Consult Your Heart

In this article, I explore the authority of the heart (qalb) as a potential locus for the individual moral knowledge and normativity in Islamic ethics. To do so, I discuss the two ḥadīths that ostensibly suggest one’s “self” as a source of moral judgment. These ḥadīths raise renewed questions about the sources of moral judgment, the nature of moral judgement and the ethical capacity of the “self” (conscience) –– “consult your heart and consult your self …”; “righteousness is good conduct, and sin is that which rankles in your chest and which you would hate for other people to look upon.” There are rich debates in the Islamic tradition on the place and authority of the bāṭin (inward) in generating moral knowledge, which correspond to contemporary discourses in Western ethics on the place of conscience in the moral formation of the individual. In this article, I argue that although Islamic legal tradition as a discipline has focused on qualified external actions of individuals and the ijtihād (independent legal reasoning) of mujtahids (jurists), it did not ignore the authority of the bāṭin for moral assessment and the ijtihād of common individuals. I propose that the inward dimension has always occupied an important space within the interdisciplinary field of Islamic ethics; but has been overshadowed by the overarching theological disputes between the Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs over the sources of knowledge.  The article starts by exploring the relevant aḥādith (reports) and their interpretation in ḥadīth commentaries, followed by an analysis of discussions in the fields of Islamic jurisprudence and Sufism. Key words: akhlāq (ethics), ḥadīth, scriptural ethics, moral conscience, heart, self, moral judgemt, al-bāṭin, consult your heart, inspiration (ilhām), ratio legis, Sufīsm.