Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil

Amir Saemi opens the book by presenting a formidable challenge for today’s religious progressives who accept the authority of ancient scriptures but find commands like the following morally objectionable:

As for the thief, whether male or female, cut their hands as a penalty for what they have reaped. (Quran 5:38)

The adulteress and the adulterer—whip each one of them a hundred lashes, and let no pity towards them overcome you regarding God’s Law, if you believe in God and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their punishment. (Quran 24:2)

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:13)

The challenge, put simply, is how to view a being who issues such terrifying prescriptions as a praiseworthy God. Formally, Saemi formulates what he calls the “New Problem of Evil,” arising from the tension among three theses:

Divinity: Scripture is the words of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God.

Prescribed-Evil: There are some actions prescribed or permitted by the best interpretation of a Scriptural passage which seem immoral, according to our independent moral judgments.

Moral-Judgments: Our independent moral judgments reliably represent moral values, moral duties, and moral permissions. (23, headings shortened)

In the Prologue, Saemi identifies two common progressive strategies, targeting Prescribed-Evil, that attempt to show these prescriptions are only apparently immoral.

The first is Reinterpretation, which argues that problematic passages can be redeemed through careful exegetical analysis. To illustrate this, Saemi examines the work of Amina Wadud and Asma Barlas, who analyze the Arabic of certain Quranic verses in search of interpretations that align with modern moral sensibilities.

Saemi responds with the sharp observation that the problem runs deeper. The Reinterpretation strategy often merely narrows the scope of these prescriptions, for example, by arguing that the command to amputate a thief’s hand applies only under rare conditions. But Saemi rightly sees this as a red herring: even under rare conditions, how could a praiseworthy God permit such acts? Moreover, Saemi expresses general pessimism toward the idea that centuries of expert analysis have fundamentally misread the basic meaning of the relevant Arabic terms.

The second strategy favored by progressives is Contextualization. According to this approach, scriptural injunctions like those above are morally justified because, in their original historical context, they prescribe actions that were morally superior to prevailing customs and thus represent an advancement in moral standards. For example, it is argued that the Quranic permission to use violence against wives under certain conditions marked progress compared to the unchecked violence customary at the time (19).

Saemi’s eventual proposal is a version of this strategy, though he initially critiques its standard forms. We can illustrate Saemi’s main point in this way: imagine a society that once punished theft by executing the thief’s entire family. If it later replaces this with a punishment that involves amputating only the thief’s hand, this may appear relatively less jarring. However, for those who view both practices as morally abhorrent, the change does not constitute moral progress proper—it is instead merely a shift from permitting one form of atrocity to another. Similar concerns apply to shifts from permitting unchecked domestic violence to conditional domestic violence.

While progressive readers attempt to defuse the New Problem of Evil by challenging Prescribed-Evil, Saemi turns to medieval Islamic philosophy in the next three chapters, exploring responses that challenge the Moral-Judgments thesis. He surveys three traditions: (1) The consequentialism of the late Ashʿarites, especially al-Ghazālī (37–66); (2) The deontological ethics of the Muʿtazilites, especially ʿAbd al-Jabbār (67–102); and (3) The virtue ethics of the falsafa tradition, especially al-Fārābī (103–134).

These chapters are rich and especially valuable to readers unfamiliar with medieval Islamic ethics. I think the arguments that he presents in these chapters are unified by the idea that God’s moral knowledge vastly surpasses ours, though each tradition articulates this differently:[1]

  1. al-Ghazālī’s consequentialist account: God knows all the possible consequences of all actions, while we only have limited knowledge of some expected consequences.
  2. ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s deontological account: God knows our duties all-things-considered, while we only have limited intuition about some pro tanto duties.
  3. al-Fārābī’s virtue theoretical account: God knows what is practically good for us with absolute certainty, while our practical reason is not capable of demonstrative proofs.

The conclusion Saemi draws from these three traditions is the same: assuming the Quran expresses God’s moral judgments, a Muslim must strictly follow scriptural commands, even when they seem jarring according to their independent judgment. Accordingly, Saemi groups these chapters under the heading of “Scripture First” views.

Saemi presents his positive solution to the New Problem of Evil in the “Ethics First” section by first challenging a key assumption of the “Scripture First” views: that pure moral deference is possible or acceptable, i.e., that one can or should abandon a moral judgment simply because an authoritative source commands it. He challenges this with both historical and contemporary arguments. In the historical part, Saemi primarily draws on Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 925), who argues that pure moral deference fails to produce moral understanding, which is necessary for the redemption of the soul. Thus, those concerned with redemption must not discard their independent moral judgments so readily.

While I’m sympathetic to Saemi’s conclusion, I worry that the argument moves too quickly to serve its dialectical purpose. Someone committed to strict scriptural adherence could agree that redemption requires understanding the grand telic good, while denying that it requires understanding why each particular moral command is good. They might argue that, as finite beings, we must prioritize certain objects of understanding over others. For example, a master yet finite painter might grasp what makes a painting beautiful without fully understanding the rationale behind every single brushstroke. Similarly, a virtuous but finite agent may understand the form of a good life in general, without fully understanding the rationale behind every single moral demand.

But let’s grant Saemi that, in every case and at every level, pure moral deference to scripture is to be avoided. That, of course, brings us back to the New Problem of Evil. To resolve the tension, Saemi offers two new strategies that target the Prescribed-Evil thesis. Unlike other progressives, he insists that, given the standard linguistic and historical understanding of the original terms, some of the prescriptions found in scripture are indeed morally evil, at least considered in isolation. However, he offers a solution to make that verdict compatible with God’s omniscience and omnibenevolence.

Saemi’s initial solution is more modest (169–170). He begins by noting that accepting the reliability of our moral judgments does not require us to accept their guaranteed accuracy. Indeed, we may rationally rely on a cognitive mechanism we consider reliable while remaining agnostic about the accuracy of its final verdicts. Thus, when there is a conflict between our moral judgments and scripture, we can adopt the following attitude: we may rationally adhere to our own moral judgments while also accepting that, in cases of conflict with scriptural injunctions, our judgments are perhaps inaccurate. Hence, a progressive can follow their independent judgment while still maintaining a form of reverence for scripture.

However, there seem to be two problems with this solution. First, one can accept it only if one thinks it is reasonable to leave open the possibility of being wrong about the morality of cutting off the hand of a thief, capital punishment for homosexuality, domestic violence against women, etc. But I don’t think modern moral intuitions about these questions typically allow for the view that these prescriptions could be morally acceptable. Of course, many people in the world may agree with these verdicts, but in the dialectical context of the argument, those judgments are not relevant (not because such people are philosophically less important, but because the New Problem of Evil does not arise if we already accept the prescriptions). But those who are jarred by these examples tend to treat them as clear-cut cases of conflict between what is objectively right and what is prescribed in scripture. If so, it is hard to see how they could, in good faith, adopt the combination of attitudes suggested by the first solution.

Saemi’s second solution, presented in the final chapter (206–234), is more ambitious. The key idea is to distinguish between a scripture’s legal prescriptions and its moral commitments. As Saemi puts it:

Legal Interpretation. Actions prescribed or permitted by the best interpretation of a Scriptural passage are legally obligatory or permitted, according to religious law. But God or the Prophet may legislate legal obligations or permissions that deviate from moral ones. (208)

To defend this, Saemi draws on two sources. First, the philosophical tale Hayy ibn Yaqzān by Ibn Ṭufayl (210–214). Second, Scott Shapiro’s “planning conception” of law (214–218). The lesson Saemi takes from both is similar: laws are primarily instruments for resolving arbitrary and contentious social problems through feasible planning. On this account, a law is irrational if it is not feasible. As a result, planning social change through legislation is rational only if the resulting plan is one that society would actually follow. Saemi then relies on an empirical claim: at the time of the Prophet, the only feasible legal plans involved legislating some immoral laws. That is, the Prophet, as head of state, had to create a legal plan that was feasible (otherwise he would not be rational). But given the contentious preferences of his society, only immoral laws were feasible. So, he legislated immoral laws, though arguably, only those that improved the situation for the oppressed. And this latter point can also explain why scripture does not explicitly distinguish between legal and moral obligations in its language. Arguably, doing so—saying, for example, “This is the law, but it’s morally wrong”—would undermine the law’s authority and efficacy as a social plan that eventually benefits all, especially the oppressed.

Unlike other Contextualization strategies, Saemi’s view holds that these legal prescriptions are indeed immoral in isolation. However, it seems that Saemi’s solution treats these laws as morally permissible from another angle: If there is a moral imperative to create a social plan that improves a society’s conditions, especially for the oppressed, then such legal prescriptions may be retrospectively justified. So, although in isolation, those legislations are immoral, within the historical trajectory, Saemi seems to suggest, they could be justified (provided that one could show that they were plans to improve conditions of, e.g., domestic violence).

Finally, I’d like to close by raising a concern about this final solution. A traditionalist who defends strict adherence to the Quranic prescriptions can certainly accept a distinction between legal and moral injunctions in the Quran. They might also accept that legal injunctions function as a social plan. But such a traditionalist could further distinguish between social plans that are historically contingent and those that are the right plans for societies as such. Given the unmatched pride of place that traditionalists give to scriptures, it seems plausible that, for example, a traditionalist Muslim would treat the Quranic legal injunctions as outlines for a social plan that is good for societies as such. After all, this aligns with many traditionalist Muslim attitudes: while analogy and reasoning can develop and extend Quranic legislation, it would be considered presumptuous to revise laws or “social plans” that are explicitly endorsed by the Quran.

Saemi’s book offers much more than I could cover here. It is philosophically rigorous, conceptually clear, and a significant contribution to the philosophy of religion by showing how perspectives from the Islamic tradition could move various debates in new directions. But it is also a refreshingly honest reflection on moral questions that are sometimes brushed aside too quickly by many others.

[1] Although Saemi discusses three distinct traditions, his presentation of each assumes a form of moral realism—namely, that there are objective moral facts which God knows best. In the chapter on the Ashʿarites, he briefly explains why he sets aside the strands of Divine Command Theory within that school.