Islamic Scholars Toy With Idea Of Valuing Life

Mecca, Saudi Arabia, June 11 – Leading figures at the madrassas and other repositories of Islamic learning across the Middle East and North Africa have recently begun examining the hypothetical notion of assigning actual worth to individual human existence. Such an approach has been mentioned in passing by Islamic thinkers through the ages, but so far represents a purely theoretical question.

Dismissed by generation after generation of leading Imams and other authorities on Islamic thought, the idea that human life takes priority over political, or even some religious, aims, has been the subject of analysis only in whispered conversations and furtive glances at the texts of other cultures that do in fact consider life worth preserving for its own sake. By and large Islamic scholars and leaders view human lives through the prism of how they can be leveraged toward political or ideological hegemony, and the open interest in the theoretical basis for assigning actual value to life is making waves from Morocco to Malaysia.

“Islamic institutions of learning once sought to pursue and preserve wisdom of all sorts,” explains Sven D. Tuverjens, who teaches about Islam at the Royal College of Oslo. “Many of the ancient treasures of the Greek-speaking world would have been lost had the Muslims of medieval times not taken pains to copy them. But that phenomenon has receded into history, and the trend in modern times is toward an enforcement of orthodoxy. All right-thinking Muslims consider dying for Allah’s sake – or better yet, causing someone else to die for what might be construed as Allah’s sake from one narrow point of view – the correct approach. So of course these ‘outside’ ideas invite both curiosity and condemnation.”

The political and religious establishment, which in some countries are one and the same, have naturally taken a skeptical approach to the notion that people’s lives count as more than pawns in a larger struggle. Nevertheless, the openness of the internet and prolonged exposure to an ascendant Western culture has functioned as an invitation to some bold scholars to showcase their intellectual prowess by grappling with the idea that human dignity can function as a value in itself, rather than as a rhetorical or political tool for use against one’s enemies.

“Intellectual and rhetorical pyrotechnics have always played an important role in Islamic culture,” notes Somali political commentator Awil Keelya. What we’re seeing here is just another manifestation of it, but it’s only for strutting one’s mental stuff.”

“No serious thinker would ever believe that Palestinian refugees should be allowed to take citizenship in other countries and improve their lives – not when there are ideological propaganda points to be scored by perpetuating their misfortune.”