Qur'anic Concepts of 'Adl (Justice) and Raḥmah (Mercy) as Foundations for Contemporary Muslim Social Ethics: A Thematic Tafsīr Analysis of Poverty, Inequality, and Community Welfare in Post-Modern Urban Societies

Abstract

This paper explores the way in which two core concepts in the Qur'an, 'Adl (justice) and Raḥmah (mercy), provide an ethical framework for a Muslim social system to respond to the urgent problems of poverty, inequality and community welfare in the modern urban context. The paper proceeds to propose that, going through the themes covered within relevant Qur'anic verses and their classical and modern Qur'anic interpretation (tafsir), 'Adl and Raḥmah is not only spiritual values; this paper asserts that it is something that the Qur'an demands from the ummah as a whole. This paper charts a decent understanding of social ethics grounded in the Qur'an that directly addresses issues of poverty in the city, economic inequality, housing insecurity, food precarity and the loss of community solidarity in contemporary secular urban life of Muslims. The Qur'anic social ethical is a concept that cannot be implemented through isolated charitable acts but rather through interaction with the structures that cause poverty and injustice.