Things in Themselves: Nafs al-Amr & the Metaphysical Foundations of Objective Truth

In a philosophical idiom that attempts to be intelligible to the reader who is not traditionally trained, this study outlines various dimensions of traditional Islamic ‘correspondence’ theories of truth. It particularly argues that purely intelligible, ‘abstract’ concepts, universal natures and general principles objectively apply to the world, against schools of thought that contend that they …

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The Anatomy of Knowledge & the Ontological Necessity of First Principles

This paper in the series explores one of the first principles of metaphysics, the principle of identity in its logical form, namely, the principle of non-contradiction, and the relationship between its metaphysical and logical dimensions. It is invariably the task of revelation to provide definable and recognizable references that can be brought into human understanding. …

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Rights and Duties Pertaining to Kept Animals

A case study in Islamic Law and Ethics by Musa Furber. Animals are at the heart of many of today’s heated ethical and legal debates. This paper presents a survey of Qur’anic verses and prophetic narrations related to kept animals, and a study of one school’s application of this evidence to the topic of kept …

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Muhammad Shahrur’s “Cargo Cult”: A meditation on his underlying conceptual framework

The purpose of this paper is to present an integral critique that explores the underlying conceptual structure of the work of Muhammad Shahrur. It is the author’s contention that every thinker and writer is an inheritor of a chain of ideas or an intellectual system that he necessarily manifests in his writings, consciously or unconsciously. …

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Obligations to Future Generations: A Shari‘ah Perspective

Actions of an earlier generation affect whether later generations will exist at all as well as the quality and type of life they will have. Discussions concerning the obligations earlier generations owe later generations have proven to be useful when thinking about the environment, economics, sustainability, and other issues. Western thinking about obligations to future generations …

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A Global Ethic: Its Scope and Limits

Taha Abderrahman, the author, holds that a critical window of opportunity remains open for theistic world views to collectively provide a program of shared ethics. However, it is his assertion that recent attempts to furnish a set of fundamental criteria, in the name of world religions, have failed to deliver on the promise. Drawing on the …

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