Program

Test Islamic Ethics. Classical Approaches and Contemporary Issues

Time limit: 365 days

£650 Enroll

Full program description

DESCRIPTION

This module will explore contemporary Muslim responses to ethical questions on issues such as economics, human diversity, the regulation of sex, and medical ethics in light of the dominant theoretical approaches to ethics in the history of Muslim thought. Discussion of applied contemporary ethical questions will be approached after an exploration of diverse ethical discourses arising from readings of scripture, jurisprudence, theology and philosophy. The survey of methodological approaches and assumptions informing different ethical trajectories in Islamic intellectual traditions will be driven to help understand key trends and challenges in contemporary Muslim ethical thinking enabling an in depth engagement with the debates arising from a range of applied cases.

Key readings, assigned each week, will be taken from a range of secondary sources supported with primary source material, in translation, and further reading lists. These readings are chosen to deepen students familiarity with the diversity of classical genres relevant to ethical discourse in Islam, and enable a critical engagement with contemporary ethical thinking on applied issues. 

An innovative level one course within the Hawza Programme, this module will demonstrate to students the interaction and overlap between traditional disciplines studied within a Hawza or Madressa context regarding ethical questions in Islam. It will ground the importance of subsequent studies, and allow for independent enquiry that relates classical tradition to contemporary responses to some of the most important ethical questions facing Muslims and Islamic thought today.

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Knowledge and understanding of: how competing visions of the Qur’an, Shari‘a, kalām, akhlāq and their relation to theological and philosophical assumptions, inform contemporary ethical debates in Muslim thought.

Intellectual skills: be able to interpret and critically engage with complex ideas and technical disciplines, connecting the relevance of theoretical debates to applied issues. 

Professional practical skills: To be able to make appropriate use of library and information resources. Evaluate conflicting views through appraisal of the ideas of others and the development of independent reasoning. 

Transferable skills: understand, interpret and communicate complex ideas effectively. Ability to develop well-grounded argumentation in oral discussion and in formal writing.

 

ASSESSMENT

Assessment Method Weighting (%)
Assignment 40%
Written Exam 60%

 

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

WEEK TOPIC(S)
Week 1 Introduction, meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics
Week 2 Role of revelation in Islamic ethics
Week 3 The jurisprudential traditions
Week 4 Theological ethics
Week 5 Theological ethics, Akhlaq in philosophical traditions
Week 6 Tends in Islamic ethics, Ethics and Tasawwuf
Week 7 Recap. Al-Ghazālī and Al-Kāshānī
Week 8 Moral turns in Islamic jurisprudence and hermeneutics I
Week 9 Moral turns in Islamic jurisprudence and hermeneutics II
Week 10 Moral turns in Islamic jurisprudence and hermeneutics III
Week 11 Islamic Economics, Banking and Finance I
Week 12 Islamic Economics, Banking and Finance II
Week 13 Sexual ethics in Islam I
Week 14 Modernity and Muslim ‘family law’
Week 15 Islam & medical ethics
Week 16 Euthanasia: a good death
Week 17 Review, discussion and exam prep

 

READING LIST

Introductions and Quranic Ethics

Key Readings: Moosa, Ebrahim. “Muslim Ethics?” In The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, ed. William Schweicker, 237–243. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

Reinhart, A. Kevin. “The Origin of Islamic Ethics.” In The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, ed. William Schweicker, 244–253. London: Blackwell, 2005. Reinhart, A. Kevin, “Ethics and the Qur’ān”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Available online

Indicative further reading: Introductions: Nanji, Azim. “Islamic Ethics.” In A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer, 106–118. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

Stelzer, Steffen A. J. “Ethics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter, 161–179. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Quranic ethics

Denny, Frederick M. “Ethics and the Qur’an: Community and World View.” In Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, 103–121. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1983.

Draz, M. A. The Moral World of the Qurʾan. Translated by Danielle Robinson and Rebecca Masterton. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008.

Hourani, George F, “Ethical Presuppositions of the Qur’an.” Muslim World 70 (1980): 1–28. Izutsu, Toshihiko. Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾan. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1966. 

Rahbar, Daud. God of Justice: A Study of the Ethical Doctrines of the Qurʾan. Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1960.

Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Qur’an. Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980.

Rahman, Fazlur, “Some Key Ethical Concepts of the Qur’an.” Journal of Religious Ethics 11.2 (1983): 170–185.

Jurisprudential ethics: the ethical nature of Sharī‛a, fiqh, uṣūl and qawāid 

Key Readings: Ahmed, Shahab. What is Islam? : The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. pp. 117-129 

Peters, Rudolph and Bearman, Peri “Introduction: The Nature of Sharia” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law, eds. Rudolph Peters and Peri Bearman, 1-10. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

Reinhart, Kevin A., “Islamic Law as Islamic Ethics.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 11, No. 2 (1983): 186-203

Rahman, Fazlur. “Law and Ethics in Islam.” In Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian,  3-15. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1983.

Indicative further reading: press, 2009 Hallaq, Wael B. Sharī‘a. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2009

Nyazee, Imran Ahsan Khan. Islamic Jurisprudence: Uṣūl al-Fiqh. Islamabad: International Institute of Islamic Thought, Islamic Research Institute, 2000.

Peters, Rudolph and Bearman, Peri (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014 Weiss, Bernard G. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006.

Theological ethics and debates on morality in ‘ilm-kalām

Key Readings: Al-Attar, Mariam. “The Ethics and Metaphysics of Divine Command Theory” in The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, eds. Richard C. Taylor and Luis Xavier Lopez-Farjeat, 315-325. London: Routledge, 2015.

Leaman, Oliver. Islamic Philosophy: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.

Chapter 6 ‘Ethics’, pp. 106-117 Sachedina, Abdulaziz. “Islamic Ethics: Differentiations.” In The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, ed William Schweicker, 254-266. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

Indicative further reading: Bhojani, Ali-reza. Moral Rationalism and Sharīʿa: Independent rationality in modern Shī‘ī uṣūl al-fiqh. London: Routledge, 2015.

Hare, John E. God’s Command. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. pp. 184-222

Hoover, Jon. Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2007. Hourani, George F. Islamic Rationalism: The Ethics of Abd al-Jabbar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971 Hourani, George F. Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge  University Press, 1985b.

Jackson, Sherman A., “The Alchemy of Domination? Some Ash‘arite Responses to 

Mu‘tazilite Ethics.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31 (1999): 185–201. Makdisi, George. “Ethics in Islamic Traditionalist Doctrine.” In Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, 47–63. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1983.

Martin, Woodward and Atmaja. Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu‘tazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003.

Shihadeh, Ayman. “Theories of Ethical Value in Kalām: A New Interpretation.” In The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke, 384-407. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Vasalou, Sophia. Moral Agents and their Deserts: The Character  of Mu‘tazilite Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Vasalou, Sophia. Ibn Taymiyya’s Theological Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015

Zysow, Aron. “Two Theories of the Obligation to Obey God's Command.” In The Law  Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shariʿa: A Volume in Honor of Frank E. Vogel, eds. Peri Bearman, Wolfhart Heinrichs, and Bernard G. Weiss, 397–421. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008.

Philosophical ethics (Akhlāq)

Key readings: Adamson, Peter. “Ethics in philosophy”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. 

Bucar, Elizabeth. “Islam and the Cultivation of Character: Ibn Miskawayh’s Synthesis and the Case of the Veil” in Cultivating Virtue: Multiple Perspectives, ed. Nancy E. Snow, 197-226. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Bucar, Elizabeth “Islamic Virtue Ethics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Virtue, ed. Nancy E. Snow, 206-223. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Fakhry, Majid. Ethical Theories in Islam (2nd Edition). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994 

‘Part Three: Philosophical Ethics’ pp.61-147

Further indicative reading: Adamson, Peter. “The Arabic tradition.” in The Routledge Companion to Ethics, ed. John Skorupski, 63-75. London: Routledge, 2010).

Butterworth, Charles E.. “Ethics in Medieval Islamic Philosophy.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 11, no. 2 (Fall, 1983): 224-239.

Madelung, Wilferd. “Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s ethics between philosophy, Shīʿism and Sufism,” in Ethics in Islam, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, 85–101. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1983.

Miskawayh, Ahmad ibn Muhammad. The Refinement of Character. Trans. Constantine K. Zurayk. Chicago: KAZI Publications, 2002 al-Ṭūsī, The Nasirean Ethics. Trans. George Michael Wickens. London: Allen & Unwin, 1964

Ethics in tasawwuf and irfān

Key Readings: Chittick, William C.. Imaginal worlds. Ibn al-ʿArabī and the problem of religious diversity. Albany: State University of New York press, 1994 Chapter 3, “Ethics and antinomianism” pp. 39–50

Heck, Paul L., “Mysticism as morality. The case of Sufism,” Journal of Religious Ethics 34, no. 2 (2006): 253–86

Heck, Paul L., “Ethics in Ṣūfism”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. 

Fakhry, Majid. Ethical Theories in Islam (2nd Edition). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994 ‘Part Four: Religious Ethics’ pp. 151-206.

Indicative further reading: Awn, Peter, J, “The Ethical Concerns of Classical Sufism” The Journal of Religious Ethics 11, no. 2 (Fall, 1983): 240-263

Synthesizing ethical discourses; the case of al-Ghazālī

Key readings: Winter, Tim, “Introduction” in Al-Ghazālī on Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires: Books XXII and XXIII of the Revival of the Religious Sciences. Trans. T. J. Winter. Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 1997. pp XV-LVIII Al-Ghazali, “The Mystical Ideal, or the Quest of God: Al-Ghazali” in Majid Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994 (2nd Edition) pp. 227-231

Further indicative reading: Al-Ghazali The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, Trans. David B. Burrell and Nazih Daher. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1992 

Hourani, George F., “Ghazālī on the Ethics of Action.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 96, no.1 (1976): 69–88.

Sherif, Mohamed Ahmed. Ghazali’s Theory of Virtue. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.

Moral turns in Islamic Jurisprudence and hermeneutics

Key readings: Johnston, David “A Turn in the Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Twentieth Century Uṣūl al-Fiqh.” Islamic Law and Society 11 (2003): 233–282.

Johnston, David, “Maqāṣid al-Shari‘ah: Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Muslim Theologies of Human Rights” Die Welt des Islams 47 (2007): pp. 149-187.

Kadivar, Mohsen, “From Traditional Islam to Islam as an End in itself” Die Welt des Islams 51 (2011): 459-484.

Opwis, Felictas. “Islamic Law and Legal Change: The concept of Maslaha in Classical and  Contemporary Islamic Legal Theory.” In Shari’a: Islamic Law in Contemporary Context, eds. Abbas Amanat and Frank Griffel, 62-82. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.

Saeed, Abdullah. “Fazlur Rahman: a framework for interpreting the ethico-legal content of the Qur’an.” In Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, ed. Suha Taji-Farouki, 37-66. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Indicative further reading: Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Speaking in God’s Name; Islamic Law, Authority and Women. Oxford: Oneworld, 2003. Bhojani, Ali-reza. Moral Rationalism and Sharīʿa: Independent rationality in modern Shī‘ī  uṣūl al-fiqh. London: Routledge, 2015. Duderija, Adis, “Towards a Scriptural Hermeneutics of Islamic Feminism” Journal of  Feminist Studies in Religion 31, No. 2 (2015): pp. 45-64.

Emon, Anver M. Islamic Natural Law Theories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Emon, Anver M. “Islamic Natural Law Theories” in Natural Law: A Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Trialogue, eds. Emon, Levering and Novak, 144-187. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnī Uṣūl al-Fiqh. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Chapter 6, pp. 207-254 Hallaq, Wael B. Sharī‘a. Cambridge; Cambridge University press, 2009 pp. 500-542 Rahman, Fazlur.

Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Saeed, Abdullah, “Ijtihad and innovation in Neo-Modernist Thought in Indonesia” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 8, No.3 (1997): 279-295.

The ethical goals and moral deficit In Islamic Banking and Finance 

Key Readings: Abdullah, Saeed. “Sharia and Finance” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law, eds. Rudolph Peters and Peri Bearman, 249-259. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

Asutay, Mehmet, “Conceptualisation of the second best solution in overcoming the social failure of Islamic Finance: examining the overpowering of Homoislamicus by  Homoeconomicus.” IIUM Journal of Economics and Management 15 (2007): 167-195.

El-Gamal, Mahmoud. “Incoherence of contract-based Islamic financial jurisprudence in the age of financial engineering.” Wisconsin International Law Journal 25 (2007-2008): 605-623

Haider Ala Hamoudi, “Jurisprudential Schizophrenia: On Form and Function in Islamic Finance”, Chicago Journal of International Law 7 (2007): 605-622.

Wilson, Rodney and Ahmed A. F. El-Ashker. Islamic economics: A Short History. Leiden: Brill, 2005 Chapter nine ISLAMIC ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE: ISLAMIC ECONOMICS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY in pp 348-407 

Wilson, Rodney. Economics, Ethics and Religion: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Economic Thought. Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 1997. Chapter 3 115-163 

Indicative Further reading: Chapra M. Umer. Objectives of The Islamic Economic Order. Markfield: Islamic Foundation, 1996. El-Gamal, Mahmoud Amin. A Basic Guide to Contemporary Islamic Banking and Finance. Houston: Rice University, 2000.  El-Gamal, Mahmoud A. Islamic Finance: Law, Economics, and Practice. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2006. El-Sheikh, Salah, “The Moral Economy of Classical Islam: A FiqihiConomic Model.” The  Muslim World 98 (2008): 16-143.

Kuran, Timur. Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 2004. Rahman, Fazlur. “Riba and Interest.” Islamic Studies 3, no. 1 (1964): 1–43. Zaman, Asad. “Islamic Economics: A Survey of the Literature.” Working Paper No. 22. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, Religions and Development Research  Programme, 2008.

Sexual ethics in Islam 

Key readings: Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and  Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.‘Chapter one: Marriage, Money and Sex’ pp. 1-27 Barlas, Asma. “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. 

‘Chapter five The Qur’an, Sex/Gender, and Sexuality’, pp. 129-166

Al-Ghazālī on Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires: Books XXII and XXIII of the Revival of the Religious Sciences. Trans. T. J. Winter. Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 1997. Pp. 165-191

Indicative further reading: Ali, Kecia. Feminist Sexual Ethics project:Muslim Sexual Ethics Waltham, MA:Brandeis University, 2003 Web resource (http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/muslim/index.html)

Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and  Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006 Ali, Kecia. “Timeless Texts and modern morals –Challenges in Islamic Sexual ethics” in New Directions in Islamic thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradtion, eds. Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen & Christian Moe. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009.

Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. Sexuality in Islam. Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Routledge and Kegal Paul, 1985. ‘Chapter one: The Quran and the question of sexuality’ pp. 7-13. Chaudhry, Ayesha S. Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford  University Press, 2013. Barlas, Asma. “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid.

Marriage and Sexuality in Islam: A Translation of al-Ghazali’s Book on the Etiquette of Marriage from the Ihya. Trans. Madelain Farah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984.

Islamic medical ethics: End of life decision 

Key readings: Principles: Ghaly, Mohammed. “Deliberations within the Islamic Tradition on Principle-Based Bioethics: An Enduring Task” in Islamic Perspectives on the Principles of Biomedical Ethics, ed. Mohammed Ghaly, 3-39. London: World Scientific Publishing, 2016.

Krawietz, Birgit. “Sharia and Medical Ethics” in The Ashgate Research Companion to  Islamic Law, eds. Rudolph Peters and Peri Bearman, 291-305. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Padela, Aasim I., “Islamic Medical Ethics: A primer.” Bioethics 21 No. 3 (2007): 169-178.

Euthanasia: Brockopp, Johnathan. “The “Good Death” in Islamic Theology and Law” in Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia, ed. Johnathan E. Brockopp, 177-193. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.

Fatemi, Seyed Mohammad Ghari S., “Autonomy, Euthanasia and the Right to Die with Dignity: A Comparison of Kantian Ethics and Shi’ite Teachings.” Islam and ChristianMuslim Relations 18, No. 3 (2007): 345-353

Krawietz, Birgit “Brain Death and Islamic Traditions: Shifting Borders of Life ?” in Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia, ed. Johnathan E. Brockopp, 194-213. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.

Indicative further reading: Brockopp, Johnathan E. (ed.) Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.

Brockopp, Jonathan, and Thomas Eich (eds.) Muslim Medical Ethics. Columbia: University  of South Carolina Press, 2008. Ebrahim, Abul Fadl Mohsin. Organ Transplantation, Euthanasia, Cloning and Animal Experimentation: An Islamic View. Leicester, UK: Islamic Foundation, 2001. 

Ghaly, Mohammed, “Human Embryology in the Islamic Tradition: The Jurists of the Postformative Era in Focus.” Islamic Law and Society 21, no.3 (2014): 157–208. Ghaly, Mohammed (ed.) Islamic Perspectives on the Principles of Biomedical Ethics. London: World Scientific Publishing, 2016 

Ramadan, Tariq. Radical reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ‘Chapter 11: Islamic Ethics and Medical Sciences’ pp. 159-182. Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century. Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1993. Sachedina, Abdulaziz, Islamic Biomedical Ethics: Theory and Application. Oxford: Oxford University Press, February 2009.

Islam & religious diversity 

Key readings: Chittick, William C. ‘The Ambiguity of the Qur’anic Command’ in Khalil, Mohammad Hassan, ed. Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, And The Fate Of Others. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) pp. 65-86

Mohammad Fadel, ‘“No Salvation Outside Islam”, Modernists, Democratic Politics, and Islamic Theological Exclusivism’ in Khalil, Mohammad Hassan, ed. Between Heaven and  Hell: Islam, Salvation, And The Fate Of Others. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) pp. 35-61.

Jon Hoover, ‘A Muslim Conflict over Universal Salvation’, in Alternative Salvations:Engaging the Sacred and the Secular, ed. Hannah Bacon, Wendy Dossett, and Steve Knowles (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 160-171.

Further reading: Jackson, Sherman, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014) 

Khalil, Mohammad Hassan, ed. Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, And The Fate Of Others. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) Khalil, Mohammad Hassan. Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012)

Trajectories in Islamic Ethical thinking 

Key readings: Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Reasoning with God; Reclaiming Shari’ah in the Modern Age. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Chapter 11: Beyond a reasonable Shari’ah, pp. 359-389

Abou El Fadl, Khaled. ‘Qur’anic Ethics and Islamic Law.’ Journal of Islamic Ethics 1  (2017): 7-28 Ahmed, Shahab. What is Islam: The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016  pp. 514-537

Denny, Frederick Mathewson. “Muslim ethical Trajectories in the Contemporary Period” In The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, ed. William Schweicker, 268-277. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ramadan, Tariq. Radical reform: Islamic ethics and liberation. Oxford: Oxford University  Press, 2009. ‘Chapter 10: Elaborating an Applied Islamic Ethics’ pp. 126-158.

Further indicative reading: Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Reasoning with God; Reclaiming Shari’ah in the Modern Age. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014 Ramadan, Tariq. Radical reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 Ramadan, Tariq, “The challenges and future of applied Islamic ethics discourse: a radical  reform?” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (2013): 105-115. Sajoo, Amyn B. Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004