Civic responsibility in political society: An Islamic paradigm

Abstract

In Islamic thought, when framing questions regarding social responsibility, the language of obligations, duties, and interpersonal justice takes precedence over the language of private and autonomous individual rights. While there is an absolute obligation to respect human dignity, the principle of public good demands that an individual’s dignity must be weighed in the scale of general well-being of those who are horizontally related to a person.

The concept of responsibility in the Qur’an is introduced in the context of what human beings “demand of one another.” Responsibility is, then, what we expect of one another in all kinds of relationships. However, since relationship are created by the fact the human beings are created of a single soul, the Islamic paradigm of civil society is geared towards building a comprehensive sense of responsibility generated by human faith that seeks to express itself through establishing a just society. Therefore Islam continues to struggle with its model of a civil society founded on private faith and public morality.