The Structure of Islamic Ethics: A New Approach

Muslim scholars have viewed the category of ethics from different perspectives and provided different and sometimes sporadic comments in this regard. They are different in how they have discussed and concluded the issue, and have different views due to their sole dependence on intellect or tradition or both of them. They have rarely tried to formulate a definite moral system or structure, or at least, they have not taken it into consideration independently, so they have not specified a "moral system" seriously. No doubt, if the collection of what they have written about "ethics" is viewed with the aim of defining a "moral system" and explaining the meaning and purpose of its "structure", a particular "moral system and its structure" can be extracted, which is not so easy. Some contemporary writers and scholars have taken into consideration the issue of "moral system and its structure" independently, and highlighted its conditions and presuppositions, which is very admirable. However, the present paper provides a new and unprecedented view about the structure of Islamic ethics.