Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics

by George F. Hourani

• ISBN13: 9780521035637
• ISBN10: 0521035635
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-04-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This volume collects the published essays of the late Professor Hourani on Islamic ethics in the earlier classical and formative periods of Islamic civilization. Ethics was from the start at the core of Islam, and the construction of philosophical theories to support normative ethics made those centuries among the most profound and intensely active in the history of ethical thought. The book opens with two general and contextual pieces and thereafter it is organized by schools of thought in a broadly chronological order. The essays centre around two related debates in Islamic philosophy: over the ontological status of value, and over the sources of our knowledge of value. The answers developed follow similar lines to the rational theology and philosophy of the West, and Professor Hourani brings out the frequent parallels. As a whole, the volume will introduce and establish the importance of the Islamic tradition of thought about ethics.

Table of Contents

Preface

Foreword

Conventions

Titles and locations of the original articles

Introduction

Islamic theology and Muslim philosophy

Ethics in classical Islam: a conspectus

Ethical presuppositions of the Qur'an

'Injuring oneself' in the Qur'an, in the light of Aristotle

Two theories of value in early Islam

Islamic and non-Islamic origin of Mu'tazilite ethical rationalism

The rationalist ethics of

Deliberation in

Ash'ari

Juwayni's criticisms of Mu'tazilite ethics

Ghazali on the ethics of action

Reason and revaltion in Ibn Hazm's ethicical thought

The basis of authority of concensus in Sunnite Islam

Ibn Sina's 'Essay on the secret of destiny'

Averroes on good and evil

Combinations of reason and tradtion in Islamic ethics

Select Bibliography

Index

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