A Critical Analysis of Ṭāḥā ʻAbd al-Raḥmān’s View on the Relation between Religion and Morality

The relation between religion and morality has been always considered to be a central subject in moral philosophy and philosophy of religion. Ṭāḥā ʻAbd al-Raḥmān, a famous Moroccan philosopher, is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in the Arab world. He is a systematic theorist who has presented many views for different philosophical problems. The new theory of “unity of morality and religion” is put forward by him concerning the relation between religion and morality. He believes that the prevalent attitudes about this relation are derived from a thought that has taken disunity for granted, whereas it does not make sense to think of morality and religion as two distinct phenomena. After discussing ʻAbd al-Raḥmān’s view concerning morality and religion, we attempt to critically analyze it and to clarify that he failed to prove the unity of religion and morality in terms of their concepts and instances.