Journal of Seljuk Civilisational Studies

Abstract

Abstract:

The concept of justice has always been one of the central issues that
have occupied the minds of many philosophers, social scientists and political writers from the ancient to
the modern times. So far most of the studies appear to
have focused on the meaning and definition of this pivotal concept, as well as
its social, economic and political implications. Several prominent Muslim
philosophers in the past, such as al-KindÊ, al-FÉrÉbÊ, Ibn
SÊnÉ, Ibn Rushd, AbË Miskawayh, and NaÎÊr al-Din ÙËsÊ, devoted a significant segment of their
political and ethical writings to the subject-matter of justice, which they
treated and examined more or less in a similar fashion as the ancient Greek
philosophers, especially Plato and Aristotle, had done. Like them, they
developed a rational conception of justice, which is generally viewed as
natural, eternal, and immutable and ethically as the most comprehensive virtue. Muslim theosophers or
Sufi philosophers, such as al-GhazÉlÊ,
Ibn al-‘ArabÊ and MawlÉnÉ RËmÊ, have initially conceived justice in the same
form as the philosophers just-mentioned above and, as will be seen in this
study, elaborated it further mainly within the context of metaphysical wisdom
that is eternally implanted by God in the universe. Then later, on the basis of
their own interpretations of the relevant verses of the Qur’an and the
Prophetic sayings, they developed their conception of justice.