Virtues In Muslim Culture

With remarkable breath of vision, Dr. Gehan S. A. Ibrahim background, not with the outer appearance of things, but with their inner reality, the meaning of Islamic ethical culture. Ranging across the literature of the Muslim era, Islamic art objects, and Islamic architecture, Dr. Ibrahim penetrates to the inner dimension of Islamic moral values and shows the role culture plays in the life of the individual Muslims - the role of the formation of the code of morals of the Muslim era. By rediscovering the root of the moral concepts in the Islamic tradition, Dr. Gehan S. A. Ibrahim opens doors to new dimensions of the unity and variety in form and meaning of the moral values since the dawn of the Muslim era.

"Traditional Islamic Ethics: The Concept of Virtue and its Implications for Human Rights" concentrates on the subject of Islam and modernity and Islam and human rights, a topic that has become popular and relevant with the rise of globalization and the interest in Islamic extremism and human rights. This book distinguishes itself by operating within the framework of the traditional school of thought or ‘Islamic Traditionalism’. In doing so, it draws on Islam’s 1400-year-old spiritual and intellectual tradition and its understanding of ethics and virtue, along with truth, justice, freedom, and equality. This book argues that Islam’s pre-modern approach is indispensable in creating an organic and integral human rights model for Muslims. The first section argues that the current understanding and implementation of international human rights needs to be more flexible and inclusive if it truly aims to be universal in scope; this is because ‘The Universal Declaration’ and its offshoots are still underpinned by secular-liberal principles, and therefore, are at odds with other cultural traditions. To this end, this section critically explores popular human rights histories and contemporary ethical theories that attempt to justify human rights. The second section of this book provides a general overview on the subject of ‘Islam and Human Rights’. After explaining some of the main problems, this section examines various solutions offered by Muslim academics and scholars, focusing on four different types of Muslim responses to modernity and human rights: liberal, progressive, traditional, and fundamentalist. It concludes that there are ‘spaces of convergence’ between modern-liberal ethics and traditional Islamic virtue ethics while maintaining that there are also fundamental differences and that these differences should be welcomed by human rights theorists and advocates. The book’s intended audience is primarily post-graduate students and professional academics in the fields of Human Rights, Ethical Philosophy, and Islamic Studies (modern Islamic thought, Sufism, Islamic theology, Islamic Philosophy, and Traditionalism). It will also appeal to anyone interested in the subject of Islam and modernity in general and Islam and human rights in particular.

This book discusses the common principles of morality and ethics derived from divinely endowed intuitive reason through the creation of al-fitr' a (nature) and human intellect (al-‘aql). Biomedical topics are presented and ethical issues related to topics such as genetic testing, assisted reproduction and organ transplantation are discussed. Whereas these natural sources are God’s special gifts to human beings, God’s revelation as given to the prophets is the supernatural source of divine guidance through which human communities have been guided at all times through history. The second part of the book concentrates on the objectives of Islamic religious practice – the maqa' sid – which include: Preservation of Faith, Preservation of Life, Preservation of Mind (intellect and reason), Preservation of Progeny (al-nasl) and Preservation of Property. Lastly, the third part of the book discusses selected topical issues, including abortion, assisted reproduction devices, genetics, organ transplantation, brain death and end-of-life aspects. For each topic, the current medical evidence is followed by a detailed discussion of the ethical issues involved.

This volume, the first of six to be published, studies fundamental values of Islam, along with the nature of rights and the responsibilities in a general context. The authors analyse the development of social thought and morality in Islam, and ways in which they are enforced through the family and education. Particular attention is paid to the status of women, children, youth and the socially excluded. Several chapters broach specially Islamic approaches to economics, government and justice. A world religion since its inception in the seventh century A.D., Islam is today seeking vigorous answers to contemporary problems through its multi-faceted history. Issues of poverty and wealth, inequality and demands for political expression, and respect for diversity in a difficult world of conformity are dealt with in this series. The study is organized along thematic rather than chronological lines and thus it is not necessary to read the volumes in order. Volume II is in fact the first to have been published. Volume IV is forthcoming end 2002, volume V mid 2003 and volumes III and VI in 2004. This volume, the first of six to be published, studies fundamental values of Islam, along with the nature of rights and the responsibilities in a general context. The authors analyse the development of social thought and morality in Islam, and ways in which they are enforced through the family and education. Particular attention is paid to the status of women, children, youth and the socially excluded. Several chapters broach specially Islamic approaches to economics, government and justice.

Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship addresses how Islamic ethical and legal traditions can contribute to current global debates on migration and displacement; how Islamic ethics of muʾakha, ḍiyāfa, ijāra, amān, jiwār, sutra, kafāla, among others, may provide common ethical grounds for a new paradigm of social and political virtues applicable to all humanity, not only Muslims. The present volume more broadly defines the Islamic tradition to cover not only theology but also to encompass ethics, customs and social norms, as well as modern political, humanitarian and rights discourses. The first section addresses theorizations and conceptualizations using contemporary Islamic examples, mainly in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees; the second, contains empirical analyses of contemporary case studies; the third provides historical accounts of Muslim migratory experiences. Contributors are: Abbas Barzegar, Abdul Jaleel, Dina Taha, Khalid Abou El Fadl, Mettursun Beydulla, Radhika Kanchana, Ray Jureidini, Rebecca Gould, Said Fares Hassan, Sari Hanafi, Tahir Zaman.

There are few ideals of character as distinctive and divisive as the ancient virtue of 'greatness of soul'. A larger-than-life virtue embodying nothing less than a vision of human greatness, it has often been seen as a relic of the Homeric world and its honour-loving heroes. In philosophy, it found its most celebrated expression in Aristotle's ethics, and it has lived on in the minds of philosophers and theologians in different forms ever since. Yet among the many lives this virtue has led in intellectual history, one remains conspicuously unwritten. This is the life it led in the Arabic tradition. A virtue of Greek warriors and their democratic epigones -- what happened when this splendid virtue made landfall in the Islamic world? This world, too, had its native heroes, who bequeathed their conception of extraordinary virtue to posterity. Heroic virtue is above all expressed in a boundless aspiration to what is greatest. Could we admire such virtue enough to want it as our own? What can we learn from the Arabic tradition of the virtues? In answering these questions, Sophia Vasalou elucidates a larger family of virtues that are united by their preoccupation with all things great: the 'virtues of greatness'. An important constituent of the character ideals expounded within the Islamic world, this type of virtue tells us as much about the content of these ideals as about their kaleidoscopic genealogies.

"A study of the key characteristics and qualities of the Prophet Muhammad, considered by a contemporary Western convert to Islam"--Provided by publisher.