Epistemic Vicegerency in Islamic Eco-Ethics

From political theory and theology to environmental studies and contemporary Islamic eco-ethics, the Qur’anic term “khalifa” is the subject of much interdisciplinary study, Given its many conceptual interpretations in the history of the Islamic tradition, it has been translated in a variety of ways: caliph, ruler, successor, vicegerent, steward.

The myriad of viewpoints expressed by classical scholars show that vicegerency (istikhlāf) does not have a singular, shared understanding within the exegetical tradition, let alone the Islamic tradition as a whole. Under the potential influence of Umayyad rule, exegetes like al-Tabari (d. 923) and al-Qurtubi (d. 1273) conceived of a khalifa as a legal ruler who followed God’s will (al-Qadi 1988). Philosophically-oriented commentators like al-Zamakshari (d. 1143) and al-Razi (d. 1210) also saw vicegerency as a reference to all human beings. However, such texts do not appear to provide much detail on the function of a vicegerent, or rather, how an ordinary human being is to perform such a task if the position does indeed apply to all of humankind.

Since the 1970s wave of interest in Islamic environmental scholarship and activism, the term has become central within the domain of Islamic eco-ethics, primarily conveying human stewardship of the environment and its myriad of creaturely inhabitants. Central to this conception has been the study of Ibn ‘Arabi’s (d. 1240) writing (Murad 2016), for whom a khalifa is one who can recognize God’s qualities within creation and consequently act with protective stewardship towards it. Here, servantship to God ('ubudiyyah) is particularly connected to being a vicegerent of God who preserves the world’s balance (Nasr 1993, Chittick 2008). Recognizing God’s ontological authority becomes a prerequisite of vicegerency in which the role is not fulfilled by simply recognizing the "moral" rights of creatures. They must also be protected due to their ontological status—that of being God's property. Yet, the question remains on how we ought to understand the relationship between the two positions of servanthood and vicegerency and the idea of human perfection (al-insān al-kāmil) which seems to accompany both of these roles. The former conveys a position of passivity and receptivity in relation to God whereas the latter requires human agency within the world.

In this paper, I examine how Said Nursi’s (d. 1960) thought in his Qur’anic commentary, the Risale-i Nur (Epistles of Light), can help resolve this puzzle between the two hierarchically distinct roles of servanthood and vicegerency. I argue that Nursi’s model of “spiritual vicegerency” arises from what I deem to be his theological model of human neediness. While Nursi builds extensively from Ibn Arabi’s thought, especially from his cosmology of divine names, he also departs from it. Rather than focusing on how human perfection can be achieved, he sees the acceptance and recognition of inherent human neediness (‘ajz) as central to becoming a vicegerent of God.

The aim of this paper is two-fold. One, by engaging in a historical and textual analysis of contemporary scholarship, it examines how the term khalifa has been approached in a reductive manner through its placement in political and environmental contexts, limiting the range of its discursive contributions. Two, it questions how vicegerency can be epistemically and hierarchically understood by putting Ibn Arabi’s thought into conversation with Nursi’s ontological and epistemological framework in his multi-volumed and understudied Risale-i Nur. Within this framework, I argue that being a khalifa is about forming proper God-centric relations with entities in the world. Rather than denoting any sense of intrinsic human superiority, the notion of a khalifa offers a way to conceptualize how creation can be hermeneutically approached such that it is “read” or interpreted, and appreciated in terms of its epistemic value. I also distinguish between moral vicegerency and epistemic vicegerency in which the latter is concerned with recognizing the epistemic content or the ayat-aspect of creation and treating created beings with the respect they deserve given this epistemic status they hold. I end the paper with remarks on intrinsic human hierarchical value as opposed to hierarchical value in potentia that is cultivated yet not self-attributed. Here, my aim is to show how a human being as a khalifa attains value to the extent that she realizes a state of worshipful awareness ('ubudiyyah), thus recognizing the creational value of all other entities.

The contribution of this paper primarily looks to the growing field of contemporary Islamic ethics as well as the relatively nascent arena of Nursian studies which requires, still, to be contextualized within the broader scholarly Islamic tradition. While existing scholarship on Nursi has looked to an extent at his environmental views (Ozdemir 2003, 2022), his conception of vicegerency remains to be fully studied as well as its connection and departure from Ibn Arabi’s thought. Moreover, through its methodological examination and critique of how Islamic eco-ethics has thus been conducted (often times without reference to the epistemic dimensions of Qur’anic concepts like khalifa), the paper contributes to this emerging disciplinary conversation (Gade 2019).

In short, through this paper, I seek to illustrate how the notion of a khalifa, contextualized within the Qur’an’s epistemology and theological telos, is to be understood in epistemic terms, not necessarily political nor solely environmental. However, I conclude with the idea that this conceptualization of khalifa nevertheless becomes foundational especially to Islamic eco-ethics as it transforms not only one’s spiritual orientation with creation but also practical engagement with the world.