This article looks at some of the salient analyses of the concept of
wasaṭīyah (moderation) in the ancient Greek and the Islamic traditions
and uses them to develop a contemporary view of the matter.
Greek ethics played a huge role in shaping the ethical views of
Muslim philosophers and theologians, and thus the article starts
with an overview of the revival of contemporary western virtue
ethics, in many ways an extension of Platonic-Aristotelian ethics,
and then looks briefly at the place of moderation or temperance in
Platonic-Aristotelian ethics. This sets the stage for an exposition
of the position taken by Ibn Miskawayh and al-Ghazali, which is
then used as a backdrop for suggesting a revival of the Qur’an’s
virtue ethics. After outlining a basis for its virtue ethics, the
Qur’anic view of the virtue of wasaṭīyah is discussed briefly and
its position on this virtue’s nature in terms of the individual and
the community is presented.
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences