Abstract
The article explores the place, role and status of technology in Muslim moral philosophy. Invoking early Muslim encounters with technology the author makes the case why technology is already deeply embedded in contemporary Muslim bioethical thinking. Due to an absence of the philosophical grounding there remains some ambivalence as to why technology is essential to Muslim ethical thinking. Countering the techno-pessimists, the author makes a case in favor of compositional thinking, namely that our thinking itself is altered by our tools and our environment. Compositional thinking opposes the representational mode of thinking that creates a dichotomy between nature versus culture, and technology versus nature. One should, however, anticipate an environment in which technology would be beneficial and not be viewed as potentially harmful.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The names of the three brothers were: Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad and al-Ḥasan.
Lucie Bollens, “Agriculture in the Islamic World.”
Walīyullāh uses the term irtifāqāt, which literally means “to take support” and “to rely on.” Technically irtifaqat means that which is beneficial and makes things easy, literally gentle and generous (rifq). Translators like Hermansen translate irtifāqāt as “supports of civilization” which is descriptive, see al-Dihlawī (2003, p. 115). However, the equivalent of irtifāqāt in political thought is “political economy.”
Heidegger uses the neologism Ge-stell translated as Enframing to indicate “that challenging claim which gathers man thither to order the self-revealing as standing reserve”, p. 19.
References
Aḥmad, N. Ā. (2003). Istinsākh (Cloning) kā sā’insī ‘amal. Muḥaddis͉, 35(1), 53–69.
al-Dihlawī, S. W. A. (2003). The conclusive argument of god: Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha (M. K. Hermansen, Trans.). Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute.
al-Jazarī, I. a.-R. (1409/1989 (first published 1974)). The book of knowledge of ingenious mechanical devices (D. R. Hill, Trans.). Islamabad (Dordrecht, Holland): Pakistan Hijra Council (first published by D. Reidel Publishing Company).
al-Jazarī, I. i. a.-R., & Hill (trans. and annot.), D. R. (1409/1989). The book of knowledge of ingenious mechanical devices. Islamabad: Pakistan Hijra Council.
Atlan, H. (2011). The sparks of randomness (L. J. Schramm, Trans. Vol. 1). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Connolly, W. E. (2003). Neuropolitics: Thinking, culture, speed (Vol. 23). Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Elias, N. (1994). The civilizing process (E. Jephcott, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Elshakry, M. (2003). Darwin’s legacy in the Arab East: Science, religion and politics, 1870–1914. Ph.D., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Fadel, M. (2001). Islam and the new genetics. Saint Thomas Law Review, 13, 901–909.
Friedel, R. D. (2007). A culture of improvement technology and the Western millennium. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Funkenstein, A. (1986). Theology and the scientific imagination from the middle ages to the seventeenth century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hamdy, S. F. (2006). Our bodies belong to God: Islam, medical science, and ethical reasoning in Egyptian life. Ph.D., New York University, New York, USA. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1179955691&Fmt=7&clientId=15020&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology and other essays (W. Lovitt, Trans.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Hill, D. R. (1997). Technology in the Islamic World. In H. Selin (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-Western cultures (pp. 2099–2103). Dordrecht, Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Hill, D. R. (2015). al-D̲j̲azarī. In P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. v. Donzel, & W. P. Heinrichs (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill Online.
Hirschkind, C. (2006). The ethical soundscape: Cassette sermons and Islamic counterpublics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Joy, B. (2000). Why the future doesn’t need us. Wired, 8(4), 1–8.
Keane, W. (2014). Ethics as Piety. Numen, 61(2–3), 221–236. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341317.
King, D. A. (1975). The book of knowledge of ingenious mechanical devices: Kitab fi macrifat al-hiyal al-handasiya by Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari by D. R. Hill. History of Science, 13(4), 284.
Madanī, Ḥ. Ḥ. (2003). Cloning kā ‘amal kyā hai? Ghair sā’insī alfāz main. Muḥaddis͉, 32(6), 70–71.
Madanī, Ḥ. Ḥ. (2005). Islām main nasab awr nasal ka taḥaffuẓ: ithbāt-i nasab main qayāfa wa qarā ̓in aur DNA kī test waghayra ki ḥaythiyat. Muḥaddith, 7(37). http://tinyurl.com/j6pnclb.
Mahdi, M. (2001). Alfarabi and the foundation of Islamic political philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mignolo, W. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96.
Moazam, F. (2006). Bioethics and organ transplantation in a Muslim society: A study in culture, ethnography, and religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Moosa, E. (1999). Languages of change in Islamic Law: Redefining death in modernity. Islamic Studies, 38(3), 305–342.
Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Vintage.
Rees, M. (2010). Scientific horizons: Lecture 1: The scientific citizen. Paper presented at the The Reith Lectures.
Sachedina, A. A. (2009). Islamic biomedical ethics: Principles and application. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Schuurman, E. (1980). Technology and the future: A philosophical challenge (H. D. Morton, Trans.). Toronto: Wedge Publishing Foundation.
Schuurman, E. (2005). The technological world picture and an ethics of responsibility: Struggles in the ethics of technology. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press.
Schuurman, E. (2008). The challenge of Islam’s critique of technology. Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 60(2), 75–83.
Selin, H. (1997). Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-Western cultures. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals
This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moosa, E. Technology in Muslim Moral Philosophy. J Relig Health 55, 369–383 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-016-0192-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-016-0192-0