Historical Remarks on the Concept of “Sajīyyah”: A Study on the Roots of Islamic Ethical Theory Based on Old Traditions

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Qur'anic Studies, Academia of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

2 Graduate Student, Department of Private Law, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Law, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The dominance of Aristotelian discourse in classical Islamic thought caused moral notions to be more explored from a philosophical standpoint among Muslim intellectuals, while historical matters were always implicitly suppressed. The concept of sajīyyah was no exception to this rule. There have been a few recent studies on ancient Islamic ethical concepts. These few studies and attempts, however, do not demonstrate how the usage and understanding of such conceptions influenced the formation of Islamic moral views during the early and medieval Islamic periods.
In this article, we use evidence from Islamic historical texts from the first and middle Islamic centuries to explain the evolution of Muslims’ understanding of sajīyyah from an intrinsic to a non-intrinsic entity. It will be demonstrated how imported forms of ideas in the Islamic world imposed their tendencies onto Islamic moral thought and led this notion to be obscured and removed from its historical reality for centuries.
In the pre-Islamic time and, subsequently, at the advent of the Prophet Mohammad, sajīyyah was regarded as a natural, instinctive, and non-acquired phenomenon. As a result, the Arabs referred to the good or evil qualities inherited from one’s parents as “sajīyyah”, in which education played no role. This perception was able to make deterministic approaches happy, but their happiness did not last long; rather, with the intellectual developments starting in the second century AH and the dominance of Muʿtazilī approaches, which believed in human free will, sajīyyah shifted from the concept we mentioned to attributes that could be acquired and in which education played a role.
All of the evidence suggests that our current understanding of “sajīyyah” is a fragment of an older idea that was likewise subject to change and evolution. On this premise, in the ancient Arab civilization, this term referred to anything that derived solely from man’s nature and his instincts, and had no relation with man’s decision or choosing. On the other hand, according to this old and Jāhilī moral system, praiseworthy qualities were commended in actuality and truth if they came from the person’s nature, and if they did not, it was regarded artificiality and pretense. Perhaps this explains why this term is seldom used in ethical narratives, because the person’s decision was not thought to have a role in the construction of qualities.
However, we find a new trend to understand “sajīyyah” in a framework that is more compatible with what the proponents of rationalization discourse seek with the advent of rational currents and discourses from the second century onwards. This new reading attempted to give a fresh reading of “sajīyyah” in three notions, with diverse contributors and currents whose work lasted until the Islamic Middle Ages. For the first notion, it was always intended to imply that not all moral acts are based on what a person has been given, and that other behaviors are based on a person’s desire and will. The second notion was an attempt to promote that acquired and intention-based moral qualities are more preferable than natural praiseworthy acts. The third notion was to shift the definition of “sajīyyah” from a natural, subjective command to a voluntary, productive command in which human will and voluntary efforts play a significant role.
This paper will take a historical approach to both ancient and medieval Islamic writings. Accordingly, this study tries to answer questions like these: How can the relevant texts be re-read in the context of their early conceptions? Is this new reading leading us to believe that there was a change in the perception of “sajīyyah” during the first and middle Islamic centuries? What was the outcome of this historical development?

Keywords

Full Text

ملاحظاتی تاریخی پیرامون انگارۀ سجیه

پژوهشی در ریشه‌های نظریۀ اخلاقی اسلامی بر پایۀ متون کهن

سید محمدهادی گرامی[1]

علیرضا دهقانی[2]

چکیده

توجه به فهم متون حدیثی با استفاده از رویکردهای هرمنوتیکی به‌رغم اهمیت بسیاری که دارد، تاکنون از آن غفلت شده است. خوانش تاریخی متون اسلامی می‌تواند زمینۀ بازاندیشی در این متون را فراهم کند. مروری بر این متون نشان می‌دهد که فهم درستی از معانی مفاهیم و انگاره‌های اخلاقی از جمله سجیه وجود ندارد و به‌جای آن، عمدتا درک عصری ارائه می‌شود. نگرش تاریخی به متونی که در آنها انگاره سجیه به کار رفته است، معنای خاصی از این انگاره را بازتاب می‌دهد. در این راستا، رویکرد تاریخی به شواهد و قرائنی که نظریه ـ و بلکه فراتر از آن ـ گفتمان اخلاقی اسلامی در قرون نخستین را تبیین می‌کند، ضروری و کارآمد به نظر می‌رسد. شناخت گفتمان مسلط بر سجیه، می‌تواند ما را به پاسخی درخور پیرامون ماهیت سجیه و تمایز آن با مفاهیم اخلاقی مشابه در فضای قرون نخستین اسلامی، برساند. این مقاله می‌کوشد تا بر اساس روش‌های تاریخی با تأکید بر تاریخ‌پژوهی انگاره‌ای، سجیه را بازشناسی کند، تا مشخص شود این انگاره در چارچوب نظریات اخلاقی نخستین و میانۀ اسلامی چه تطوراتی یافته است. پژوهش حاضر با شواهدی که پیش‌روی مخاطب می‌گذارد، ما را به این نتیجه می‌رساند که در قرن نخست، سجیه به آن دسته از صفات اخلاقی گفته می‌شد که اکتسابی نبودند، ولی به‌تدریج و با سیطرۀ گفتمان‌های عقل‌گرا ـ در قرون بعدی ـ به صفات‌ اخلاقی اکتسابی نیز سجیه اطلاق شد.

کلیدواژه‌ها: سجیه، اخلاق اسلامی، انگارۀ تاریخی، فیلولوژی.

 

[1] استادیار پژوهشکدۀ مطالعات قرآنی، پژوهشگاه علوم انسانی و مطالعات فرهنگی، تهران، ایران (نویسندۀ مسئول). m.h.gerami@ihcs.ac.ir

[2] دانشجوی کارشناسی ارشد، حقوق خصوصی، دانشکدۀ معارف اسلامی و حقوق، دانشگاه امام صادق(ع)، تهران، ایران. a.dehghani@isu.ac.ir

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آفاق الحضارة الاسلامية
Volume 25, Issue 1 - Serial Number 49
Spring & Summer
2022
Pages 279-312

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