Islamic Law and Ethics

 

 

Islam, an example of an ethics of divine command based on a tradition of legal-ethical commentary, one that guides the lives of millions of observant Muslims throughout the world today.  It is often remarked that the characteristic feature of the Islamic community is its deep sense of Divine Law prescribes by God, the source and guide of action to which the faithful “commit.”  For Muslims there is little, if any, distinction among what is legal, ethical, and religious.  It is quite natural then that the expositions of Islamic law all begin with elaborate consideration of religious duties, such as ritual purity, prayer, and pilgrimage. (Livingston)

According to IslamicEthics-Worldviews, there is no division of ethics and law in Islam.  Because of the linkage between Islamic ethics and law, a study of Islamic ethics is more fruitful when done in conjunction with a study of Islamic law.  Historically, Muslims derive their Islamic ethics from the Qur’an and the Hadith.

Living in the light of God; Islamic law and ethical obligation by Khaled Abou El Fadl, raises the question of how the law becomes known has occupied the minds of Muslim jurists for a long time.  In the early centuries, the heated debates, and at times even hostilities, centered around the place and role of ethical principles and reason in the development of the religious tradition.  At one pole was the Mu’tazilis who argued that justice is knowable through human reason; at the other pole, the traditionalists (ah-hadith) argued that reason is necessarily whimsical and capricious, and that justice is only realized through revelation.

However, in modern times, this debate has formally subsided.  Naturally, while there are liberals, like Muhammad Iqbal, who wish to give rationality and reason a far greater role in articulation of Islamic law, there are also fundamentalists, like Al Mawdudi, who look to the law as the source of all morality and justice.  The secularists exclude Islamic law from any public function.

The Divine Law (the shari’a) is both positive law and moral obligation.  This is evident in the way that the jurists classify human acts and duties in moral terms.  Most actions do not come within the law as we in the West conceive law in our secular terms.  How one must act morally may not have any worldly legal validity but, at the same time, may come under the strict sanction of Islamic law.  The moral character of legal actions is classified according to a fivefold scheme:

1.      Actions mandatory on believers

2.      Actions recommended or desirable

3.      Actions neutral or indifferent

4.      Actions objectionable or blame-worthy, but not forbidden

5.      Actions prohibited

This scheme helps devout Muslims to follow “the right way to the water,” that is, the course of duty that will ensure their entry into Paradise on the Day of Judgment.

For us to understand this complex system of Islamic law and ethics, we must study and interpret the textual.  We have seen that the source and norms of ethical action are derived from those divine commands that are set down in the sacred book of the Qur’an.  Perhaps the greatest challenge to the great world-historical religious traditions today is how to deal with the rich diversity of their own sectarian development over time.  The ethical question that they all face is, to what extent can the moral claims that we make remain elastic?  Can they be stretched to accommodate different interpretations without sheer sophistry, without simply licensing incompatible moral behavior?  This is a critical source of the struggle today between the Orthodox and Reform Jews, between fundamentalists and liberal Christian groups in the US, and between similar factions throughout the Muslim world. (Livingston) 

 

Works Cited

Livingston, James C. Anatomy of the Sacred Sixth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009

El Fadi, Khaled A. “Living in the light of God; Islamic law and ethical obligation” ABC Religion and ethics. (Feb.,25, 2013).

Rendered with permission from the book, Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews (Rev 2nd ed), David Noebel, Summit Press, 2006.