Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction

by Michael Cook

• ISBN13: 9780521829137
• ISBN10: 0521829135
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780511075643
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Michael Cook's magisterial study in Islamic ethics, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, was published to much acclaim in 2001. It was described by one reviewer as a masterpiece. In that book, the author reflected on the Islamic injunction, incumbent on every Muslim, to forbid wrongdoing. The present book is a short, accessible survey of the same material. Using anecdotes and stories from Islamic sources to illustrate the argument, Cook unravels the complexities of the subject. Moving backwards and forwards through time, he demonstrates how the past informs the present. By the end, the reader will be familiar with a colourful array of characters from Islamic history ranging from the celebrated thinker Ghazzali, to the caliph Harun al-Rashid, to the Ayatollah Khumayni. The book educates and entertains - at its heart, however, is an important message about the Islamic tradition, its values, and the relevance of those values today.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Map	xiii
1 Introduction	1	(10)
1 Terminology	3	(2)
2 Religious allegiances	5	(2)
3 Sources	7	(4)
2 The elements of the duty of forbidding wrong	11	(16)
1 Why?	11	(2)
2 Who?	13	(8)
3 To whom?	21	(1)
4 About what?	22	(5)
3 How is wrong to be forbidden?	27	(18)
1 With the tongue	28	(1)
2 With the hand	29	(6)
3 Recourse to the heart	35	(3)
4 Are there other ways to forbid wrong?	38	(4)
5 Concluding remarks	42	(3)
4 When is one unable to forbid wrong?	45	(12)
1 The conditions of obligation	45	(3)
2 The efficacy condition	48	(3)
3 The side-effects condition	51	(2)
4 The danger condition	53	(4)
5 What about privacy?	57	(8)
1 The immunity of hidden wrongs	57	(4)
2 Don't expose a respectable Muslim	61	(1)
3 Concluding remarks	62	(3)
6 The state as an agent of forbidding wrong	65	(8)
1 The claims of the state to forbid wrong	65	(3)
2 The scholars on the role of the state: positive views	68	(2)
3 The scholars on the role of the state: negative views	70	(3)
7 The state as an agent of wrongdoing	73	(10)
1 The misdeeds of rulers	73	(1)
2 Rebuking rulers as forbidding wrong	74	(5)
3 Rebellion as forbidding wrong	79	(4)
8 Is anyone against forbidding wrong?	83	(14)
1 Does anyone deny the duty outright?	84	(2)
2 Has the future already arrived?	86	(2)
3 What do the Súfïs have to say?	88	(3)
4 cAbd al-Ghani al-Nábulusi	91	(2)
5 Minding one's own business	93	(2)
6 Concluding remarks	95	(2)
9 What was forbidding wrong like in practice?	97	(14)
1 What wrongs do people commit?	98	(4)
2 Who actually forbids wrong?	102	(3)
3 Forbidding the wrongs of rulers	105	(3)
4 Forbidding wrong and rebellion	108	(2)
5 Concluding remarks	110	(1)
10 What has changed for the Sunnis in modern times?	111	(20)
1 Religious allegiances in the modern Islamic world	111	(2)
2 The interaction with the West: attraction and repulsion	113	(5)
3 Living with the modern state: activism and quietism	118	(4)
4 Towards forbidding wrong in an Islamic state	122	(3)
5 Religious policing in Saudi Arabia	125	(4)
6 Forbidding wrong and privacy	129	(2)
11 What has changed for the Imãmis in modern times?	131	(16)
1 Comparing Imãmis and Sunnis	131	(1)
2 The interaction with the West: attraction and repulsion	132	(2)
3 Living with the modern state: from quietism to activism	134	(3)
4 Towards forbidding wrong in an Islamic state	137	(4)
5 Forbidding wrong and privacy	141	(3)
6 Concluding remarks	144	(3)
12 Do non-Islamic cultures have similar values?	147	(16)
1 What are we looking for?	147	(2)
2 Pre-Islamic Arabia	149	(3)
3 Rabbinic Judaism	152	(1)
4 Medieval Catholicism	153	(3)
5 Non-monotheist parallels?	156	(1)
6 Forbidding wrong and monotheism	157	(2)
7 The distinctiveness of the Islamic case	159	(4)
13 Do we have a similar value?	163	(10)
1 Common ground	163	(2)
2 Rescue and forbidding wrong	165	(2)
3 Right and wrong	167	(3)
4 Concluding remarks	170	(3)
Index	173