Al-Mawrid and the Problem of Morality Qua Disposition

Ghamidi has long departed from the traditional understanding of disposition (fitrah) as discussed throughout classical Islamic theology. His treatment of fitrah, especially the epistemological authority he assigns to it, is quite different from how the Ashari, Mutazili, and Athari schools have approached the question.

What bothers me particularly about the Al-Mawrid school is this constant glorification of so-called “universal moral ethics” and the attempt to fit these moral models under the garb of natural disposition, without properly establishing their philosophical foundations.

You can certainly draw parallels between Ghamidi’s understanding of fitrah and the Mutazili conception of husn wa qubh. Dr. Hafiz Muhammad Zubair has discussed this quite extensively. The argument is essentially that Ghamidi assigns to human fitrah an epistemological authority resembling, in certain respects, the authority that the Mutazila assigned to reason.

But I am not going to get into that entire theological debate here. I just want to address one particular issue that keeps coming up: the so-called “Golden Principle.”

“Do unto others as you would like to be done to yourself.”

At first glance, it seems like a perfectly reasonable moral statement. It sounds good, feels good, and certainly appeals to our ordinary understanding of fairness.

But something sounding morally appealing doesn’t necessarily make it a universally sufficient moral principle. I genuinely don’t understand why this distinction is so difficult to comprehend.

The argument being presented, as I understand it, is essentially this:

1- The Golden Rule is a universal moral standard.

2- This standard is recognised through human natural disposition, or fitrah, and affirmed through Islamic revelation.

3- Surah Al-Mutaffifin is evidence of this very principle.

Now, there are quite a few philosophical problems here.

First, we need to establish what exactly is being claimed by calling something universal.

If you are merely saying that reciprocity is a generally applicable moral consideration, I have no disagreement with that. But if you are presenting the Golden Rule, in its literal preference-based formulation, as a universally sufficient moral standard, then it must hold consistently across every situation to which it applies.

This is elementary logic.

Let:

G(x) = An action in situation x follows the literal Golden Rule.

M(x) = That action is morally permissible.

If following the Golden Rule is sufficient to establish moral permissibility, the proposition becomes:

∀x (G(x) → M(x))

In other words, for EVERY situation x, following the Golden Rule must result in a morally permissible action.

Now, to disprove a universal proposition of this kind, you don’t need a hundred examples or an entire philosophical treatise.

You need precisely ONE counterexample.

∃x (G(x) ∧ ¬M(x))

Meaning there exists at least one situation where the Golden Rule is followed, yet the resulting action is morally impermissible.

That’s it. Basic predicate logic.

Now consider a masochist who derives pleasure from receiving pain. He genuinely enjoys it and wants to treat others the way he himself would like to be treated.

Would his preference for experiencing pain morally justify inflicting that same pain upon another person without their consent?

Obviously not.

But under a strictly literal, preference-based reading of the Golden Rule, he is treating someone precisely as he would wish to be treated himself.

And that’s the problem.

You can now introduce consent, individual rights, moral obligations, personal boundaries, and all the other necessary qualifications to make the principle work.

Fair enough.

But then you’ve already conceded my point. The principle, taken literally, is not independently sufficient to determine what is morally permissible. It requires other moral premises and constraints.

And notice that I am not arguing against reciprocity as a moral consideration. I am arguing against presenting this particular formulation as a complete or independently sufficient moral criterion.

These are two very different things.

Secondly, I genuinely find the appeal to Surah Al-Mutaffifin (83:1–6) rather strange when it is being used to establish more than the verses actually establish.

The Quran condemns those who demand their measure in full when receiving from others but deliberately give less when measuring for them.

It is an explicit condemnation of dishonesty, injustice, and hypocrisy.

Someone demands fairness for himself while denying it to others.

Fine. I agree.

But where exactly does this establish that one’s personal preferences constitute a universally sufficient moral standard?

Condemnation of hypocrisy ≠ establishment of the Golden Rule as a complete moral system.

The Quran condemns cheating because cheating is wrong within the divine moral order. Its wrongness does not depend on whether the cheater personally likes or dislikes being cheated.

Even if a person were perfectly comfortable being cheated himself, that would not suddenly make his cheating someone else morally permissible.

The moral obligation exists independently of his personal preferences.

This is where I think people keep confusing the recognition of morality with the foundation of morality.

Recognising something as good does not necessarily explain WHY it is good, nor does it establish the source of its moral authority.

These are separate philosophical questions.

And simply because the Quran appeals to an existing moral awareness does not mean every moral formulation derived from that awareness becomes universally sufficient.

This takes us directly to the classical debate surrounding husn wa qubh, reason, fitrah, and revelation.

If human beings possess an innate moral disposition, that still leaves us with the question of how we distinguish genuine moral awareness from socially conditioned intuitions, personal desires, or mistaken judgments.

And if two people arrive at contradictory moral intuitions, what exactly determines which one accurately reflects fitrah?

These are serious epistemological questions. You cannot just invoke natural disposition every time a moral principle sounds appealing and consider the philosophical problem settled.

Now, people also bring up the hadith:

“None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”

(Sahih al-Bukhari, 13; Sahih Muslim, 45)

Again, I have absolutely no disagreement with the hadith.

But the statement exists within an entire Islamic moral framework of rights, obligations, prohibitions, justice, and divine revelation.

It isn’t an invitation to impose every personal preference upon another person merely because one would enjoy being treated that way.

Nor does its resemblance to the Golden Rule automatically establish that both are grounded in identical philosophical premises.

Similarity of moral expression does not establish identity of moral foundations.

Two ethical systems can arrive at the exact same moral conclusion while deriving that conclusion from entirely different sources of authority.

This is not some complicated philosophical discovery.

And this is precisely where I have a problem with the tendency to take ethical formulations popular in Western philosophy, dress them in Islamic terminology, and then claim that the Quran endorses the entire philosophical understanding behind them.

If you’re claiming that a particular ethical formulation represents the Quranic conception of morality, then establish that claim. Don’t simply point towards a verse condemning dishonesty and assume the entire philosophical argument has been settled.

And if you are claiming that the two frameworks are identical in their foundations, then the burden of proving that identity is on you.

The Quran recognising moral disposition does not mean subjective human preference becomes the ultimate source of moral authority.

Likewise, the fact that reciprocity is morally valuable does not mean reciprocity independently determines every moral obligation.

I don’t understand this intellectual obsession with taking a good-feeling sentence, declaring it a universal moral standard, and then stretching the Quran to accommodate claims that have not even been philosophically established.

Islamic ethics does not need to be retrofitted into modern Western moral terminology to establish its legitimacy.