The Ethical Obligations of the Muqallid Between Autonomy and Trust (Istafti Qalbaka Wa in Aftâka Al-Nasu Wa Aftûka)
FESTSCHRIFT IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR BERNARD WEISS, Forthcoming
Posted: 14 Jul 2009 Last revised: 19 Dec 2020
Date Written: July 10, 2009
Abstract
Managing one’s faith is a complicated process. In this draft chapter, which will be published in forthcoming a Festschrift in honor of Professor Bernard Weiss, Professor Mohammad Fadel surveys the various arguments on how Muslims who lack the capacity to engage in independent ethical inquiry (ijtihad) are to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise as a result of the recognition of moral pluralism within Islamic ethics. This paper discusses the different approaches to this question taken by two different groups of Sunni Muslim theologians. The first, known as takhyir, holds that a non-specialist Muslim, a muqallid, is free to choose among any of the positions advanced by a qualified mujtahid. The second, known as tarjih, holds that a muqallid is obliged to weigh the merits of the competing opinions, not based on their substance, but rather on the personal qualities of the mujtahids who hold the competing opinions. Both positions, however, require non-specialists to identify trustworthy authorities so that they can discharge their ethical obligations by aligning themselves with the opinions (taqlid) of reliable scholars. The paper concludes by questioning whether the purely epistemological approach adopted by traditional Muslim theologians in answering this question is capable of providing a satisfactory answer to the problem of ethical obligation in Islamic moral theory that arises out of Islamic commitments to moral pluralism, and instead suggests that the mujtahid-muqallid relationship is more akin to a trust relationship than one based on intellectual deference.
Keywords: moral pluralism, Islam, takhyir, muqallid, mujtahid, ethical obligations, Islamic moral theory
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