لعلاقة الإنسان بالطبيعة والعوالم. الثاني: مفهوم التسخير من حيث جعل القرآن منفعة المسخرات بما جُعلت عليه من نظام وتقدير وأن أي إخلال بنظامها لا يحقق الغرض مما سُخِّرت من أجله. الثالث: ملاحظة العلاقة التي جعلها الله بين الإنسان والطبيعة والخالق، وأن الجميع خاضع للخالق، ولا تنفك علاقة الإنسان مع الطبيعة عن علاقته مع الشريعة. الرابع: أن الانتفاع من المسخرات يكون باعتدال من غير إسراف. ويجمع المبادئ الأربعة وصف الأمانة كمصطلح أخلاقي صميم يعني بالضرورة أن الإنسان مسؤول في هذه الأرض عن الفساد (العدوان على الطبيعة) وسفك الدماء (العدوان على الشريعة).
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Pub Date : 2024-02-05DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240003
عبد الرحمن حللي
تنحت هذه المقالة إجابة عن سؤال: ما المبادئ التي يمكن استمدادها من القرآن الكريم لتأسيس أخلاقيات بيئية؟ وهل يمكن أن نجد فيه أسسًا يُبنى موقف إسلامي من قضايا البيئة استنادًا إليها؟ انتهت الدراسة إلى تمييز أربعة مبادئ تعد منطلقات دينية للتنظير البيئي. الأول: اعتراف الإنسان بحدود علمه مقارنة بعلم الله المحيط (الإيمان بالغيب)، وهذا الإقرار العقدي هو المدخل الديني لعلاقة الإنسان بالطبيعة والعوالم. الثاني: مفهوم التسخير من حيث جعل القرآن منفعة المسخرات بما جُعلت عليه من نظام وتقدير وأن أي إخلال بنظامها لا يحقق الغرض مما سُخِّرت من أجله. الثالث: ملاحظة العلاقة التي جعلها الله بين الإنسان والطبيعة والخالق، وأن الجميع خاضع للخالق، ولا تنفك علاقة الإنسان مع الطبيعة عن علاقته مع الشريعة. الرابع: أن الانتفاع من المسخرات يكون باعتدال من غير إسراف. ويجمع المبادئ الأربعة وصف الأمانة كمصطلح أخلاقي صميم يعني بالضرورة أن الإنسان مسؤول في هذه الأرض عن الفساد (العدوان على الطبيعة) وسفك الدماء (العدوان على الشريعة).
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Pub Date : 2024-01-26DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240002
Peter Adamson, Bligh Somma
Virtue ethics may seem to be a less useful paradigm for ethical thinking than utilitarianism and deontology, insofar as it seems rather vacuous to be told to act as a virtuous person would act. But the topic considered here shows that this need not be true. Since virtue ethicists (and virtuous persons, according to this ethical approach) value the features that make human lives (more) excellent, they also value the features that make other lives (more) excellent, by way of the virtues of mercy, generosity, and justice. And this is true whether or not the lives in question are human or animal. To put it another way, a good agent will be one who shows goodness towards beings who are capable of having good lives. While that phrasing again sounds close to tautologous, it becomes substantive when we spell out which beings have such a capacity, and in what ways things can go well or badly for them. Virtue ethicists from the Islamic world were especially well placed to do that, since they also inherited from Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) a teleological conception of nature. In light of this, it comes to seem almost inevitable that philosophers in this tradition would endorse compassionate treatment of animals. In cases where they fail to do so, the failure is bound up with a tendency to downgrade the value of practical virtue as a whole. Rigorously intellectualist ascetics are unlikely to show much interest in the welfare of animals, being disinterested even in their own animal souls.
{"title":"Virtue Ethics as Animal Ethics in Philosophy of the Islamic World","authors":"Peter Adamson, Bligh Somma","doi":"10.1163/24685542-20240002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24685542-20240002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Virtue ethics may seem to be a less useful paradigm for ethical thinking than utilitarianism and deontology, insofar as it seems rather vacuous to be told to act as a virtuous person would act. But the topic considered here shows that this need not be true. Since virtue ethicists (and virtuous persons, according to this ethical approach) value the features that make human lives (more) excellent, they also value the features that make other lives (more) excellent, by way of the virtues of mercy, generosity, and justice. And this is true whether or not the lives in question are human or animal. To put it another way, a good agent will be one who shows goodness towards beings who are capable of having good lives. While that phrasing again sounds close to tautologous, it becomes substantive when we spell out which beings have such a capacity, and in what ways things can go well or badly for them. Virtue ethicists from the Islamic world were especially well placed to do that, since they also inherited from Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) a teleological conception of nature. In light of this, it comes to seem almost inevitable that philosophers in this tradition would endorse compassionate treatment of animals. In cases where they fail to do so, the failure is bound up with a tendency to downgrade the value of practical virtue as a whole. Rigorously intellectualist ascetics are unlikely to show much interest in the welfare of animals, being disinterested even in their own animal souls.","PeriodicalId":513189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Islamic Ethics","volume":"41 2-4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140493224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-18DOI: 10.1163/24685542-20240001
M. Hashas
{"title":"Islamic Ethics: Fundamental Aspects of Human Conduct, written by Abdulaziz Sachedina","authors":"M. Hashas","doi":"10.1163/24685542-20240001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24685542-20240001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":513189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Islamic Ethics","volume":"121 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139615081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}