Abdulaziz Sachedina is a towering figure in Islamic ethics, and this is his masterpiece, the capstone to decades of rigorous study, observation, teaching, mentoring -- and disciplining himself to the demands of a jurist and scholar who embodies the best in his tradition. This treatise on 'fundamental aspects of human conduct' is at once a comprehensive overview and a penetrating analysis and interpretation of theological and juridical discourses in Islam, cast now within an ethical framework that illuminates the profound moral foundations of the Islamic legal tradition. It will quickly become required reading for all who seek to understand the inner logic of a vastly complex and evolving world religion.
Abdulaziz Sachedina is Professor and Endowed IIIT Chair in Islamic Studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He has been conducting research and writing in the field of Islamic Law, Ethics, and Theology (Sunni and Shiite) for more than four decades. In the last twenty years he has concentrated on social and political ethics, including Interfaith and Intrafaith Relations, Islamic Biomedical Ethics and Islam and Human Rights. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights (OUP, 2009).