İbnü’l-Mukaffaʿ’ın Ahlâk Anlayışı ve İslam Ahlâk Felsefesine Etkisi

Abstract

This study aims to examine the ethical understanding of Ibn alMuqaffaʿ, a prominent thinker of the early Abbasid period, as a foundational figure who laid the groundwork for later Islamic ethical thought. The research fundamentally problematizes whether Ibn alMuqaffaʿ’s ethical discourse was limited to its historical context and the nature of its influence on classical Islamic ethical philosophy.

The first part of this study examines Zoroastrian ethics and Sasanian political culture, Indian didactic literature, and Greek moral philosophy as intellectual and cultural backgrounds that influenced the formation of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s ethical thought. These traditions are not merely transmitted but selectively transformed within an Islamic context. Core concepts such as wisdom (ḥikma), justice (ʿadl), moderation (iʿtidāl), and virtue (faḍīla) function as organizing principles that connect individual moral discipline with social harmony and political responsibility.

In the second section, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s understanding of ethics is evaluated as a multi-layered structure that begins with the individual’s self-discipline and expands towards the family, society, and state order.

In the third chapter of the study, the influence of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s moral discourse on classical Islamic moral philosophers is examined. The rational and psychological systematization of ethics in Ibn Miskawayh, the construction of a holistic ethics-politics theory centered on the individual-family-state axis in Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, and the conceptualization of adab as a metaphysical process of perfection in Jalāl al-Dīn Dawānī demonstrate that the fundamental elements found in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s thought were transformed and continued on different levels.

As a result, this study reveals that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s understanding of ethics constitutes a “threshold” in Islamic ethical thought. In this respect, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ should be re-evaluated in Islamic ethical thought not merely as a transmitter, but as a founding and guiding figure who constructs a new ethical discourse by transforming different cultural heritages.

Citation: Bilgin, Büşra (2026). “The Moral Thought of Ibn Al-Muqaffa’ and its Influence on Islamic Moral Philosophy”, Erdem, June, Issue:90, pp. 23-48.