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Amir Saemi, "Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil" (Oxford UP, 2024)
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Welcome to the New Books Network
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Shahnaz Haqqani
hello Salam, and welcome to the New Books Network podcast. I'm your co host Shahhnaz Haqqani. Today I am in conversation with Amir Saimi about his wonderful book that I cannot recommend highly enough called Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and A New Problem of Evil, published in 2024 with Oxford University Press. Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond. A New Problem of Evil is a fascinating and deeply thought provoking book that challenges how we think about Scripture, morality, and divine authority. Saimi tackles what he calls the new problem of evil, a divinely prescribed problem of evil, which is the tension between the commands found in sacred texts, our own moral judgments, and the belief in a morally perfect God. Saimi demonstrates the limits of Scripture first approaches, which is to say that Scripture is given precedence over our own independent moral judgments in cases where the two conflict. He then explores ethics first, solutions that allow the believer to take moral reasoning seriously, while also showing that Scripture's injunctions can be understood as legal or social mandates. By tracing the arguments of the Asharis, the Mu'tazilis, and other medieval Islamic thinkers and groups, and developing alternative solutions, Saimi offers a methodical and historically grounded framework for reconciling moral judgment with scriptural authority. In our conversation today, Amir And I explore how Islamic philosophers like Al Ghazali, Razi Al Farabi and others navigated the relationship between reason and revelation and how we might approach morally troubling passages in scripture today, including through an ethics first approach and the limitations of even that. We also discuss thick and thin moral concepts, the Moses principle, and what it means to reconcile modern moral sensibilities with ancient texts. Amir shares insights on gendered morality, the ethical significance of the Abraham story, and the broader implications of his work for progressive Muslims and other theists alike. This book is essential reading for readers who might be interested in the ethics of interpretation, in the challenges faced by contemporary religious communities when reinterpreting historical texts, theists who are wrestling with moral dilemmas, and anyone who is interested in the intersection of philosophy, religion and ethics. This here is my conversation with Amir Saimi about his book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond A New Problem of Evil.
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Hannah
Hi Salaam. Amir, thank you so much for joining me to talk about your new book, Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond A New Problem of Evil. I had so much fun reading it. I will also was frustrating a lot of the times because of the different debates and all of that. But thank you so much for writing it and thank you so much for making time to talk to me about it today.
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Amir Saimi
Hi Shahnaz. I'm very happy to be here and thank you for reading the book and having me here.
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Hannah
Of course, of course. So our first question on this podcast is to invite our authors to tell us a little bit about themselves. Where are you based? Where? How did you begin your journey in Islamic studies in ethics, philosophy? What got you here?
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Amir Saimi
Okay, so I was born and raised in Iran. So when I was in college, so there was this really big, like cultural debate about modernity and religion, right? So at the time the society was becoming much more like modern. And then we have the government and the older generation, really, that have a more traditional view of Islam. And the young generation, me among them, were all caught up in this debate. So I was very much interested of religion and minority, but at the time I was good at math, so I was doing like electrical engineering, right? So I didn't do philosophy at the time. And then I got an offer, like from somebody in France to do like a PhD in electrical engineering in France. So I wanted to select, so I moved to do PhD in engineering, my study there. Since I was always interested in philosophy, I decided that it's enough, like engineering is enough, I have to turn to philosophy, right? So the very next Day after I defended my dissertation, I moved to California, to UC Santa Barbara to study philosophy. So I have been always interested in ethics. And in California I just did like mainstream analytic moral philosophy. But I remember that I had a friend there called Arash Naroki. So we had like, long discussions about like, religion and modernity. And there was like one particular argument that was always very, like, interesting for me. So I had heard this argument from like conservatives, like, be it Muslim, Christian or Jews. So the argument basically is this. Look, we are no God, so our epistemic standpoint is very limited. So we don't know the grand scheme of things, right? So now suppose that God says that you should eat such and such, or you should treat women in such and such way, or. Or sexual minorities in such and such way, right? So who are we to judge God's directives? Right? We don't have access to all the moral facts that God has access to. Right? So maybe from inside, from our limited perspective, there is something wrong about those directives. But again, who are we to judge? So let's call this argument the argument from morally hidden facts. So there are morally hidden facts, or they might be. There might be morally hidden facts that we don't have access to and God does. And given our limited perspective, we are not in position to question the directives of God as reflected in scripture, like, be it the Quran or the Bible. Right? So this was like an argument that I had often heard from conservatives, and I was very much interested in that argument. So I didn't write on that argument. When I was doing my PhD in Philosophy, I wrote my dissertation on mainstream analytic moral philosophy. But after I defended my dissertation, I thought that I have to write about that problem. And morality and revelation is my take on that problem.
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Hannah
Thank you so much for that answer. Because it also answers the next question that I was going to ask. Why this book and why now, et cetera. You know, in, in Pakistan, this question of. It's, it's, it's really disturbing. Like every, every few years, Pakistan will enact a law in support of women. So there's one against domestic violence in one state, in one of the provinces in Pakistan. And then the response to it was, how dare you take away our right to hit women when God has given us that. Like, when God has given us that. Right? And so as I'm reading this book, I'm thinking, wow, like, there's a huge. I mean, I know that the Islamic tradition is vast and I know that I will never get through every text, obviously but to read about some of these arguments that these scholars have debated, these questions they have asked, they have struggled with, okay, when do I, when is, when does a literal interpretation apply? When do I ignore what the text is literally saying? The whole bunch of principles that you talk about that I would love for our audience to, to learn about shortly. And I'm reading this and there's such a sense of deep sadness that there are even scholars who are like, nope, God, you know, this is not what God means. Or even if God means this, we do get to have like, we do have power, we do have morality. It's not. I love the Moses principle. That was such a wonderful take by the way, on the Moses, the Musa and Khadr story, Khidr story. I just, I'd never looked at it that. So one of my friends recently suggested that it was one of the most
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Shahnaz Haqqani
powerful ways to read that story from
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Hannah
an ethical standpoint is that. And from a very human standpoint is that we are so human that no matter what happens, our innate nature is to ask questions and to not do what to, to, to. To not give in to what seems wrong. And I was like, that is so powerful. Like that's so the point, the point that I'm trying to make is that I, I loved the book. Like it's, I mean it fills this wonderful ba. This wonderful gap of well, here's. I mean there are a bunch of morally controversial text passages in every scripture in the world and to pretend that our hands are tied. We just, we can't help but we have to just do. No we all. We've always known it was about interpretation. Interpretation is always connected to power and it's always connected to politics. So thank you for unpacking this really wonderfully relevant sadly topic and for writing this book about it and for. I mean I just, I learned so much. I, I like, I'm not a philosophy person at all. So a lot of this stuff, I was like, let me look up what this means. Oh, let me reread this. Like, oh, the, the. It was really, really fascinating. So thank you for, again I'm going to keep saying thank you so much for writing the book. So let's go ahead and then talk about some of the main arguments of the book. And we can, for the purpose you use some of the specific morally controversial passages you address in the book. We can stick to something like female led prayer, something Amanda was talking about, but wife beating. Right. If we assume that The Quranic verse 434:1 interpretation or the Majority interpretation, sadly, is that men can hit their wives or we can, you know, the cutting of the hands of thieves or, you know, or things for adultery, et cetera. So what, what are, what is, I don't want to say one main argument because I feel like you've got a bunch of really important arguments here. What are some main arguments? What are the question, the, the main questions and the, the arguments you're addressing. And then tell our audience also about what your approach is to, what your methods are for answering those questions.
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Amir Saimi
Thank you, Shaina. That was such a nice review of the project. So look here, the book is called Monetary Revolution Islamic Thought on a New Problem of Evil. So let me start with this. What is the new problem of evil? So at the center of the book is this problem that I call the problem of divinely prescribed evil. So the problem of divinely prescribed evil is basically a tension between three thesis, three propositions. So the first proposition is that scripture here, the Quran is divine, right? So I called it like the divinity of scripture. So the divinity of scripture says that the Quran is God's work. So this is the first statement. So the second proposition is the existence of. Seemingly divinely prescribed ima. So you gave like two examples. So there are passages in scripture, again, be it the Quran or the Bible, that at least to our modern here sounds like controversial. As you said, there's this passage in the Quran that seems to permit men sadly to meet their wives. There are passages about cutting off the hands as you just mentioned. So it looks that there are again, there are seemingly prescribed events in the sense that there are passages that go against what are like the modern world sense. So this is the second statement. And the third statement is that we are not very off with respect to our moral judgment, our independent moral judgments. So our modern moral judgments are basically reliable. So by moral judgments, like modern moral judgments, I mean like the judgments that like men and women are equal and that no man, no man has the permission to be their wives. So these are our independent moral judgments. And it looks that those judgments are valid. But then it looks that there's a tension between these three propositions, right? So one way to solve, so one way to solve the problem is just to deny that the Quran is divine, right? But this is not way that like a Muslim can do, right? So in the book, I assume that I'm addressing the book to Muslims, right? So for Muslim, the Quran is divine or a believer, the scripture is divine. So then we have to grant the first statement, the divinity of scripture. So Then there are two other statements. So the existence of seemingly prescribed evil, and the other one is the reliability of our moral judgments. So one way to get rid of the problem is just to deny that there is any seemingly prescribed event in the sense that there is no passages in scripture like made in the Quran or hadith or Bible that goes against our moral arguments. Right. So I discuss a little bit about those who favor the solution. So some of the modernist reformers, they try to reinterpret those passages in a way to make them consistent with our modern moral judgments. So basically there are two strategies. So one way is to say that if we have the correct understanding of those passages, as a matter of fact, those passages agree with our moral sensibilities. Right? So this is like one strategy. So the other strategy is, I call it like contextualization. So if you want to contextualize, you say that, look, it's true that the Quran permits men to be their wives, but that's really an improvement on the practices that were culturally dominant at the time. Right? So that was like an improvement. So you have them to understand like the meaning of the passage in its context. And in its context, that passage is an improvement. Right. So then there are two strategies. So this first strategy is reinterpretation. The second strategy is contextualization. And I wasn't happy with either of those strategies. Right. So there are like, a couple of reasons why I didn't find any of those strategies, like, particularly helpful. As to interpretations, if you look at the work of people who do that, you find that their interpretations are not egalitarian enough. So from a feminist perspective, you often find their interpretations not like, egalitarian enough. Like, for example, they say that, like, okay, like the Quran permits men to be their wives, but this is only in extreme cases. But again, it looks that even in extreme cases, it's really bad to do that. Like, there is no cases where you made to do that. Right? So this is like the. So the first problem is that when you look at their reinterpretation, it doesn't look that they are like, successful if you are feminist. So another problem is that these texts have been understood for centuries in a certain way. So now these modernists come and say that all those traditionalists got it wrong. So those interpretations were incorrect. But then the question is not why? What is it about the language that they did it like the traditionalists didn't understand. Right? And as I said, you might say that, look, this modernist just gives us a possibility for this reinterpretation. But then the question is that, look, why we should take this possibility, because there are this argument, the argument that I just said, the argument from morally hidden facts that the conservatives have this argument. They say that, look, you cannot judge gods from your limited intellect. So why we should accept these new interpretations. So this is another problem. So a third problem is. Now look, if you want to say that, so again, the first problem is that it looks that their interpretation is not egalitarian enough. The second problem is that why we should think that all the traditionalists were wrong. And the third problem is that, look, if you think that at any given time in history, you can reinterpret the text such that you make it consistent with the moral judgments of the time, it just then means that the text has no meaning of its own, right? So think it is our moral judgments have changed radically in last past centuries. So if you think that at each time in history the text is consistent with our moral judgment, that just means that the text has no meaning of its own, right? So this is the other problem. So as to the contextual, as to those who wants to contextualize the text, I agree that perhaps there was unhinged violence against women at the time of the Prophet, and perhaps the verse that you mentioned was an improvement on the practices dominant at the time. Yet the question arises that is it ever, even at that time, permitted for a man to beat his wife? And it looks that the answer is now, like, even if you go back to the seventh century, you might think that even back then it's not okay for a man to beat his wife. You may not meet your wife's period ever. So then if you have that judgment, just the fact that that was not. Just the fact that that verse is an improvement does not make the problem go away. So the problem of divinely prescribed evil persists in the sense that there is a passage that goes against our judgments. So then I think that it's not really a good way to deny that there are passages that are morally contrarian to it. So reinterpretation is not, I think, a good solution. So we have to do something else. And the book is really is what else we could do about this problem.
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Hannah
I love that. Thank you so, so much for everything you just said, especially for laying out the context of the problem and why the existing. And that's what I meant when I said earlier that it creates this really wonderful gap in our understanding of the Quran. And one of those is, well, here's an ethical problem that we have. This is the new problem. Of evil. And how do we best approach this and the many different principles that you talk about that can help us, you know, read these verses in a more, I want to say, ethically, morally responsible way, I will say so. I, I noted that you, when you're talking about Amina Wadud's interpretation of. Because I agree with you, it is not convincing at all that let's reinterpret. I, like, I, I, I, I just, I was thinking, I was like, well, I've never thought about, well, let me do something about this. Like, what are, what can we do about this? So thank you again for feeling, for doing this. We don't, the rest of us don't have to do it. But Amina Wad, when you're talking about Amina Wadud's interpretation, you only talk about her interpretation in Quran and women, right? In the 1999 textbook the Book. But she also talks about 434 and wife beating in her 2006 book Inside the Gender Jihad. And there she actually says she famously says no to a literal reading of the text. And I thought it would be, I thought it would have been very helpful to talk to just at the very least, like, hey, she does. I mean, because as human, I mean that these interpreters too, like, are constantly, some of these arguments are older. And then they come back and they're like, well, actually, what I said back then, that doesn't apply anymore. Or no, it's not about, that's that that doesn't make sense or that's not enough. And so she does grapple with it in, in her other book, in another book of hers, Inside the Gender Jihad. And I know a lot of conservative Muslims who are like, who have, you know, canceled her because how dare she say no to the text? And then I'm like, hold on. She doesn't say, they're like, she said no to the Quran. And I was like, I was in a space once where an Islamic institute where the men were really, really, like, speaking ill of her. And I was like, she never says no to the Quran. She says no to this, a literal. And she's not the first to do so. They're like, they've never read it. Of course, they'd actually, they have not read her work. But I just wanted to put it out there that she does, she does continue to engage with the question of an ethical approach to reading the Quran, especially the morally controversial passages. And I also, you know, you mentioned, like, it's, I am so you, I'm so glad you're saying this explicitly that Even in the 7th century, it wouldn't have been okay for a man to hit his wife. Even in the seven. Like, why do we just assume, like, we, I think that in our engagements with these scriptures and our attempts to reconcile, you know what, our intuitive feelings about the text, that there's no way this makes sense. There's no way this is ethically right. We end up sort of demonizing people before us, our ancestors. And one of the, one of, one of the ways is, oh, you know, back then this was acceptable. No, it wasn't just because people did it. We say that all the time today. Just because Muslim do it, do Muslims do it, doesn't mean it's right. So if I was asked why, like, this is the fact that Islam could abolish, you know, polytheism in, you know, during the span of the revelation of the Quran, in the Prophet's own lifetime, why could we also not have made an effort toward eradicating other social ill or social ills, like wife beating, like slavery, like so many other injustices. And it's almost immense about priorities. I get it, like, oh, let's first focus on this problem and then we'll have others. But I, because it, because of the implications of it, we continue to hit women thinking and truly believing some people. Because I was in some of the assumptions that you're making, I'm like, well, I know a lot of Muslims who are like, women and men aren't equal women, men are allowed to be like, there's nothing immoral about wife beating. Right? So I was like, well, even though we can't even assume that most or all modern, all Muslims today would believe these assumptions in the first place. So let's talk about some of the specific principles or approaches.
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Amir Saimi
Before you go, can I say something about, like your, the thing that you said about Amin. So I like, I like her work. Right? So just. But, but I'm by nature, like, my, my problem by nature is, is like a philosophical problem in the sense that, like I say that there is this tension between some passages in scripture and our moral judgments and the divinity of scripture, right? So as to that, like, the wife made an example. It's just an example. So you might say that you can reinterpret that successfully. But then there are other passages, as long as there's only one passage, like in the whole Quran or even if there's no passage in the Quran, let's say in Hadith, right? There's only one passage in Hadith that goes against our. Our modern moral judgments, then we have a philosophical problem. Right. So I don't want to be stuck on any particular examples, even though I use that example just for illustrative purposes. Right. But even if it turns out that I'm wrong on that interpretation, that's okay. Just let's move on to another example. Right.
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Hannah
That's very clear in the book, in the prologue, is that I think you give us several different areas where we've got a problem. And you're also very clear that it's not. It's not just the Quran.
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Shahnaz Haqqani
Right.
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Hannah
Like, there's other scriptures too. So even if the Quran doesn't have these problems, there's other texts that do. Exactly. We still have to deal with the problem of this new problem of evil because we, you know, so, yeah, maybe one day we will come to a solution with the pro. You know, with 434 or something, but then we've got a whole bunch of other practices. I think at the very least, the fact that the Quran, you know, has explicitly permitted something like slavery, enslaving other. I think that even if we officially abolish it, that will remain a problem in the scripture. So, yeah, I was, I wasn't suggesting that it's. You're very, very like, your point is very clear in the book. I just want, you know, only because when I was reading that, I was like, I just want to make sure that my listener or our listeners know that they're like, I mean, I would do the Hezrah and other stuff on. On that as well, and 434 as well. I. Yeah. So then let's go ahead and talk about some of the specific approaches or theories or principles to approaching this specific, this new problem of evil. I'll just name a few because you talk about many of these very wonderfully. I was trying to make note for my own personal, like, okay. And my own spiritual growth. I was like, okay, let me see which approach would be very, very helpful. And so I've got a long list. But let's talk about. We can talk about the divine commandment theory. We can talk about the scripture first, the ethics first, the deontological moral theory, consequentialism. Let's. We are. So you, you can go ahead and choose whichever approaches you think. Here, here's one approach to reconciling this problem of, you know, our morality, our. Our intuitive moral judgment and the Quran and what the divine.
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Amir Saimi
So the book is basically, as you said, is. Is divided into two main parts. So the first Part is called like a scripture first view. So the second part is called like the ethics first view. So let's start with talking about scripture first view. So basically my. So I explored the problem of divinely prescribed evil and there are two responses to the problem. So one response is the scripture first view. The other response is the ethics first view. So in the scripture first view, I argue that this is the response that like the main Islamic figures in the history of Islamic thought have given to the problem. So let's start with this. So there are basically, just roughly speaking, at least insofar as I'm interested in the problem, there are basically three or four main camps in the history of Islamic thought. So we have the Asherites, so we have the Mutazilites, we have like the philosophers and we have the Sufis. Right? So I didn't talk about the Sufis in the book. So I said so it would have been interesting if I had talked about Sufis, but I didn't talk about Sufis because it's kind of hard to pinpoint their views. There are varieties of views out there. So I didn't talk about the Sufis. So let's set them aside. So then there are three remaining groups. So the three remaining groups are like theologians, Asherites and the Multazalites and then the philosophers. Just one terminological point here is that theologians are also philosophers. But in the history of Islamic thought, people who belong to the same tradition as Plato and Aristotle laws are called philosophers. So people who do not belong to that tradition are not called philosophers. Right. So the Asherites and the Mu'tazilites are not philosophers in the sense that they do not belong to the Greek tradition. But like Avicenna and Averroes and Al Farabi are philosophers in the sense that they saw their work as the continuation of the Greek philosophy. Right? So this is just a use of term. So I use the term philosophers to denote those who take themselves to be philosophers in the history of. So then we have these three main groups, the Asherites, the Mutazarites and the philosophers. So there's this like rough picture widely held among like historians and philosophers and theologians that there is a like in the debate between religion and reason, Asherites take sides with religion and the Mutazilites and the philosophers take side with reason. So this is like a caricature picture. Right? But this is the main picture of these three groups. We have the Asherites taking side with religion in that debate and the Motazalites and philosophers taking side with reside. So there are many things true about this picture. But I argue in the book that when it comes to morality, this picture is mistaken in the sense that even the Mutazilites and the philosophers take side with religion. So this is why I call all of them like the scripture first theorists. So what I mean by them taking side with religion is that so they think that, look, maybe we know something about like, like general stuff about morality. So there's a debate about how much we know about like general stuff about morality according to like the Asharite. And by Asharite I mean Al Ghazali here, like people after like Al Ghazali. So according to Asharite, we know like very little about ethics by reason. But according to the Mutazilites and the philosophers, we know much more about ethics, like by reason. But the knowledge that we have about ethics are about like general things. But when it comes to particular things. So whether or not this action is moral, all groups, be it the Asherites, the Mu'tazilites or the philosophers, they think that we don't have like nor what to tell. They don't have like knowledge of what is right or wrong. And if there is a conflict between scripture and reason, we should defer to scripture. So even the Mu'tazerite say that. So like this, I have like this nice example in the book about like Abdul Jabbar about like eating meats, right? Like killing of animals. So Abdul Jabbar, who is like a Mutazilite, like a like reason friendly person says that, look, it looks to me that there's something wrong about like killing animals, right? It looks to us that there's something wrong about it. But who are we to know? God's okay, it must be okay, right? So even when you go to the Mutazilites, it looks that they are like. When it gets to the particular judgment about what action is right or wrong, they are willing to defer to scripture, right? So that's why I call them scripture first theories. So the interesting point is that there is one analogy used both by Aghazali and the Mutazilites. And the analogy is the analogy of a physician. So the prophet is like a physician and we the people are like the patients, right? And on both Al Ghazali and the Mutazalite says that, look, in the same way that you defer as a patient, you defer to the knowledge of the physician. When it comes to morality, you have to defer to the knowledge of prophet in the Same way that you as the normal person, as a patient, you don't question the directives of the physician, you shouldn't question the directive of the prophet. So if ever there is a conflict between reason and, and scripture, Scripture is going to win. So that's why they are scripture first theories in the sense that scripture comes before reason. And if there's ever any conflict, scripture is always going to win. So reason is never going to win. So then if you have that view about all the passages that we have in mind like slavery, wife bearing and everything, so you have to go with the scripture because again, the prophet is the physician, we are the patient, and we don't have knowledge to question like the verdict of the prophet. So basically in the book I argue that contrary to the common view that the philosophers and the Mu'tazilites take side with the reason when it comes to morality, all those discretions are going to take side with the scripture. So this is like the first part of the book. And then we have before moving on to the second part of the book. So I read some problems for the scripture first theorists, some internal problems for scripture first theorists, but I don't think that those internal problems are important. You know, there are some worries about how do we know that God doesn't lie like in Scripture if we are? Because this is like, it seems to, it seems to be like a piece of moral knowledge that lying is bad. But if we get morality from God, how do we know that God doesn't lie? So this is like an eternal problem for scripture first tears. But at the end of the, in the book I say that, look, the main problem, at least for us as Muslims who kind of buy into modern moral judgments, is not that the scripture first theory is incoherent. The problem for us is that we cannot renounce our modern moral judgments. It's very hard for us to give up on the belief that slavery is wrong like ever, right? It's never slavery. Slavery is never like feminine, right? It's very hard for us to believe that it's ever okay for a man to be one's wife, right? So you said that like some Muslims are willing to take the bullet here as to like wife winning, sadly. So in a way like my book is not addressed to those people, right? Because maybe there's a way to defend their views in the sense that that view is consistent, but it's just a hard bullet for many of us to bite. And the other problem that I wanted to raise is that if you buy that like the prophet is the physician. And God, who are we to judge? Like God, God's verdict. Then you have to buy scripture like wholesale. You have to say something about slavery too, right? You cannot cherry pick here. Right. If you think that our knowledge, our intellect is limited and we don't know the grand scheme of things, so then we have to defer to God's directives then on everything, you should defer to God. Right. That would include the slavery. Right. But that would be a very tough bullet to bite. So this is really the main problem for scripture, first theories. The problem is not that their view is inconsistent, it's just that it's hard to accept it, at least for some of us. For some of us people like me and you.
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Hannah
No, for sure, for sure. What are thick and moral concepts?
- [38:56]
Amir Saimi
Okay, so this like the. So the debate about like fake moral concepts and thin moral concepts. So that debate is raised within the culture, within the discussion of the Mutazalites moral philosophy. So the Mutazolite moral philosophy, like moral philosophers, sorry, the Mutazolites think that, look, we have some knowledge of morality. So we know that, I don't know, lying is bad, let's say that, or injustice is bad or whatever. So they think that we get to know those things by reason. So it's not that reason doesn't say anything about what morality is. Right. So they are willing to accept that we get some knowledge by reasoning alone about the nature of morality. But that knowledge is like just let's take the example of injustice is bad, right? I say that that knowledge is not very substantial. Why? Because the kind of examples that the Mutazilites are offering as the examples of ethical knowledge that we have are expressed in terms of like thick concepts. So what are thick concepts? Thick concepts like injustice or cruelty, these are basically moral concepts that are also descriptive. Compare cruelty with the concept of wrongness or badness. So the concept of wrongness or badness seems to be. These concepts are thin concepts in the sense that they have no descriptive element. But cruelty is a moral concept that also has a descriptive element. So if you say that somebody's cruel, you mean that maybe that person is violent or something. Or if it does stuff that are, I don't know, like gruesome or something. Right. So it has like a descriptive element, whereas badness does not have this descriptive element. Right. So then I say that, like the examples that the mortality are offering us use the thick moral concepts. Like take this example, that injustice is bad. So we know that if you use thick Moral concepts, those concepts have normative element within them. So when you say that injustice is bad, we only didn't use kind of that injustice is a thick moral concepts and the badness is somehow within that very concepts. So then sure, maybe reason alone can find out that injustice is bad. But that doesn't to be very like substantial knowledge, right? So even the mu'tazzar, even though the mutazar say that we can discover some of morality by reason alone, the examples that they give us are not really like very helpful examples. Right. When it gets to like a real important examples or whether or not like say eating animals is right, they say that we cannot discover that by reason alone. Right. So the thing that we can discover by reason alone is whether or not justice is wrong or is bad. But this is not really what we are interested in. We are interested in to see whether or not that particular action, like the action of wife meaning is wrong. So then it looks that even though like motazolite say that reason have some say in royalty, at the end of the day, on their view, reason doesn't have much to say about what really is interesting for us.
- [42:50]
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- [43:18]
Hannah
I, I wish that was really helpful in the book where you, where you would point out and this isn't just a question of pointing at flaws in their logic and in their explanations, but that something seems like, you know, when they seem to be putting scripture first. Actually it's a lot more deeper than that or when they seem to be putting reason first. It's still, there's still like scriptures, you know, it's still scripture sometimes first and it was the, that was the inconsistency in these, in the tradition's engagement with, you know, with this, with this debate, with this issue were really fascinating to look at. And I, I mean it just, it. It raised way, way too many questions in my mind. But I am still wondering like how, how so one is you mentioned the Muslims relationship with the Greek philosophers which. Oh my God, I just have to say this out loud because I think it all the time. You know how Muslim, the a specific conservative group of Muslims will often say Things like you can't imitate the west or you know, you can't, you can't borrow. Like if something is not, you know, from Muslim tradition, then it's not valid Islamically, et cetera, et cetera, that it can't be our sources of Islam, can't be from the non Muslim texts or traditions. Except the Muslim traditions are, The Muslim tradition is filled with like these philosophers and theologians are. They're constantly taking stuff from Greek philosophers. Somehow at some point we put a stop to it and say, okay, that's allowed only up until this point. Or it's for these guys that if you, if a feminist, a Muslim feminist takes the tiniest thing from the Western feminist movement, that doesn't 100% reconcile with a very conservative sexist idea of. Not to suggest that the two are synonymous. But if it doesn't rec, you know, if it doesn't align with a very specific idea of Islam, then the Muslim feminists aren't interested. Because so I, and it's, I completely
- [45:14]
Amir Saimi
agree with what you said and it was very nice what you said, right?
- [45:18]
Hannah
Because like I'm, it's, it's frustrating. Like as a Muslim feminist, like, no, you know, you can't, that we can't rely on that or your methods are flawed. Well, the scholar, like we translated, my ancestors, my Muslim ancestors translated Greek material. Of course they were going to be influenced by that, right? Like, who decides at what point we. Yeah, I just, I have very strong opinions on that. But I, I do, I do want to say what, Like I want to ask then how, what. Even though of course the Greek philosophers aren't. Not only are they not working with the Quran, they're not working with religion, with monotheism, etc, how do, still they are Muslim scholars end up drawing from the Greek philosophers to be able to work through this problem of, you know, scripture first or revelation first or revelation or reason, or this debate of revelation and reason. How are they, what kinds of arguments do they. Or how is the Greek tradition helping them, if at all? Or how are they responding to the Greek tradition?
- [46:19]
Amir Saimi
So good, so excellent questions. So look, as you said, like people like Al Kindi, al Farabi, they were just amazed when they found like those like Greek texts, like they saw that like there's this like vast like body of knowledge they didn't know anything about. So they knew about like the Quran and the, the Mutazilites and the Asshorts and stuff like no other. Like the Mothers Allites come a little bit later. Right, but they didn't know anything about these Greek philosophers. And they read like Aristotle and they were just stunned by that. But then they have this problem that look like the Quran is the source of knowledge, but then also I thought themselves to be a source of knowledge too, but that looks very different. So what should we do about that? Right? So then they tried to, like, they. So they have this reconciliation project, right, to reconcile, like the Quran and Islam with Greek philosophy. So basically they wanted to meet in the halfway, right? They make Aristotle a little bit like a Muslim on the one hand. And on the other hand they have like a more secular understanding of the Quran. So that's kind of nice. Like the whole reconciliation project, sublime project, is how to reconcile reason with religion. And that's kind of nice and I love that. But when it comes to morality, I think so sadly, the things that they say about the conflict between science and religion, they wouldn't say about the conflict between morality and religion, right? And it's curious why. So when it comes to the, I don't know, the question of free will, let's say, right? So they go with philosophers, right? When it comes to the question of metaphysics, they go with like philosophers and science, right? They say that, like, we have to reinterpret the Quran, like to make it consistent with the science of the time, right? But when it comes to morality, they does not say the same. So it's curious why they don't do the same thing in the book. I argue that maybe their reason is that they have this conception of the afterlife, right? So the afterlife is like our ultimate goal. And they have this very peculiar understanding of the afterlife. So they understand the afterlife as where we have all the knowledge of the world, right? So basically heaven is where you become like a philosopher. You know everything, right? So for them, like, the supreme pleasure is the pleasure of doing it all, right? So then our goal is to go to heaven, basically, to become a philosopher to know it all, right? But then in order to know everything, we have to study, we have to do philosophy, right? So this is their thing. But then it looks that they didn't, like, they think that if the goal, the ultimate value is knowledge, then ethics is just a branch of like metaphysics, right? So then we have to do metaphysics. So who is an ethical person? The one who knows a lot about philosophy, right? And who knows about philosophy? The person who has like a thorough study of science and everything. So they. So, you know, Al Farabi says that in order for you to know what to do, like to have an Ethical knowledge you have to study like metaphysics, geometry, like geography and all the sciences of the time. Then if you have that conception that like ethics is basically philosophy and philosophy is basically science, then who has the final say? Like the philosophers. And for them the philosopher is like the greatest philosopher is the prophet, right? So then me and you, our intuitions do not count. Like if we have the intuition that slavery is wrong, it doesn't count because we don't know all that. We don't have all the knowledge, right. Who don't have all the knowledge, like to the prophet, right. So an ethics is nothing other than metaphysical knowledge. So therefore, at the end of the day, again, we have to defer to the prophet. So I guess that the really unfortunate event in the story of Islamic philosophy is that they don't see value in doing ethics because they think that ethics is nothing but metaphysics and science.
- [51:06]
Hannah
Well, you know, that, that if the, if the only person, if the only ethical person in the world, that the only, only person that can be ethical is a, is a philosopher or is a prophet, then not only if we assume that all men are, all prophets are men, then. And of course, you know, philosophers, historically being men and only men having access to, and not just any men, like very upper class, you know, specific kind of men having access to, you know, or the resources to be able to become philosophers, which inherently, then by that definition, women can never be ethical.
- [51:42]
Amir Saimi
And I'm saying it's explicit. Even, even, even only the white men, right. He says that like the black men does, they do not have knowledge. Right. Because they are not rational or whatever. Only the white men have knowledge.
- [51:52]
Hannah
Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. And Zahra Ayubi's book Gendered Morality is, I mean, I recently just revisited for a lecture that I was giving and it is, I mean, like, yeah, and, and you know, one of the folks he talks about is Al Ghazali. Like, it's, he's, they're pretty explicit sometimes that, well, this is the kind of people who cannot do this and they cannot have access, they don't have access to reason. They can't, they don't have access to ethics, can't be ethical. Like it's only, I mean, the, the, the, the supremacist ideas, these sexist, classist ideas, like how on earth is this ethically acceptable and how on earth are these our moral guides in, in a, in a religious tradition? Okay. On a human level, I can't, like, I, I, it's, it breaks my heart that these are people that you Know we're supposed to look up, that I'm supposed to look up to like no, thank you. I, I don't, I. It's ironic that how they're, to me, they're some of the most unethical people all of that to say when. So there was a really interesting and lovely discussion and incredibly enlightening discussion in the book about when you know, the scholars ideas of when we can depart from a literal meaning of the text, when can we offer a non literal meaning and when is the Quran not, not really meaning what it, what it seems to be saying, what was. And that's we can apply that to whether it's slavery or not. We can just give it a generic idea of what that debate is like.
- [53:12]
Amir Saimi
Okay, good. So but before like answering that specific question, can I say a little bit about the second part of the book? Because that also helped me to understand.
- [53:22]
Hannah
Yes, please.
- [53:23]
Amir Saimi
So the second part of the book, which is like really the part that I was most interested in is called like the ethics first view. So. Right. So the ethics first view is basically the view that ethics comes before scripture. So our understanding of scripture must be informed by our independent moral judgments, right? So then according to this view, look, we have our modern moral judgments, right? And then scripture in whatever we want to have, like whatever we want to do with scripture ultimately must conform to our independent moral judgments. But then the question is why? So why we have to rely on or ethical judgments. So in the book I suggested that there are two ways to go with this ethics first view. So one way is the one that you mentioned like early on in your introduction of the book is the story of the Moses and Heder. So in the story of the Moses and Heder. So I'm sure that many of listeners know this story, but I'm going to just to repeat it anyway. So we have this guy Heather. So Heather is this divine person, he knows everything. And Moses come across this person. Moses knows that this person Heather is divine, right? Moses knows that this person knows everything. So then Moses says, look, can I follow you so that you can teach me stuff like and Khazar says that no, like you are not patient enough. Just don't come like you are. You don't have patience to follow me, right? And Moses says no, no, no, no, like you would find me patient, right? Just let me follow you. Right? And Khider says that okay, so let's go. So they go on a journey. So there are like three stories in the Quran, right? I'm just going to talk about the first story. So they go on a journey together and they stumble upon a boat, like in the dock, right? And then Chevre says that, look, Moses, you have to make a hole in that boat, right? And Moses says that, look, this boat belongs to these like poor people. This is the only, this is their. The boat is the only way for them to make their living. So I'm not going to make a hole in the world. It's just very evil thing for us to do. This is their means of living their life, right? And Khazar says that, okay, so you are not like dating. But I said, well, I told you, right? So in this story, even though Moses knows that like Khazar is like this divine person, still he cannot get himself to do what he was asked to do, like making a hole in the boat, right? And the question is why? So what was the reasoning of Moses? So why can't he make a hole in the boat, right? So in the book I said that, look there, like Moses has two options. Either he should make a hole in the boat or he shouldn't, right? So there has two options, like making a hole or not making a hole. And then there are two cases. Either Heather is right. And later in the story we know that Khezer is right. It turns out that there is this king who are coming to seize the boats. And if the king sees that the boats have a hole in it, he's not going to seize it. But if the vote is intact, the king is going to seize it. So it would be better for those poor people to have a hole in their vote, right? So later in the story we knew that Heather was right, but Moses didn't know that, right? So from the perspective of Moses, So either Heather is right or is wrong. So Moses has no idea like what's going on. He has no knowledge of what's going to happen, right? So he said that, look, if Moses makes a hole in the world and Heather is right, then nothing bad happens to Moses. He does what he has to do, right? But then there are two bad options for Moses. Suppose that he makes a hole in the boat, but for whatever reason, Hitler is wrong. Maybe he wanted to test Moses, maybe he didn't mean it, or maybe he wasn't like this really divine person that Moses thought he was, right. So there's like a small likelihood that Heder is wrong. But if Hitler is wrong and Moses makes a hole, then Moses has done like a serious wrong thing. He would. He's like a serious wrongdoer, right? It's very bad for Moses. He has committed a very bad actions, right? So this is one bad option for Moses. The other bad option for Moses is that he doesn't make a hole in the boat. And Hezzah is right. So this is also bad because if Hezzer is right and Moses disobeys Hezor, then Moses has done something wrong. But Moses doesn't know how wrong his action would be in that case, right? He has no idea that how seriously wrong this action would be. Right? So then we have these two options. On the one hand he might do something that is seriously wrong. On the other hand he might do something that is wrong but he has no idea that how much to what extent it is wrong. So I said in the books that this is like the modest principle that you mentioned in the beginning that if you have these two options, so the best way for you is just to minimize wrongness in the sense that go with the option that has the chance that you are not a serious wrongdoer. Right? So again Moses knows that if he makes a hole and Khazra is wrong, he would be a serious wrongdoer. But he doesn't know what happens if he doesn't make a hole. Like suppose that he doesn't make a hole. It might be that Khazar would do it itself. It might be that nothing bad happens. Or like we have no idea, like Moses has no idea what's going to happen. So I said that like when you are like those two, like your actions are these two options. It's better to minimize drunkenness. And in the story we see that Moses disobeys like heaven and the Quran does not condemn Moses. Like the Quran has nothing but praises for Moses. So it looks that even the Quran thinks that there is something good and praiseworthy with going with your own moral judgments. And, and this is like my first ethics, first solution that look, we don't know what's going, even if we don't know what's going on. As a matter of fact it is always better like rationally speaking to go with your own judgment. So if we apply that to the problem of divinely prescribed event. So maybe we don't know what's going on with those passages, like the passages about wife bathing, like cutting off hands. So maybe we don't know what's going on, but maybe we are in the Moses like situation. If we are in a that just the consequence of beating our wife is just so bad that it would be safer, morally speaking for you just to go with your own judgment. So this is like the first ethics solution. So this is like a Moses solution. Be like Moses, do what Moses did in that situation, which means go against Scripture. And the story is like headers, like directives. Right? So I think that you have a much better chance of being on the right if you do what Moses did. Again, you might suspend judgment on what is wrong, wrong, or right. So maybe we don't know. Maybe only God knows what is wrong or right. But at least when it comes to our practical life, rationally speaking, it's better to go with our own judgment. So this was my first solution. So the second solution was that maybe we know what's right and wrong. And I have an argument that at least under certain plausible conceptions of ethics, we have knowledge of what's right and wrong, and we know that slavery is wrong, and we know that meaning wives are wrong. Right. It's not like just. We know as a matter of, like, nothing can change that knowledge. Right? So. And in the book. And argue that, like, morally hidden facts are not relevant to our moral knowledge in the sense that even if there are some hidden facts, if we cannot have access to those hidden facts, they are irrelevant to what we should do. So in the sense that. So the second solution says that we know what we have to do. It's just that it's stronger than the first solution. In the first solution, Moses maybe doesn't know what is right or wrong, but still he has to go with his conscience. In the second solution is that, no, we know it's right or wrong. We know that slavery is wrong. We know that meaning women is wrong. But then we get to your question that suppose that we know what is right or wrong. Right. And our moral judgment are reliable, then what to do with our text? Right. We have this text which seems to prescribe the things that we know is wrong. So then is God a liar? So what's going on here, Charlie? Continue or you would to ask a question.
- [63:52]
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- [64:20]
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- [64:37]
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- [65:05]
Hannah
No, no, that's all good. And you're welcome to continue if you would like to. I did have, I was going to ask you questions about the Moses principle and so and the. More the ethics first, basically the second half of the book, the second part of the book and Ibrahim's story as well. Yeah, because you talk about how an ethics first approach makes the text redundant. Right. And you make this point very clear. And you just said it, you've said it here in the interview as well. And then you have a really wonderful discussion to help us work through this. You're going to talk about the moral function of the scripture. I was going to ask you if you could talk about the moral function. Then what? Like if. Yeah, and keeping in mind especially that in, in, in some of the work that I do, my audience is primarily ethical Muslims. Muslims who are trying to work through these issues. Then what, what when they come across this argument, I feel like they would find it really helpful. So if you could talk about the.
- [66:02]
Amir Saimi
Sure, exactly. So, but, but just before that, so like I, I suggested like what to do with those passages. I said that like I said basically what Fazl Rahman has said before. So I just developed what he has said that look, we have to make a distinction between legal interpretation of the text and moral interpretation of text. So many of those passages we could have a legal understanding of those passages. Those passages were laws of the time. And I explained in the book with two examples, with the examples of. And the other example is about the Genova conventions of the ethics of war. I explained that why sometimes God has reason to legislate. That is morally suboptimal. Right. In the sense that. So I'm going to explain about that. But let me get to your question and then maybe we could discuss why God sometimes has laws that are morally suboptimal. Right. But let's suppose that. Let's suppose that those passages are just legal laws of the time and God has Reasons to legislate those laws. Then the question arises that what is the function, like moral function of scripture? And I think that there are. I think that scripture, like the Quran can extend our moral knowledge. But how? I think that. Look, this is the way that I think about scripture and morality. Like the function of scripture. Look, suppose that like you and I are friends, right? And I value our relation, right? So I want to be a good friend. So if I want to be a good friend of you, I have to do what you want from me. Like, if you want like this gift for your birthday, I have to buy like that gift for you, right? In order to show that I value our friendship. So the fact that I have to value our friendship is a moral requirement discoverable by reason alone. But how can I value our friendship? Depends on your desire and wishes, right? So the same applies to God. I know by reason alone that God, if I see God as a friend or as a creator, that I have to value my relationship with God, right? But how can I value my relationship with God? In order to value my relationship with God, I have to know what God wants. In the same way that in order to value my friendship with you, I have to know what you want, right? So then if God wants me to say pray, pray or fast or whatever, then this is a way for me to value my. This is like a moral requirement for me to do that. Making prayer would be a moral requirement in the sense that if you think that God is your friend and you want to value your friendship, morality tells you that you have to value your friendship. And then God says that in order to value your friendship, you have to this prayer. So in that way the Quran is going to extend our, like, our morality. So then we have this moral rule that we have to pray. So let me give you another example. So the Quran says that you have to take care of like Ibn Samil, like the people, like the immigrants, right? So everybody, like we know by reasons that we have to take care of immigrants, right? So we don't need God to say, to say that, right? But here's the thing. Our obligations to help like immigrants are limited. We don't have an obligation to go over and above like the call of duty, right? So like to help everybody, right? So this just, we have just a limited, like it's good to help immigrants, but we don't need to do everything for that, right? But now suppose that I know an immigrant who, who is a friend of you, Shahnaz, like this is like your neighbor or your sister. Right. So in general, my requirement to help immigrants are limited. Right. But if I know that that particular person used to tell me, shahnaz, that, look, this is my sister, go help her, then it looks that because of my friendship with you, then I have a stronger duty to hold that immigrant because it's your sister. And then if God says that this is my creature, this is the immigrant. So this is like, I love that person, the immigrant, go help her, go help her, then it looks that I have a stronger duty to go and help the immigrants. Why? Again, because not only I have a moral duty on my own to help those people, but they are also God's friends. And I am also God. They are God's friends and I'm God's friends. So that seems that God can strengthen our duties to help others. Right. So this is a way that scripture has a function, like moral function, like, you know, like people who do not believe in the scripture, they do not have as strong duty as we do as Muslims to have the immigrants.
- [71:35]
Hannah
Yeah, thank you so much for articulating that. No, and that's one of the sections that I found very, very helpful because I too had never thought about. Well, I mean, I hadn't thought about because it comes up a couple of times, ethics first, that, well, if we, if we are going to just keep reinterpreting scriptures to align with our contemporary ethical standards and moral compass, then what even is the function of the script? And I had again, like, the things that this book did for me, like, it was incredibly fulfilling intellectually and spiritually and emotionally, just in all of these ways. And one of those ways was like, oh, I just, I feel a lot more equipped to be able to have these conversations in a way that, that I think people would find that, that I, my interlocutors would find product. Thank you. I did want to say the Moses principle. I again loved it. One of the things that I get away from the Moses principle was precisely that, well, Moses then, because he didn't know why Khidr is doing the things that Khidr is doing or is requiring because he doesn't know what the reasons are. Therefore Musa is not ethically or morally obligated to address. Right. And so in other words, then, for when I read Quranic 434, Quranic verse 434, because Allah doesn't tell me why, if we assume it means to hit your wives, because I, I, I can't read God's mind. Therefore I'm not, I'm actually not committing a wrong by not hitting my, my wife if I was, if I was a husband. And so it was. I mean, again, a lot of these principles were just so incredibly helpful.
- [73:12]
Amir Saimi
And in fact, Moses is praiseworthy. And God praises Moses, Moses like, he's a favorite character in the whole Quran. And God has nothing but like, praises for him. Right, so he is praised for exactly disobeying Khider. Right. For relying on his own judgment. There is no condemnation at all for, for Moses, that story.
- [73:35]
Hannah
And even in this story, it's like he, like, it is, it is Musa who, he's like, okay, fine, if I, if I, if I ask you one more question, If I question you one more time, then you can, you know, then I don't, then I can, then I don't have to, like, I will leave. And it's, it's. He's the one who's the agent who's like, yep, okay, I asked too many questions. I want to leave now. And I think it. And the way that he responds to Khidr, when khidr is like, didn't. I knew you were going to be impatient. I told you you were going to be impatient. And Musa's response is like, stop. Stop talking to me like that. It's really beautiful. I mean, I love that story and I love Musa. I mean, he's my personal favorite character in the Quran, in the intervention as well. But I, yes. And then I especially. And then I loved that you also talk about Ibrahim's story, right? Because I think that is. We all know that if anybody today had a dream to go and kill their child, nobody would think that is acceptable. And somehow in Ibrahim's story where like, yep, nobody is questioning it at all. And it's like, oh, wow, he's such a patient and such a persevere. He has so much perseverance. And it's like, hold on. What impact did that have on the child? Like, I mean, it matters whose perspective we're reading the story from. But I, so I really appreciated and valued that discussion. I. When you're talking about how the scholars, you know, they're like, oh, he, you know, he knew he wasn't going to do it and he knew he wasn't going to have to do it and that he knew it was a test and that it was a test. I have so many questions about that for, like, for the tradition or for any camp who says, oh, it is about a test. Because 1. So if Ibrahim knows deep inside that this is just a test and in the Bible, it's Very clear. He knows it's a test because in the Genesis story, he tells his servants, you know, his people, who are accompanying him with Ishaq, with Isaac. He says, you guys wait here. We'll be right back. Or there's a whole bunch of other suggestions in the text that make it clear that this guy knows Allah is not going to make him go through with it in the end. So is it really a test? And then I think I had students who asked me that. Hold on. If he knows deep inside that he's not actually going to go through with this, then is it really, like, what is it like that. Is it really a test? Like, is it. Would it be. Would it be a real test if he knew, oh, God. God is making me do this, and I really don't want to do it, but I must do it. Like, that's not what we. That's not the. What we get in the. In the story. But I. You know, and also, like, what does it mean for something to be a test? I mean, ethically speaking, right? Like, it. Can we then say. Can we then apply that to slavery, to Quranic, to 434, to all of the. The sexist and the other. Any. Any. Any potentially violent. Any seemingly violent passages in any scripture? Can we then say, oh, this is just a test. Don't do it? In fact, Sadia Shaykh actually says precisely that. This is. That this is Allah testing our limits here. Are we going to go through with this and hit our wire? It's so, like, this question of, like, oh, it was just a test. Like, again, if we applied it, why. How do we decide when something is a test? And how do we. How do we decide then? Some. You know, what happens if we actually apply that? Or can we say that about our treatment of LGBTQ people? Like, oh, no, no, no. Allah deep inside actually wants us to allow them to marry. Right. If for those of us who are heterosexual lawmakers, it's. Allah wants us to make sure that everybody has equal access to marriage, et cetera. But this is a test. God is testing us to see if, like, what the heck? Where does this end? Right. Been really, really fascinating stuff. Yeah. I. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us? Maybe a theme or a topic? Because I know there's so much that we didn't cover, but, I mean, an incredibly fascinating book, a very helpful book, very fulfilling for me.
- [77:14]
Amir Saimi
We didn't cover the story of the. Hey, hey. But it is just. So let's. Let's just talk a little Bit about the story of Hay, because I think that's kind of, like, helpful for. For. For. For our listeners, right? So this is, like, Haymiyakzan is really an interesting story. So, you know, we have this story of this person who is raised by a deer. Like, we have this island, and we have this kid, I don't know, for whatever reason, he's all alone in this island, and he's raised by a deer. And he learned everything by himself. And then he's, like, incredibly smart. And then he, again, he learns everything, like, all the principles of philosophy, right? Interestingly, in the book, he thinks that we shouldn't kill animals and we should be vegans. And he has worries about properties and stuff. These are his convictions. And then there is another island. So in the other island, there are people living there, and they have this true prophet, and they living according to the teachings of that prophet. So one day, one person, like a good person from that island called Afsal, comes to Hay's island, sees this person, ha. In the island. So they meet and they develop a language in order to be able to talk to each other. And Absal find this person, hey, like, very illuminating, right? So basically, Afzal finds that Hay knows everything, right? And then Absal thought, like, tells Hay about his own island, and he says that we have this prophet. The prophet says this and that, right? And Hay says that. Look, your prophet seems to be a good guy, and I like his teachings, but I'm puzzled with, like, some of stuff that he's saying. Like, for example, about, like, eating stuff. He doesn't seem to be right on the eating stuff or about, like, property stuff. He doesn't seem to be right on that thing, too. And looks that it permits you to indulge too much in pleasure and those kind of stuff. So there are, like, these things that worries me. Like, your profit is really good. But there are these things that I think that I'm puzzled about, like, why he so said those kind of things, right? And then Afzal said, look, you are a good leader. Just come to our island and help our people to know, like, real knowledge, right? So then they go together to Afsal's island, and Hay tries to teach, like, real knowledge to those people, right? And people hate Hay, so they detest Hay. They think that his teachings are absurd. And then there is, like, there is, like, a chaos in the island, and they find, like, the teachings of Hay abhorrent, right? And then Hay finds that, look, I cannot help those people. Like, these people are, like, so corrupt that they cannot Learn the real truth. And the Prophet knew that. So that's why that the Prophet told them that you could eat such and such. Right? So because he couldn't help those people in any other way. Right. So in order to have, for them to have like a peaceful life, they need to have some wrong teaching there. So then I understand that some of those teachings, even though ethically speaking is like some of those teachings, even though ethically speaking are mistaken, are best for those people. Right. Help them to have like a peaceful life. Right. And this is basically this, I think that this is, basically this applies to our time too, that look, you might think that given the situation in 7th century Arabia, there was no way for the Prophet to say that slavery is wrong or you shouldn't beat your wife or whatever. So then he legislated those laws in order to improve them. Let's say that that doesn't make those laws like morally correct, but that just shows that sometimes the Prophet might have some reason to legislate morally suboptimal laws. So there's a, like these are the only laws that he could have legislated to help those people to have moral development. Right. Again, so this is so according to my solution. So you don't need to say that the teachings of the Prophet at the time was morally optimal. You might say that they were morally suboptimal, but God had reasons to legislate those legislations. Right. So this is like, this is what I want to say about the problem of prescribed event. That look, those passages, you might say that, look, God really didn't mean that it's moral to beat your wives. It just says that in that time it is legal for like a man to beat his wife, even though it's always immoral to be for your wife. And now that we make some progress, like moral progress, we have to change those laws. Like, so the laws that are morally subtle needs to change to better laws. Loss. This was the way that I tried to solve the tension between these three propositions.
- [83:03]
Hannah
Thank you. That is a very, very helpful articulation of the issue and of how you've reconciled it. I have a friend and we often ask just, it's ethical, sorry, it's Islamic, but is it ethical? Or it's Quranic, but is it ethical?
- [83:19]
Amir Saimi
And this is basically what Pastor Rahman says long time ago, in a sense. I'm not saying anything new. I'm just trying to develop his view a, in a more modern language. More modern language. Yeah.
- [83:32]
Hannah
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for, for this conversation. I The, the last question that we ask our authors is if there's anything that they're currently working on that our readers or listeners can look forward to. Any book that you're working toward, any. What is your current research or if you're taking a break, which is. I totally believe in taking breaks and you don't have to be productive all the time.
- [83:53]
Amir Saimi
No, no, I'm actually, I'm working on several, like a couple of projects. One of them is in a way like a continuation of this book. Right. So like I, so I grew up like in an Islamic culture like in Iran, and I was struck by marginal place of morality in the culture. Like just think about like the towering figures of the tradition like Al Ghazali, Aveslav. So they produce like a vast philosophical systems in which moral philosophy occupies only a minor and often like a peripheral place. Right. And the question is that why, why these like important figures like Al Ghazali, Avasina, Eroiz, why they didn't take moral philosophy as seriously as. As they should have done that. If you look at the work of Aquinas, you see that he has written a lot about moral philosophy, but you don't see the same in Avicenna or Aviroius, Right? But even if you look at the culture, you see the dominance of legal thinking in the culture and the equation of Sharia with morality. So it looks that like Mohammed Akun says that Islamic thought is marked by, so I'm quoting, like flight from ethical concern, right? So basically Islamic culture is dominated by Sharia thinking and not by ethical thinking. So this is my observation, right? If you think that my observation is right, then the question is why? So why is it that like moral philosophy has such a peripheral role even in the works of, I mean like tavern figures like I've seen on average. And why is it that in our culture are so, like Islamic cultures are so obsessed with the Sharia as opposed to moral thinking. Right. So I have like a couple of suggestions that why is why that is the case. But this is like really project to explain that why morality has such a marginal place in the history of Islamic thought as well as our culture today.
- [86:16]
Hannah
That's a really exciting project and that's a great question to explore as well. I mean, again, like as my parents always say, you know, and I think a lot of Muslims agree, like, just because Muslims are doing something doesn't mean it's actually Muslim and everybody. Exactly. Majority, many, many majority Muslim societies are very corrupt and there's a lack of ethic.
- [86:33]
Shahnaz Haqqani
There's a.
- [86:34]
Hannah
It's. It's very. That's a very prominent. Like. I think Muslims themselves, a lot of Muslims themselves see that as well, so that'd be a great question to explore and.
- [86:41]
Amir Saimi
Yeah, exactly. It's just. So I. So I. So the project is really to develop a version of Islam in which ethics has much more important place than it. Than it does in the. In the works of, like, say, Avicenna or Amir.
- [86:55]
Hannah
Yeah, that sounds fascinating. Yeah. Thank you for working on that as well. All right, Amir, well, this was a really fantastic interview. I'm so grateful for your time and for your ability and willingness to talk to us about your book. And again, congratulations on the book and thank you for writing it, and I look forward to your future work.
- [87:12]
Amir Saimi
Thank you very much, Hannah, and thank you for having me. It was like, such a wonderful conversation with you.
- [87:17]
Shahnaz Haqqani
All right, so that was my conversation with Amir Saimi about his book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond A New Problem of Evil, published in 2024 with Oxford University Press. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll see you for the next conversation soon.
- [87:32]
Hannah
Salam.
- [87:45]
Amir Saimi
Quick break. This surprised me. The most useful advice I get now doesn't come from experts. It comes from regular people on TikTok. What works, what doesn't.
- [87:55]
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- [87:56]
Amir Saimi
Download TikTok and see for yourself.