An Egyptian Ethicist

Abstract

The sources shaping a moral theory range from “reason” to “societal command” to “religious texts.” The prominence and relationship between these sources is contingent upon the ethicists’ approaches and inquiries. Although Kant’s proposition of “pure reason” as a source of moral obligation marks a significant turning point in the field of ethics, scholars like Søren Aabye Kierkegaard argue for a divine command law of ethics, where religious texts become an inevitable source complementing individual ethical choices. This essay explores the intersection of religious texts and reasoning—the fusion between heteronomy and autonomy as sources of morality. It analyzes Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh Drāz’s “Moral Obligation” as a categorical imperative within moral theories and his incorporation of Western scholars such as Immanuel Kant and Henri Bergson into his work, among others. The discussion features a significant episode of Muslim intellectual engagement with Western scholarship and its impact on understanding morality in the Qurʾān. The study shows that Drāz’s La Morale du Koran adapts certain Western ethical theories and reinterprets specific Qurʾanic passages, creating a new synthesis: an integration of knowledge.