Mysticism and Ethics in Islam (open access) (Sheikh Zayed Series for Arabic and Islamic Texts and Studies; American University of Beirut Press, 2022)
Free publication
Armando Montoya Jordán’s Review of Orfali, Khalil, and Rustom (eds.), Mysticism and Ethics in Islam (Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, 2024)
Is the science of ethics entirely separate from mysticism, or might mysticism be the foundation of ethics? Or, conversely, might mysticism be the fruit of a higher ethics? these and other such questions come to the fore in a variety of ways in this important volume, a commendable attempt to produce a historical and conceptual survey of the intersections between mysticism and ethics in Islam.
The book addresses the parameters of ethics within the Muslim tradition through the analyses of a variety of authors who wrote in languages as diverse as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Russian, and Chinese. Many of them, we learn, were not necessarily bound to the postulates of Greek philosophy, even though the latter did exert a tremendous influence on the
development of ethics in Islam by defining some of the key problems in the discipline.
Al-Daghistani, R. (2023): “Tawwakul and rajāʾ The Concepts of Trust and Hope (in God) from an Islamic-Mystical Perspective”
Abstract:
This article illustrates the concepts of trust (tawakkul) and hope (rajā’) from an Islamic- mystical perspective. To do so, I will first reflect on the term »Islamic mysticism« and methodologically question its legitimacy. Given this background I will then approach the term »Sufism« (taṣawwuf) and try to briefly highlight its main character as a »spir- itual science« and »mystical way«, consisting of different »states« and »stations«, among which »trust«and »hope« occupy important positions. I will next attempt to illuminate trust and hope in the context of Islamic mysticism (Sufism), by referring to some classical Sufi authors and their understandings of both terms. The study will finish with some concluding remarks on trust and hope.
Justice, Nonaggression, and Military Ethics in Islam – Asma Afsaruddin
“In the sixteenth century, the Spanish jurist Francisco de Vitoria helped de- velop the principle of noncombatant immunity in Europe, which today has become a hallmark of modern international law. This principle is foregrounded in the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols enacted in 1949 that form the core of in- ternational humanitarian law, as well as in the Nuremberg Charter of 1943 that deals with war crimes. In his legal work, de Vitoria explicitly identified those who should be considered noncombatants and given protection during military combat: women and children, agricultural laborers, travelers, and the civilian population in general. In his conception of a universal law, the seventeenth-century Spanish jurist Las Casas similarly emphasized the need to protect women and children, religious functionaries, serfs, and other noncombatants during war. Interestingly, the requirement that these categories of noncombatants should be protected during armed combat was already well entrenched within the Islamic law of nations or international law (known as siyar in Arabic) that had crystallized by the eighth century”
Maratib al-Taqwa: Sa’id al-Din Farghani on the Ontology of Ethics
“Given the philosophical tradition’s explicit acknowledgment that “the Necessary in Existence” (al-wājib al-wujūd) is a proper designation for God per se, and given the fact that this acknowledgment came to be shared by various forms of Sufism and Kalam, it should come as no surprise that many scholars who investigated the reality of the human, “created upon the form of God,” concluded that ethical perfection amounted to the soul’s harmonious conformity with the Real Existence (al-wujūd al-ḥaqq). Early on, philosophers tended to keep ontology separate from ʿilm al-akhlāq, the science of ethics, but they used expressions like al-tashabbuh bi’l-ilāh, “similarity to the God,” and taʾalluh, “deiformity,” to designate the state of human perfection. Achieving perfection demanded transformation of khulq“
Some honest talk about Non-Indigenous Education; Our Schools Our Selves. Winter 2011. Vol.20, No.2, pp.19-34
Abstract:
This narrowness is not by accident — it is by design. Big “E”Education has to limit who gets in and what it does in order tobe able to confer both valuable credentials on its graduates, andlegitimacy on the subjects under its gaze.Ask the Oppenheimerfamily how DeBeers made its fortune with diamonds: to makesomething valuable you have to make it scarce.If we read between the lines of thi sAccord,
Application instituting proceedings and request for the indication of provisional measures THE HAGUE – The International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Abstract:
“Proceedings instituted by South Africa against the State of Israel on 29 December 2023 – Request for the indication of provisional measures – Public hearings to be held on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 January 2024”
Atonement, Returning, and Repentance in Islam – Atif Khalil
Abstract:
“The aim of this article is to demonstrate how in Islam the principle mechanism for atonement lies in tawba(returning, repentance). Divided into four sections, and drawing primarily on the literature of classical Sufism, the analysis begins by defining some key terms related to the idea of atonement, with special attention to the language of the Quran. Then it outlines three conditions of returning, repentance, and atonement, delineated by classical Muslim authorities, before turning to a brief overview of the concept of amending wrongs or settings matters aright. It concludes with some final remarks about the possibilities of atonement available until death, and the soteriological role divine mercy is believed to play in the posthumous states of the soul“