Moral Habituation in the Law: Rethinking the Ethics of the Sharīʿa
Abstract This essay contributes to a longstanding concern with the place of ethics in Islamic law, suggesting a reorientation of the debate through a consideration of the role of habituation in works of uṣūl and furūʿ. I demonstrate that the well-known emphasis on habituation in Aristotle’s ethics,...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2019
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| In: |
Islamic law and society
Year: 2019, Volume: 26, Issue: 3, Pages: 191-226 |
| Further subjects: | B
Islamic Ethics
B moral cultivation B Islamic Law B Ḥanafism B Habituation B Aristotle |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Abstract This essay contributes to a longstanding concern with the place of ethics in Islamic law, suggesting a reorientation of the debate through a consideration of the role of habituation in works of uṣūl and furūʿ. I demonstrate that the well-known emphasis on habituation in Aristotle’s ethics, and its underlying conception of character, exerted a heavy influence on writers of akhlāq works. I then examine the development of three fiqhī concepts – idmān, iqāma and iṣrār – to show how jurists embedded this conception of moral behavior in the discursive fiqh tradition, linking their disapproval of persistent sinful or morally distasteful behavior to a tangible legal effect: the forfeiture of the violator’s standing before the court. Based on this finding, I argue that jurists and moralists operated in a shared universe of normativity in which the commitment to habituation as a premier mode of ethical cultivation was held in common. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5195 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Islamic law and society
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685195-00263P01 |