ABSTRACT
The central role for Muslim ethics of the Qur a¯n and the body of prophetic guidance and conduct, the sunna, is accompanied by a key principle, one that underlies the oftrepeated assertion about Islam being “a way of life.” It is the idea of the historical locus of the life of Muh. ammad, with its series of well-documented struggles to fulfill a prophetic mission in which the pursuit of ethical ideals is not an abstraction but a practical matter. This is reflected in the sensibility of the founding Shı¯ ı¯ and Sunnı¯ ethical discourses of Miskawayh (d. 1030), al-Ghaza¯lı¯ (d. 1111) and Nas. ı¯r al-Dı¯n al-T. u¯sı¯ (d. 1274), among others.
