Ethical Theories in Islam.

• Author: Gutas, Dimitri

Ethics is not an easy subject to study in the context of Islamic civilization. In the West, because Christianity developed within a culture imbued with Greek philosophy and had constantly to grapple with it and adapt itself to it, ethics is well defined both as a concept and an area of traditional philosophical studies with a tolerably clear range. Although the very same philosophical ethics is also present in Islamic civilization (the Greek word "ethics," referring to that part of philosophy, was translated with the Arabic calque ahlaq), one would not wish to restrict Islamic ethical thought to the relatively limited Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature of an Aristotelian or Neopythagorean pedigree. If not, then the problem arises how to define the nature and range of Islamic ethical thought without, on the one hand, importing and imposing upon it Western conceptual categories (loaded, because of the very nature of the subject, with normative biases), and on the other, accepting so broad a definition for it, by including every moral sentiment ever expressed, as to rob it of any meaningful specificity. Dwight M. Donaldson, Presbyterian missionary and the author of the first book-length study on the subject in English, well aware that "Muslim ethical literature . . . covers an exceedingly wide field,"(1) judiciously avoided the first alternative and took the second, presenting what is essentially an anthology of quotations by everybody, including major Sufis and the Persian poets (see the chart below).

Since Donaldson's book, the discussion of the subject has gained in sophistication. Philosophical precision in the definition and analysis of concepts and areas of Islamic ethical literature was achieved in the works of George F. Hourani and his path-breaking study of Abd al-Gabbar.(2) The criteria for the study of Islamic ethical texts which he adumbrated in his opening chapter (pp. 1-16, a masterpiece of bayan and igaz) Hourani later published in a seminal article, "Ethics in Medieval Islam: A Conspectus."(3) In this article he developed two sets of two criteria, based on method and sources, in order to classify types of Islamic ethical thinking. The two criteria based on method determine whether ethical positions are arrived at through the prescription of a higher authority or through analytical thinking ("normative" and "analytical" ethics), while the two criteria based on the sources of ethical knowledge determine whether it comes from secular or religious sources ("secular" and "religious" ethics). "Thus we can derive a fourfold scheme of types of writing on ethics: (A) Normative religious ethics. (B) Normative secular ethics. (C) Ethical analysis in the religious tradition. (D) Ethical analysis by [secular] philosophers" (p. 128, repr. p. 15). Hourani's typology was accepted by Mohammed Arkoun, a scholar who has worked with consistency on Islamic ethical traditions. Arkoun went beyond a purely philosophical analysis and enriched the discussion by incorporating into it social, political, and cultural dimensions; specifically, he wanted to question the relevance and significance of the traditional material for contemporary Islamic societies. This latter interest is paramount also in the concise study of Peter Antes.(4) Finally, various aspects of Islamic ethical traditions, and especially the legal ramifications, were extensively studied in the Ninth Giorgio Levi della Vida Biennial Conference held in 1983.(5)

With all this preliminary work at his disposal, Fakhry had an excellent opportunity in the book under review - indeed, with the second printing of the book, two...