The Ethical Worldview of the Qur’an
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Introduction
A worldview is a comprehensive philosophical view of the world we live in and interact with and it encompasses all aspects of reality, physical and metaphysical. A worldview represents one’s most fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the universe one inhabits. It is the perspective from which one sees and interprets life and it is the way one finds meaning and purpose in life. It answers questions such as “Who am I?” and “Where do I come from?”
Wilhelm Dilthey defined a worldview as a global conception that combines a picture of reality, a sense of meaning, and principles of conduct that correspond to thinking, feeling, and will. Accordingly, there are three main types of worldview: religious, artistic, and philosophical. Although one type may predominate, it rarely excludes the others.
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Thus, although we are dealing mainly with the philosophical/ethical worldview of the Qur’ān, which pertains to principles of conduct, we cannot divorce it from the other two dimensions of a worldview, namely the religious and artistic. These three dimensions should then provide the criteria for evaluating the permissibility of any moral action and serve as a guide for decision-making when faced with various moral dilemmas confronting people in the contemporary context.
The Islamic worldview is a philosophical view of the world rooted in the Islamic vision of life and reality. It provides a comprehensive Islamic framework of concepts and perspectives regarding the Oneness of God (tawḥīd) and His relationship with the world, man as the vicegerent on earth (khalīfah), human free will and responsibility, divine destiny, and the ultimate abode in the hereafter. The ethical worldview of the Qur’an is an Islamic worldview, but with emphasis on the ethical dimensions. The Qur’an is a book of guidance (hudā) for humanity and a criterion (furqān) to distinguish between good and bad actions. It is only with proper guidance that one is able to surrender to the will of God, and not the whims of man.
The Islamic ethical worldview, although primarily religious because it is based on the ethical and metaphysical teachings of the Qur’an, is also philosophical in orientation and, therefore, for a fully integrated Islamic ethical worldview, we need to also apply reason to our understanding of the Qur’an. Although there is much work ahead of us in this respect, most of the groundwork in the area of Islamic ethics has already been accomplished by classical Islamic philosophers of the eleventh century, including: Miskawayh (d. 1030), author of Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq (Refinement of Character), al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1060), author of al-Dharī‘ah ilā Makārim al-Sharī‘ah (The Means to the Noble Qualities of the Revealed Law), and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), author of Mīzān al-‘Amal (The Scale of Action) and the Iḥyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences). These Islamic philosophers have shown us how to integrate revelation and reason. They were open-minded representatives of Islam and were not afraid to integrate foreign philosophical sources of knowledge into the ethical worldview of the Qur’an. Al-Iṣfahānī and al-Ghazālī developed an ethical philosophy, which can be regarded as religious, because it is based on the Qur’anic revelation. A mere glance at al-Iṣfahānī’s ethical treatise shows the extent to which he cites verses from the Qur’an on every page.
Ethics are concerned with a rational examination of principles and rules that guide appropriate moral conduct. The Arabic word for morality is akhlāq (good character), which is etymologically related to al-Khāliq (the Creator), and makhlūq (the created), which assumes a good relationship between human beings and God, and a good relationship between human beings. Islamic ethics is not exclusively philosophical, but is multi-disciplinary, as it connects with other disciplines, including jurisprudence, theology, and Sufism. Majid Fakhry divides ethical theories in Islam into four categories: scriptural morality, theological theories, philosophical theories, and religious theories.
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Although this essay will focus on scriptural morality, which is based on the ethical pronouncements of the Qur’ān and Prophetic Traditions (aḥādīth), it cannot be divorced from the other categories as the commentators of the Qur’ān inevitably bring to bear their own orientations upon their ethical interpretations, whether they lean towards theology (kalām), philosophy (falsafah), or Sufism (taṣawwuf). The aim of this and subsequent essays is to demonstrate how these various orientations have shaped the ethical theories of the classical Islamic ethicists such as Miskawayh, al-Iṣfahānī, and al-Ghazālī.
The primary sources for all of these ethical thinkers are the Qur’ān and the Prophetic sunnah, although Islamic philosophers like Miskawayh were more dependent on the ancient Greek tradition, especially Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Nevertheless, such Islamic philosophers never ignored the Qur’ān as a source of inspiration in the formulation of the general Islamic ethical worldview. The Qur’ān and the Prophetic Traditions are not philosophical works, but they have provided a framework for the philosophical and theological explication of Islamic ethics.
As already mentioned, the early classical Islamic philosophers were open-minded representatives of the intellectual Islamic legacy and were not afraid to integrate knowledge from foreign philosophical sources into the moral worldview of the Qur’ān. For example, they adopted the tripartite division of the soul into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible faculties, and the cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice that emerge from the balance of these three faculties under the predominance of the rational faculty. Islamic philosophers adopted this Platonic-Aristotelian psychological paradigm and integrated it into an Islamic Weltanschauung. Such models of the integration of knowledge inspired the Christian Thomas Aquinas and the Jewish Maimonides, who both quoted extensively from the works of al-Ghazālī. Thus, a worldview implies a certain philosophical influence, and any formulation of a particular worldview typically involves a selective and judgmental response to lived experience. To integrate experience into a coherent worldview we are expected to filter out certain aspects of reality. That is to say, we need to apply a certain value-judgment to achieve such coherence. It is therefore inevitable that these ethical Islamic thinkers, although inspired by the Qur’ān as a common source, would end up with different value-judgments. They were inspired by the ancient philosophical tradition of their time but constructed it in accordance with their own theological, philosophical, or Sufi orientations. While the early Islamic philosophers were more faithful to the Greek tradition, later scholars, including al-Iṣfahānī and al-Ghazālī, integrated the philosophical with the religious tradition. Al-Iṣfahānī developed an Islamic ethics that is fully integrated into Qur’ānic teachings and inspired al-Ghazālī to do the same, except that al-Ghazālī’s ethics took on an explicitly Sufi orientation.
The Qur’an is a book of guidance that appeals to both the mind and heart and lays down a unified ethical system anchored in eternally valid and life-enriching moral principles. A feature of the Qur’an is the blending of law and morality, as in the message on divorced women: “And so, when you divorce women and they reach the end of their waiting term, then either retain them in a fair manner or let them go in a fair manner. And do not retain them to their hurt or by way of transgression; whoever will do that will indeed wrong himself. Do not take the signs of God in jest and remember God’s favor upon you.”
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Thus, moral action is not only a personal matter but also a social concern and always connected to belief in God:
Piety is not to turn your faces towards the East and the West; piety is he who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book and the Prophets; who gives of his money, in spite of loving it, to the near of kin, the orphans, the needy, the wayfarers and the beggars, and for the freeing of slaves. [And truly pious] are those who keep their word whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in times of peril; it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they who are conscious of God.
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Given the prominence of ‘right action,’ Muslim scholars have emphasized this theme and developed an extensive body of laws based on moral action and categories of actions that are obligatory, recommended, or simply permissible. With the current emphasis on human rights, there seems to be a need to review certain legal aspects of the Qur’ān; our focus will be rather on moral principles and some key ethical concepts that are important for a coherent and integrated framework. Values such as justice and benevolence are key virtues that shape the content of the moral world of Islam, and they are also broad and flexible enough to apply to the concrete situations of today. These moral values are voluntary in nature, and so they are free expressions of the human soul. For al-Iṣfahānī, acts of worship (‘ibādat) are compulsory for every Muslim, but the moral virtues, which are supererogatory (nawāfil) and based on one’s own volition, are additional to worship and define who is truly fit to become a vicegerent of God (khalīfat Allah), or a friend of God (walī Allah).
These virtues are the keys to happiness in this world and the next and must be conceived within the ethical worldview of the Qur’ān, where God is the center of all things. By virtue of God’s attributes such as Justice, Mercy, and Generosity, He permits all things, and empowers and guides everything. The Qur’ānic worldview is theocentric and directs humankind towards human salvation. The stamp of tawḥīd (the Oneness of God) is an intrinsic part of human nature (fiṭrah) and actions in obedience to God reflect His Oneness.
Man has been granted a trust (amānah), which is his free will. However, the heavens and earth refused to accept this trust: “Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it. Lo! He hath proved a tyrant and a fool.”
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Thus, Islam recognizes the liberty of the individual but there are limits to this liberty, as in the prohibition of suicide and abortion.
I discuss below the main principles that make up the moral worldview of the Qur’ān: responsibility and accountability; justice and benevolence; sin and repentance; and intention and sincerity. I have selected what I believe to be the most important moral concepts that shape the ethical worldview of the Qur’ān. These are not isolated concepts but are connected to one another and fit within the metaphysical worldview of the Qur’ān. The metaphysical worldview of the Qur’an provides the basic vision and mission set out for humankind. Imam al-Iṣfahānī, the eleventh-century Islamic moral philosopher, and precursor to Imam al-Ghazālī, sets out the purpose of man as involving three duties: the duty of khilafah (vicegerency), the duty of imarah (the cultivation of the earth), and the duty of ibadah (worship). Al-Iṣfahānī states in his ethical treatise:
Man was created for three purposes. Man’s first purpose is in the cultivation of the earth, as is implied in the verse: He brought you out from the earth and made you inhabit it (Q. 11:61). So man must earn his livelihood, for his own sake and for the benefit of others. Man’s second purpose is to worship God. As He says: I have not created jinn and mankind except to worship Me (Q. 51.56). This means that man should obey God’s commandments and prohibitions. Man’s third purpose is his vicegerency, referred to in: He will make you successors in the land and then observe what you will do (Q. 7:129), and in other verses. Vicegerency is the imitation of God in accordance with one’s ability to rule by applying the noble virtues of the Law: wisdom, justice, forbearance, beneficence, and graciousness. These virtues draw Man to Paradise and close to God Most High.
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If man pursues these three duties, he will attain happiness in this world and the next world. Happiness in this world too, as Islam is not monastic but world-affirming and requires of the human person to play his role in the cultivation of the earth and the development of society. These three duties should be kept in mind when undertaking any moral action, which is not merely being good for the sake of being good, but has a higher purpose in this world, and which ultimately brings man close to God. As noted from the quoted passage, for man to attain the high status of vicegerency, he would first have to perform his duty of worship and submission to God, and this is the very foundation of ethics in Islam. Without worship, man’s ethical conduct and the internalization of the virtues would not have a higher purpose. And without the virtues, the believer would remain at the level of servitude to God, but could not possibly attain to the high level of vicegerency. Thus, there is a hierarchy with respect to the duties of man, and the lower duties are prerequisites for the higher functions of human life.
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About The Author
