Islamic Ethics: a Bibliography
* Recommended in general
** Recommended for introductory seminars
Ethics in Religion
Byrne, Peter. The philosophical and theological foundations of ethics: an introduction to
moral theory and its relation to religious belief (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).

A work covering various theories in the philosophy of religion related to ethics
**Schweiker, William ed. The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2005).

A diverse and quite useful collection of essays concerning ethics in the
philosophy of religion, ethics within many of the major faiths, applied ethics in
religious studies, and more
Select Primary Sources in Translation
Efendi, Birgivi Mehmet. The Path of Muhammad: a Book on Islamic Morals and Ethics
(Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2005).
Ibn Miskawayh, Ahmad ibn Muhammad. The Refinement of Character: a Translation
from the Arabic of Ahmad ibn Muhammad Miskawayh’s Tahdhîb al-Akhlâq, trans.
Constantine K. Zurayk (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1968).
Ibn al-Muqaffah, Kalîla wa Dimnah: Fables from a Fourteenth Century (Washington, D.
C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981).
Al Ghazali, Muhammad. Ihya ulum ad-din. [Various excerpts in English translation are
available]
Normative Ethics in Islam – Classical and Medieval
Awn, Peter J. “The Ethical Concerns of Classical Sufism,” Journal of Religious Ethics
11/2 (1983): 186-203.
Butterworth, Charles E. “Ethics in Medieval Islamic Philosophy,” Journal of Religious
Ethics 11/2 (Fall 1983): 186-203.
*Cook, Michael A. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

A massive and exhaustive work treating the subject of ‘commanding right and
forbidding wrong’ as a central tenet of Islamic moral theory, locating the origins
of the idea in the Qur’an and tracing various strains of ethical interpretation of the
Qur’an in Hanbalite, Mu’tazilite, Shi’ite, Imami, Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, Ibadi
and Sufi thought. Ends with a few chapters on modern developments.
**Cook, Michael A. Forbidding Wrong in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003).

A condensed, accessible version of the work published in 2000 as Commanding
Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, ideal for select readings in an
introductory seminar or lecture series.
**Cornell, Vincent. “Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: The Relationship Between Faith
and Practice in Islam,” John Esposito, ed. The Oxford History of Islam (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999).

Elegantly examines, among other things, the development of the arkân al-islam as
moral praxis and the arkân al-iman as moral doxa in classical Islam and briefly
considers their application in the modern world. Especially ideal for introductory
courses in Islam.
Donaldson, Dwight M. Studies in Muslim Ethics (London: S.P.C.K. 1953).

A dated but interesting survey of Islamic ethics limited mainly to the
philosophical tradition, with a couple of chapters on ethics within Sufism. The
author was a Presbyterian missionary in Iran and India. His explicitly Christian
stance on the subject does not fully come out until the final chapter.
*Fakhry, Majid. Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1994).

Covers the development of Islamic ethics in the Qur’an, theological ethics
(divided between rationalist and voluntarist lines of thought), philosophical ethics
in the work of several prominent ethicists (e.g. Miskawayh, Tusi), and ‘religious
ethics’ in Ibn Hazm, al-Razi and others. Treats the work of al-Ghazali as the
‘grand synthesis’ of philosophical, theological and Sufi-based ethics.
Frank, Richard M. “Moral Obligation in Classical Muslim Theology,” Journal of
Religious Ethics 11/2 (Fall 1983): 186-203.
Gardet, L. “Iman.” in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1987).
Hourani, George F. Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1985).
Katz, Marion Holmes. “The Problem of Abortion in Classical Sunni Fiqh,” in Jonathan
E. Brockopp, ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
Lapidus, Ira. “Knowledge, Virtue and Action: The Classical Muslim Conception of Adab
and the Nature of Religious Fulfillment in Islam,” in Barbara Metcalf, ed. Moral Conduct
and Authority (Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press, 1984).
Moosa, Ebrahim. “Muslim Ethics?” in William Schweiker, ed. The Blackwell Companion
to Religious Ethics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).
**Rahman, Fazlur. “Some Key Ethical Concepts in the Qur’an,” Journal of Religious
Ethics 11/2 (Fall 1983): 170-185.

A classic essay examining the interconnectedness of the principles of iman, islam,
and taqwa in the Qur’an
Reinhart, Kevin A. “Origins of Islamic Ethics: Foundations and Constructions,” in
William Schweiker, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2005).
Normative Ethics in Islam – Modern
Brown, Daniel. "Islamic Ethics in Comparative Perspective," The Muslim World 83/3
(1999): 181-92.
Denny, Frederick Mathewson. “Muslim Ethical Trajectories in the Contemporary
Period,” in William Schweiker, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).
Hashmi, Sohail H., ed. Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism and Conflict
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
**Martin, Richard C. “Discourses on Jihad in the Postmodern Era,” in Jonathan E.
Brockopp, ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
*Reinhart, Kevin. “The Past in the Future of Islamic Ethics,” in Jonathan E. Brockopp,
ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 2003).
Applied Ethics in Islam
Al-Hibri, Azizah Y. "Family Planning and Islamic Jurisprudence." In Religious and
Ethical Perspectives on Population Issues. Washington, D.C.: The Religious Consultation
on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, 1993.
Ali, Kecia. “Progressive Muslims and Islamic Jurisprudence: the Necessity for Critical
Engagement with Marriage and Divorce Law,” in Omid Safi, ed. Progressive Muslims:
on justice, gender and pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003).
Anees, Munawar A. Islam and Biological Futures: Ethics, Gender and Technology
(London: Mansell, 1989).
Bowen, Donna Lee. “Contemporary Muslim Ethics of Abortion,” in Jonathan E.
Brockopp, ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
**Brockopp, Jonathan E., ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003).

A valuable collection of essays centered around the theme of “taking and saving
life” in Islam divided into three modules: essays on abortion, essays on war, and
essays on euthanasia. The essays on war would be especially germane to current
conflicts in the Middle East and could be useful for an introductory seminar if
coupled with some more general sources on Islamic ethics.
Daar, Abdallah S. 'Xenotransplantation and Religion: The Major Monotheistic Religions',
Xeno 2 (1994): 61-64.
Daar, Abdallah S. and A. Khitamy. 'Islamic Bioethics' (Bioethics for Clinicians Series),
Canadian Medical Association Journal 164:1 (2001).
El Fadl, Khaled Abou. “Between Functionalism and Morality: The Juristic Debates on
the Conduct of War,” in Jonathan E. Brockopp, ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War
and Euthanasia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
Katz, Marion Holmes. “The Problem of Abortion in Classical Sunni Fiqh,” in Jonathan
E. Brockopp, ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War and Euthanasia (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
Khalid, Fazlun M. and Joanne O'Brien, eds. Islam and ecology (New York: Cassell,
1992).
Özdemir, Ibrahim. “Toward an understanding of environmental ethics from a Qur'anic
perspective,” Islam and ecology: a bestowed trust / edited by Richard C. Foltz, Frederick
M. Denny and Azizan Baharuddin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
Reinhart, Kevin A. "Impurity/No Danger." History of Religions. August 1990.
Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century (Leiden: Brill,
1993).
Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. “The Right Not to Be Born: Abortion of the Disadvantaged Fetus
in Contemporary Fatwas,” in Jonathan E. Brockopp, ed. Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion,
War and Euthanasia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003).
Rogers, T. "The Islamic Ethics of Abortion in the Traditional Islamic Sources." Muslim
World 89, no. 2 (1999): 122-29.
Ethics and Islamic Law
An-Na’im, Abdullahi Ahmed. “Qur’an, Shari’a and Human Rights,” in Hans Küng and
Jürgen Moltmann, eds. The Ethics of World Religions and Human Rights (London:
Trinity Press International, 1990).
Reinhart, Kevin. "Islamic Law as Islamic Ethics," Journal of Religious Ethics 11/2 (Fall
1983): 186-203.
Sachedina, Abdulaziz. “Islamic Ethics: Differentiations,” in William Schweiker, ed. The
Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).
Sajoo, Amyn. Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004).

A thought-provoking reflection on Islamic ethics published under the auspices of
the Institute for Ismaili Studies in London, Sajoo’s work engages prominent
ethicists of the Western tradition (e.g. Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, and
Kirkegaard) as well as ethicists of Islamic traditions, aiming ultimately to
articulate a humanist, pluralist ethos from an Islamic perspective.
Islam and Human Rights
El Fadl, Khaled Abou. The Place of Tolerance in Islam, Joshua Cohen and Ian Lague,
eds. (Boston: 2002).
Esack, Farid. Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997).
Safi, Omid, “Introduction: ‘The times they are a-changin’: a Muslim Quest for Justice,
Gender Equality and Pluralism,” in Omid Safi, ed. Progressive Muslims: on justice,
gender and pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003).
An-Na’im, Abdullahi A. “The Synergy and Interdependence of Human Rights, Religion,
and Secularism,” in Joseph Runzo, Nancy M. Martin and Arvind Sharma, eds. Human
Rights and Responsibilities in the World Religions (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003).
Lawrence, Bruce B. 1994. “Woman as Subject/Woman as Symbol: Islamic
Fundamentalism and the Status of Women.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 22 (1),
1994.
Lepard, Brian. “Humanitarian Intervention, International Law, and the World Religions,”
in Runzo, Joseph, Nancy M. Martin and Arvind Sharma, eds. Human Rights and
Responsibilities in the World Religions (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003).
Shaikh, Sa’diyya. “Transforming Feminism: Islam, Women and Gender Justice,” in
Omid Safi, ed. Progressive Muslims: on justice, gender and pluralism (Oxford:
Oneworld, 2003).