Sunni Islam and the Natural Law: Natural Law Thought in Al-Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbar, Part 4: Conclusion

ʿABD AL-JABBAR'S THEOLOGY SUPPORTS THE USE OF REASON as a normative source of law, even as a binding source of Sharīʿa obligation, one that is taklif (تكليف). He has an interesting theory of obligation that recognizes both express (i.e., clearly positive) and implicit (i.e., derived through the application of reason) commands of, and therefore obligations from, God.

[God] want [people to do] acts which He informs them [directly (ʿarrafahum) are obligatory or recommended, or erects evidence (dallahum) of that [fact]. It is not taboo to know that [God] wants that, whether from the perspective of reason (jihat al-ʿaql) or . . . from the perspective of transmitted knowledge (jihat al-samʿ) Because of that, it is said that God most high obligates from both aspects together.

Emon, 66-67 (quoting al-Mughni, al-Taklif:299). In other words, the good may be known by both reason and revelation.

ʿAbd al-Jabbar analyzes the relationship between God and man as one between an obligee and an obligor. God is the obligee.* Man is the obligor* (mukallaf or مــكــلّــف), an obligor that is endowed with lutf (conscience) and free will, and is therefore free to either commit or not commit and act in a manner consonant with his obligations owed the obligor. This means that he has the ability to search for and choose the appropriate conduct. This requires reason, both to determine the good and the means toward it, and reason, in particular with its determination of the good, therefore becomes a source of obligation. "It may not be the only source," for al-Jabbar," but it is an important one." Emon, 67.

The role of reason became particularly important where there was no express command from the obligee to the obligor, in the interstices of express command, as we discussed in our first blog posting on the natural law in Sunni Islam. ʿAbd al-Jabbar therefore distinguished between forms of commands, namely express commands (amr or أمر) and implicit commands by indicators (al-ishara or الإشار) which are equally as binding as the express commands. To be just, however, the obligee must inform (taʿrif or تــعــرف) the obligor of the obligation in some manner.

When the commands are not express, ʿAbd al-Jabbar's Hard Naturalism assumes that a just God would nonetheless communicate His will somehow. This communicative process is what ʿAbd al-Jabbar called taʿrif, namely instructing or informing. The obligor [sic] must inform (taʿrif) the obligee [sic] of the obligation. An obligee [sic] can investigate the circumstances to determine if he has implicitly or explicitly been informed of the obligation.

Emon, 67. [*Note in this area, Emon confuses obligor and obligee, confusing the obligor as the person to whom something is owed, and the obligee as the one who owes the debt or obligation. The words are just the opposite of the manner in which Emon uses them. It is hoped that in a future edition he will correct it.]

Reason for ʿAbd al-Jabbar is not mere utilitarian or consequentialist type reasoning. In other words, reason is not simply a determinant of means. ʿAbd al-Jabbar believed that such utilitarian or consequentialist use of reason alone excluded God's intent as it was made manifest in substantive, practical reason which was normative, and not merely methodological. It ignored the plan of God in His creation, the ʿilla (عِــلَّـة) of Allah, what St. Thomas would call the ratio ordinis, the ordering of reason, in creation.

God's intent is ever-present in creation, given ʿAbd Al-Jabbar's concept of rizq, lutf, and tamkin [sic]*, which links our desires and our rational capacities to a divinely created world. For ʿAbd al-Jabbar, we do not simply investigate the factual existence of hardship and benefit in the world, and render our findings as law. Rather, obligation depends upon certain premises about God's creative power and just character. . . .

[Al-Jabbar's] concepts of rizq, lutf, and ʿilla offer a framework that recognizes the authority of reason, and accounts for our inevitable fallibility amidst a theology of a just God. . . .

For ʿAbd Al-Jabbar, reason is an essential element for constructing obligations. In some cases it operates by itself, and in other cases, it evaluates an act in conjunction with scriptural [i.e., the Qur'ān and the Sunnah] texts. The scope he granted reason for making normative evaluations was rather broad, but did not encompass all moral determinations.

Emon, 68, 70.

[*Note: I don't think Professor Emon intended to use tamkin (تــمـكـيـن) here. It is a word he had not previously introduced in the text. I'm no expert on Islam, but I believe tamkin is the religious duty of submission, especially in regard to sex, that woman owes her husband under Islamic law. I think that Professor Emon intended to use the general term for desire, ash-shahwa (الشـهو), which, along with lutf and rizq are constituted as the three prongs, along with an overriding notion of reason in creation,ʿilla, of ʿAbd al-Jabbar's Hard Natural Law theory (see Emon, 62).]

What is particularly significant is ʿAbd al-Jabba's strong notion of reason as a substantive source of norms equivalent, one might say, in dignity to that of the revealed law. The obligations imposed upon man by reason are almost a coadjutor law to the law of the revealed Shariʿa law.

Reason therefore plays a significant role in moving from an assessment of the lutf and the benefits of nature to a reasoned conclusion about right conduct and obligation. Obligations therefore are not simply contingent on express commands and prohibitions by the divine lawgiver. Yet, reason does not operate in a vacuum. The meaningfulness of Shariʿa obligations is premised on a just God who provides sufficient evidence for us to understand the obligations we must observe. ...

The need to engage in naturalistic reasoning is essential for ʿAbd al-Jabbar, and is a path to obligation that is presumed to be authoritative unless otherwise specified. Consequently, unless there are express indicators to the contrary, one can rationally investigate the circumstances of nature to establish the normative value of an act because of a natural teleology that links desires, dispositions, and the created world to the divine will.

Emon, 71.

In summary, it would seem that ʿAbd al-Jabbar did accord a certain dignity to reason to determine substantive norms, and he identifies a handful that seem to have some everyday importance such as gratitude, return of bailments, oppression, deceit without cause, and the general need to act to promote the good. In promoting this view of reason, ʿAbd al-Jabbar is clearly in the Mutazilte camp. In the Euthyphro dilemma, he has sided with those that believe good precedes the right, reason precedes will. ʿAbd al-Jabbar grants a significant concession to human reason, understood in a rich sense and not in the disembodied reason of Descartes or the "pure" reason of Kant, as a source of law. The thinking of ʿAbd al-Jabbar, therefore, allows us some rapproachment with Muslim thinkers in the area of the natural law. However, in practice, confronted with the massive area where the Shariʿa law, built upon the Qur'an and the Sunnah and the massive corpus of jurisprudential precedent and rules (fiqh), one wonders what, if any, role ʿAbd al-Jabbar's theory would have had in the daily life of the ordinary Muslim. Moreover, it would seem that it would be beyond the comprehension of ʿAbd al-Jabbar, and beyond his doctrine, that the Shariʿa law could be criticized or judged by the natural law. If the natural law, for example, were to assess polygamy as unlawful in its very nature, would it overrule the traditional Shariʿa law that permits it? If the natural law were to assess that cutting off a thief's hand is excessive punishment, or the Islamic method of divorce too loose and unfair, or, in the Shiʿa jurisprudence, the doctrine of temporary marriage (the Nikāḥ al-Mutʿah (or نكاح المتعة‎) offensive, would the Shariʿa law be amended? If the natural law were to arrive at a conclusion that human chattel slavery, or sex with slave-women (both allowed in traditional Islam) is intrinsically immoral, would that allow us to trump those provisions of traditional Shariʿa law that allow for it? Would the natural law allow us to judge Muhammad's role as a lawgiver or any of his revelation, legislative acts, or behaviors not in conformity with it? It is doubtful that any Muslim, even one like al-Jabbar, would allow such a role to the natural law. To judge Muhammad by the natural law is something a Muslim would not even entertain. To this degree, at least in the view of the Christian, it would seem that the voice of God's vicar in the Muslim's heart would be squelched. The Muslim, of course, would not view the voice of God's vicar in the heart as a voice that should be heard, but as a voice that must be silenced, one that that should submit without questioning, without murmur, without dissent to the greater demands of the Shariʿa that he sees as an expression of the ineluctable will of Allah. What do we do with a religion that, to protect its prophet and its law, silences the law of God written in the heart of man and counts it as good?

Sunni Islam and the Natural Law: Natural Law Thought in Al-Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbar, Part 3: Why Does God Tell Zayd to Sit?

IN THE LAST TWO POSTINGS WE HAVE looked at ʿAbd al-Jabbar's first two prongs of his theory of jurisprudence which Professor Anver Emon has characterized as a "Hard Natural Law" theory, namely, the notion of divine sustenance, or rizk (رزك), and the notion of synderesis or conscience, lutf (لتـف). The third prong of ʿAbd al-Jabbar's theory pertains to desire, ash-shahwa (الشـهو). Allah created the world for his creatures to enjoy, and without desire there would be not enjoyment. This desire, a created desire (khalq ash-shahwa,خلقالشـهو), "contributes to a normative ordering of [the empirically known] world in light of one's preference for one thing over another." Emon, 62. "For ʿAbd al-Jabbar, human desire . . . create an initial starting point for natural law reasoning about obligation." Emon, 63.

ʿAbd al-Jabbar's notion of desire is not a "whatever-feels-good-do-it" ethic. He does not advance a subjectivist, relativistic, hedonistic ethic. "Rather, the desire element embraces the moral agency of the individual." Emon, 63. Therefore desire, or lack of desire, was not an absolute and reliable guide. We sometimes experienced desires for things that are not authentic goods; at other times we do not feel desire for those things that are good. Additionally, some of our desires are accompanied by pain and hardship in their fulfillment. So while the hardship may not be desired, the ultimate end may be desired. So we do things that we do not desire as a means for an end that we do desire. Sometimes a cost/benefit analysis must be undertaken.

In al-Jabbar's view, one must avoid the Scylla of pure objectivity (lutf alone) or pure subjectivity (shahwa alone). Rather both lutf (conscience) and shahwa (desire) must be reconciled within the greater wisdom of creation, what ʿAbd al-Jabbar calls ʿilla (عِــلَّـة), a word meaning reason and which al-Jabbar uses "to capture the idea of wisdom . . . the circumstantial context of the wisdom that makes creation good . . . [and] the circumstances that are susceptible to human rational inquiry, and which demonstrate the purposefulness and beneficial quality of creation." In short, what Christians traditionally have regarded as the Eternal Law (q.v.)

The ʿilla operates in ʿAbd al-Jabbar's natural law theory as a focal point of rational deliberation in order to prevent human desire from becoming so self-referential as to lose its connection to the larger natural world. Indeed, even God recognizes that knowing the circumstances surrounding an act is necessary to know its normative quality: 'God's knowledge of the goodness of the thing leads to His choice of it.'

Emon, 64 (quoting al-Mughni,al-Taklif:96).

ʿAbd al-Jabbar is clearly in the Mutazilite camp. He has taken a clear choice in the Euthyphro dilemma, on the side of reason over will. The example he gives of why Zayd should stand or sit in his al-Mughni leaves no doubt about his leanings:

To illustrate his point, ʿAbd al-Jabbar wrote: 'it would not be good for God to obligate Zayd to stand or sit, as He obligates the return of bailments, fairness, and thanking the benefactor when there is no good in [standing or sitting].'

Emon, 64 (quoting al-Mughni, al Taklif: 149) In this case, circumstances, not intrinsic or inherent properties, determine whether Zayd should stand or sit, yet whether bailments, fairness, thanking benefactors, or whether Zayd should sit or not is involved, whether God wills certain activity is determined by the question of good. Good precedes right. That is, God wills something because it is good; it is not good merely because God arbitrarily wills it. God wills whether Zayd should stand or sit depending upon the circumstances and whether it would be to Zayd's good. In other words, God's will always has a reason behind it.

Should Zayd Stand or Sit?

In assessing the reason behind creation, Allah's ʿilla, our knowledge of nature and of circumstances, particularly those that are future and are anticipated, are not by any means perfect. This ʿAbd al-Jabbar concedes. Only God has perfect, indefeasible knowledge of all: past, present, and future. Yet despite this lack of perfect insight, man may act, and act rightly, though he act only on the basis of preponderance of opinion, ghalabat az-zann (غلبت الظنن): "Any act of ours is good on the basis of the preponderance of opinion." Emon, 65 (quoting al-Mughni, al Taklif: 89) "Zann can be a circumstance establishing the goodness of acts." Emmon, 66 (quoting al-Mughni, al-Taklif:268). Moral certainty of the good, not absolute certainty of the good, is required for an act to be accorded as good.

The last important component in ʿAbd al-Jabbar's moral theory is will or irada (إرادة). ʿAbd al-Jabbar observes that though men have a desire to behave in certain ways, and though they have a faculty that would guide them both intellectually (lutf) and sensibly (shahwa), they do not always act so. Man has the capacity to act against the natural right that so informs him, even against the preponderance of opinion, the ghalabat az-zann. "The irada involves a determination of particular course of conduct and a choice to act in that manner." Emmon, 65. Man's created will, even though it can be abused in this way, is God's gift. If man uses his will against his lutf and the ghalabat az-zann, one may be assured that God will punish him for it.

It is clear from this review of ʿAbd al-Jabbar's moral thinking that he sees man as having a free agency, one that involves various components, and one that is ordered toward fulfilling his good with a combination of both impulse, reason, and will. How does man's moral agency comport or fit with the will of Allah? The answer to that question will be answered in our next, and last posting on what Emon calls the "Hard Natural Law" theory of the Mutazilite Muslim thinker ʿAbd al-Jabbar.

Sunni Islam and the Natural Law: Natural Law Thought in Al-Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbar, Part 2: The Prophet Within Man Called Lutf

THE ALL PROVIDENT ALLAH not only provided for man and indeed the entirety of creation with sustenance (rizq), but he also provided man with a sort of internal compass on its distribution. ʿAbd al-Jabbar referred to this guiding principle within man as lutf (لتف). Lutf is what drives the motive, the underlying urge behind an act. It is not a deterministic urge, as one can either choose or not choose that which the lutf. Emons explains: "In ʿAbd al-Jabbar's theory of Hard Natural Law, lutf is a term of art that reflects the God-given human dispositional traits or motivations that propel us towards the good and keep us away from evil. . . . In short lutf is a dispositional trait that directs us to the good. By itself, it does not determine action, but rather represents humanity's divinely created innate sense of the good." Emon, 58. Lutf is sort of an internal prophet.

Al-Jabbar ("The Compellor") one of the 99 Names of Allah

When the lutf is followed, then there is a correspondence between the lutf and the act which ʿAbd al-Jabbar called tawfiq (توفيق). When prohibitively or admonitionally the lutf urges one not to act in a certain manner and that prohibition is followed by not acting, that negative correspondence is called ʿisma (عشـم). Whether in tawfiq or in ʿisma, correspondence with the guidance of lutf means one is free from sin. On the other hand, the lack of correspondence with lutf means one is in sin.

The lutf represents the potentiality in human nature to engage in morally righteous thought and conduct. That potentiality may not always result in specific moral action, but the possibility that it might is all that ʿAbd al-Jabbar required to situate the telos of his natural law theory.

Correspondence with the lutf not only assures us freedom from sin, and from concomitant punishment, but it also provides for self-fulfillment. In other words, the lutf corresponds to our own internal happiness. Yet correspondence to the lutf does more than merely perfect the individual; it is also related to social or communal fulfillment.

Emon provides a summary of the relationship between rizq and lutf in ʿAbd al-Jabbar's teaching in his al-Mughni:

The lutf or dispositional quality in human nature certainly offers a guide to all of us who wish to understand the will of God. The imperative to understand the lutf and follow is guidance is based on the fact that it guides us to self-fulfillment. For ʿAbd al-Jabbar, benefit is not calculated in utilitarian or consquentialist fashion. The benefit is designed to promote self-fulfillment, which makes the obligation both justified and meaningful in ʿAbd al-Jabbar's Hard Natural Law theory. ʿAbd al-Jabbar did not suggest that we always know and follow our lutf. But he did not need to offer such a thesis to philosophize about the ontological authority of reason in the law. The mere possibility that we can reason to the good and the bad using our divinely endowed lutf is all that he needed to formulate his naturalist thesis about reason and the telos of the Shariʿa.

Emon, 61-62. It would seem, then, that the notion of lutf in ʿAbd al-Jabbar is analogous to, if not identical with, the notion of synderesis or conscience in the Christian tradition.

Sunni Islam and the Natural Law: Natural Law Thought in Al-Qadi ʿAbd al-Jabbar, Part 1: Even the Cat is Entitled to his Rizk

AL-QADI ʿABD AL-JABBAR WAS ALMOST CERTAINLY MUTAZILITE in his theology, and this affected his jurisprudence. Believing that the good was defined, not principally by God's will, but by its intrinsic nature or reason, God willed things because they were good; things were not good merely because God willed them. In the Euthyphro dilemma, al-Jabbar did not side with the Asharite voluntarists, but with the Mutazilite rationalists.

Al-Jabbar was born into a family of limited financial resources in Asadabad. Early in his life he became a student of Islamic thought. Originally Asharite in theological view, he went to Basra in Iraq as part of his studies. At the time he studied in Basra, that city was an important cultural and educational center of the Buwayhid Empire. It purportedly had a library with thousands of volumes, a delight to any scholar's heart regardless of his doctrine. Notably, the Buwayhid Empire was Shiite and Mutazilite, and one may safely infer that al-Jabbar's stay in Basra affected his theological commitments. "Historians suggest that during his say in Basra, ʿAbd al-Jabbar abandoned his earlier Ashʿarite commitments and became a Muʿtazilite theologian. . . . certainly [he was] an important writer within the Muʿtazilite tradition." Emon, 50-51. He was an advocate of the Shafi'i school or madh'hab, one of the four main legal madh'ahab of Sunni Islam.

Relying principally on al-Jabbar's al-Mughni Professor Emon argues that al-Jabbar developed a Hard Natural Law theory that relied on certain key concepts. These concepts included the notion of sustenance (rizk or رزك), obligation (taklif or تكليف), divine assistance (lutf or لتف), legal theory (ash-sharʿiyyat or الشرعيـية), and justice (at-taʿdil wa 'l-tajwir or التعديل وألتجوير). In this posting we will focus on al-Jabbar's notion of rizq.

Al-Jabbar sees Allah as the great provider, the One who provides all men with sustenance, with rizq. Rizq is "an empirically verifiable good that sustains human life, as a matter of fact." The notion of rizq fused both fact and value because of its linkage to Allah the Provider:

Importantly, since rizq is bestowed by God, it offers a basis for fusing fact and value in nature, and the sustenance it provides. At the most primordial level of existence, rizq is normatively good and thereby 'permissible' to all, especially since ʿAbd al-Jabbar theologically held that God only does the good . ... All things in the world, including acts by human beings, are fundamentally part of God's creation. Therefore at a primordial level, they reflect God's goodness, unless source-texts [i.e, the Qur'ān and the Sunnah] indicate otherwise. . . .ʿAbd al-Jabbar fused fact and value in nature, akin to al-Jassas, by considering the primordial state of all rizq to be permissible, and thereby good.

Emon, 52. Similar to al-Jassas (whom we analyzed in a prior post), ʿAbd al-Jabbar regarded creation as necessarily being for the good of man, since it could not be futile (which would imply foolhardiness), and it could not be for God's benefit (since God is self-sufficient), but it must needs be beneficial (nafʿ or نفع) because being beneficial is part of God's nature.

The benefits of creation (rizq) are available to all men, and implied in this is an ordering of distribution. "Rizq considered in a primordial sense prior to distribution presents the initial state of nature's factual and normative good. Upon its distribution, entitlements arise by which someone can claim a certain rizq to the exclusion of others: with distribution comes a regime of obligations and prohibitions." Emon, 53.

But distribution of rizq should be a just. One particular man is not entitled to more than his share of rizq because he holds coercive force or is driven by greed. The distribution must be just, and this means it must be guided by reason. "Consequently, ʿAbd al-Jabbar embedded his conception of rizq within a teleology characterized by the term lutf." Emon, 53.

Lutf reflects the divinely created dispositions of human beings that direct humans to the good. This is not to say that all people will do the good all the time. Nonetheless, humans ought to pursue a distribution of the rizq by taking into consideration their dispositions or lutf, all of which are created by God and form the basis of a divinely created natural teleology that justifies, authorizes, and guides naturalistic reasoning.

Emon, 53.

Ottoman Miniature of a Cat

The concept of rizq or "sustenance" is important in ʿAbd al-Jabbar's judicial philosophy, and it warrants further elaboration. In fact, it is the presence of rizq wherein we can find the "normative beginnings of a legal order." Emon, 57. In ʿAbd al-Jabbar's view, God created the world in such a manner that it would sustain mankind, thus intending to benefit man and presumptively providing him that benefit for him to enjoy. Indeed, such benefits are accorded to all God's creatures, not only mankind. God is the great provider; it is one of the 99 names of Allah: الرزاق, ar-Razzāq, the Provider. As an example of the importance of rizq in the determination of what is good and right, ʿAbd al-Jabbar referred to the hadith of Al-Bukhari regarding a woman who locked up a cat, refused to feed it and not would not allow it to be released so that it could feed itself. In short, the woman refused the cat its rizq. When learning of this, Muhammad is supposed to have said that her punishment on the Day of Judgment for refusing the cat his rizq would be torture and Hell. Rizq is an important concept if denying it to a cat lands you in Hell.

This underlying purpose in nature and the concept of rizq allows nature to have both an empirical and a normative value. The world and man's desires are just not there, they are there for a purpose which should be recognized and respected. The world's benefits are for mankind, and to take advantage of the divine sustenance is good, hasan (حَسَن). This divine largess was given to all mankind generally. God did not intend to benefit some men over others, and the benefits of God were therefore without particular or individual title. Nevertheless, though the underlying general intention of God that all benefit from his benefits remains unchanged, man, being a rational animal, is expected to use rational means to distribute these natural benefits among those of his kind. Once such distribution is made, however, and private property recognized, it ought to be respected. But before such a distribution among men, the benefit (rizq) is generally intended and it continues in the background, as it were, in any system of private distribution.

The presumption of permissibility, which arises out of the theory of rizq, is the means by which ʿAbd al-Jabbar fused fact and value in his natural law theory. Presumptively, things 'are created for [humanity] to enjoy and they are sustenance for them [all] from this perspective.' Because creation is a boon for humanity from a just and willing Creator, creation embodies an affirmative normative value that entitles people to use their reason to order their affairs, based on the benefits they perceive. Permissibility here is the theoretical means by which ʿAbd al-Jabbar fused fact and value to create a naturalistic foundation for rational speculation. By rooting his approach to a purposeful creation of nature, he provides a normative, naturalistic foundation as an initial starting point for legal reasoning.

Emon, 54-55. Since the distribution and use of God's benefits must be in accord with reason, reason is the tool or vehicle by which the benefits are determined. ʿAbd al-Jabbar here adopts two general principles: a harm principle and a claim principle. ʿAbd al-Jabbar's tenth century doctrine here sounds oddly, almost anachronologically Lockean.

Reason allows us to limit the permissibility "to instances 'there is neither temporal nor eternal harm imposed on us for doing so, nor on someone else.'" Emmon, 55 (quoting al-Mughni, al-Taklif:33) In other words, at a secondary level, a cost/benefit analysis must be engaged in so that if engaging in conduct or enjoying some benefit results in excessive harm either to ourselves or to others, then such conduct or enjoyment should be avoided. ʿAbd al-Jabbar reasoned: "It is established as a matter of reason that avoiding harm in a manner that is known with certainty or probability to avoid [that harm] is obligatory." Emmon, 55 (quoting al-Mughni, al-Taklif: 43) There was no benefit without some harm, there was some "factual indeterminancy" in every benefit or good, and so it is the preponderance of benefit over harm that makes a benefit permissible. "If . . . in the preponderance of X's opinion when X undertakes some acts to obtain the rizq, [and] enjoy it while experiencing some hardship [his undertaking] is necessarily good." Emmon, 56 (quoting al-Mughni, al-Taklif: 44)

In addition to his "harm principle," ʿAbd al-Jabbar also invokes a "claim principle" in his notion of proper ordering of God's benefits among men in accordance with reason. If there is a benefit that can be enjoyed without undue harm to others, so that it is permitted to a man, and that man lays a claim to it, then he becomes the owner of it.

ʿAbd al-Jabbar used the claim principle to explain the distinction between his presumptive state of creation, where everything is permissible for everyone, and the later developments of obligations and prohibitions reflecting the incorporation of the claim and harm principles. Property law offers a jurisprudential analogy by which ʿAbd al-Jabbar illustrated how a naturalistic theory of obligation stars from a presumption of the normativity of nature, and proceeds to the determination of obligations and prohibitions that arise once a system of ownership is in place.

Emmon, 56-57.

The proper distribution of rizq requires the understanding of another principle, lutf. That concept in al-Jabbar's work will be discussed in our next posting.