, p.abbasalinejad@modares.ac.ir
Abstract: (408 Views)
This paper reconstructs an environmental ethical framework from the thought of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, a 10th- (or 9th-) century group of Islamic philosophers known as the Brethren of Purity. Drawing on selected epistles from the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa Khullān al-Wafāʾ, we argue that their Neoplatonically inspired cosmology, anthropology, and educational project can be systematically articulated as a four-axiom model of “hierarchical stewardship.” Methodologically, the study adopts a textual–conceptual reconstruction: contemporary categories from environmental ethics (such as intrinsic value, anthropocentrism, and ecocentrism) are used as analytical tools, without attributing them anachronistically to the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ themselves. We propose four core principles: the intrinsic value of all living beings; the higher but responsibility-laden intrinsic value of humans; the moral standing of ecological wholes within an organic, world-soul cosmology; and an educational response to environmental crises understood as crises of knowledge and character. We then examine several objections concerning anthropocentrism, the pre-modern metaphysical background, practical applicability, historical distance, and environmental justice, and suggest how the Ikhwānian framework can be critically adapted rather than simply repeated. We conclude that, although historically situated and metaphysically robust, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s vision offers a distinctive Islamic contribution to contemporary environmental ethics by integrating a holistic ontology, graded intrinsic value, and a strong emphasis on moral and spiritual education as the basis for responsible human stewardship of the natural world.
Keywords: Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Environmental ethics of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, environmental philosophy, intrinsic value
Type of Study: Original Article |
Subject:
Philosophy
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