When Conscience Bows: How Islam Codes Morality

The reason I am writing this article is a recent post I came across on X that went viral, and as I write these words, it has already reached over 14 million views. The post was written by an American soldier, in which he recounted scenes from his deployments across various Muslim-majority countries: mutilated bodies retrieved from vats in Baghdad with a coat hanger, the rape of an 11-year-old by an Afghan colonel justified as culturally acceptable, a father’s cold indifference to his dead daughter’s body in exchange for compensation, and the surreal sight of a man engaging with a donkey under cover of night. To the Western mind, such horrors beg for an explanation: are these expressions of isolated barbarity, products of failed states, or symptoms of something embedded more deeply within Islamic moral and theological architecture? In this article, I will examine how morality is constructed within Islam by unpacking the intricate religious, legal, historical, and philosophical frameworks that define and enforce moral behavior in the Islamic worldview.

I. Submission as the Core of Morality

At the heart of Islamic morality lies a principle that distinguishes it sharply from Western ethical traditions: morality is not rooted in individual conscience, reason, or empathy but in submission to divine command. The term "Islam" itself, derived from the Arabic root سلم (S-L-M), connotes peace through surrender. Righteousness in Islam is defined by ta'abbudi, obedience for the sake of obedience, rather than by moral deliberation or the pursuit of human flourishing.

This contrasts starkly with Judeo-Christian ethics, where conscience plays a central role. In Christian thought, particularly in Augustinian and Thomistic traditions, conscience is the "vicarius Dei," an internal moral compass capable of discerning good from evil, even in the absence of direct revelation. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, argued that reason and natural law enable humans to participate in divine order. In Islam, however, such autonomy is curtailed. Surah 33:36 of the Quran states: "It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, to have any choice in their affair." Personal moral reasoning is subordinate to divine prescription.

Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) codifies this paradigm through a fivefold classification of actions: fard (obligatory), mustahabb (recommended), mubah (permissible), makruh (discouraged), and haram (forbidden). This taxonomy reduces moral inquiry to a legalistic framework, where ethical questions are answered not by philosophical reflection but by reference to divine law. The gravest sin in this system is not injustice or harm but kufr, disbelief, understood as moral insubordination rather than mere intellectual doubt. Conscience, far from being a source of moral authority, risks becoming a site of rebellion if it diverges from divine will.

This submission-centric morality has profound implications. Unlike Aristotelian virtue ethics, which seeks eudaimonia (human flourishing), or Kantian ethics, which emphasizes universal duties, Islamic morality is deontological, rooted in adherence to divine fiat. The believer’s task is not to question or refine moral principles but to conform to them unflinchingly.

II. The Epistemology of Obedience: Moral Relativism by Divine Fiat

In Islamic ethics, the moral status of an act is not intrinsic but assigned by divine command. This voluntarist approach, where good and evil are defined by God’s will rather than by universal principles, creates a moral landscape that can confound Western intuitions. For example, lying is generally forbidden but permitted in specific contexts, such as reconciling quarreling parties, deceiving enemies in war, or advancing the religion (taqiyya). This instrumentalism undermines the notion of universal moral truths, replacing the Golden Rule with divine prerogative.

Consider the hadith in Sahih Muslim (17:4191), which prescribes stoning for adultery. The punishment is not justified by appeals to proportionality, rehabilitation, or individual dignity but by its divine sanction. Similarly, Quran 4:34 authorizes the physical disciplining of women, prescribing a sequence of admonishment, abandonment in bed, and striking ("wa-idribuhunna," from the root "daraba," meaning "to beat"). Despite apologetic efforts to reinterpret this verse, its plain meaning embeds domestic violence within the moral framework of Islam, justified solely by its alignment with divine will.

Historical narratives reinforce this epistemology. During the Battle of Badr, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah beheaded his own father, a non-believer, in an act celebrated as supreme loyalty to God. Khalid ibn al-Walid, a revered Islamic warrior, cooked a meal over the severed head of an enemy. These are not marginal anecdotes but canonical episodes in Islamic biographies (sīrah), exalted as models of faith. The moral lesson is clear: loyalty to divine mission supersedes familial bonds, empathy, or humanistic values.

This inversion of natural conscience into sacred violence is evident in early Islamic stories. When Muhammad ordered the young Ali bin Abi Talib to sleep in his bed, knowing assassins were coming, Ali’s willingness to face near-certain death was not seen as reckless but as noble obedience. Similarly, the assassination of Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf for satirizing Muhammad was framed as righteous retribution, not treachery. These narratives form the moral seedbed for later jihadi ethics, where deception, sacrifice, and killing are sanctified in service of Islam. The tactics of groups like Hamas, such as hiding behind civilians, reflect this historical precedent, where the ends of advancing Islam justify extreme means.