From the "Non-Virtuous City" to the "Inner Virtuous City": An Educational Reinterpretation of the Concept of al-Mutawaḥḥid in Ibn Bājja's Thought

Abstract

How a virtuous human being can live in a society that does not conform to desirable rational and ethical standards is an important issue in the philosophy of ethics and politics within the Islamic philosophical tradition. This issue takes a distinctive form in the thought of Ibn Bājja, the sixth/twelfth-century Andalusian philosopher, particularly in his treatise Tadbīr al-Mutawaḥḥid. A significant part of this treatise focuses on the condition of an individual who lives in an imperfect or non-virtuous society while striving to preserve the path toward perfection and happiness. The present study aims to reinterpret the concept of al-Mutawaḥḥid and derive its educational implications for contemporary human beings. It employs a descriptive-analytical approach and distinguishes among three levels: the “primary text,” “secondary interpretations,” and “contemporary reconstruction.” The analysis of the sources indicates that Tadbīr al-Mutawaḥḥid cannot be understood merely as a treatise on the individual’s withdrawal from society. Rather, Ibn Bājja formulates the work in terms of a form of regimen aimed at attaining and preserving “spiritual health,” which he connects with happiness. Furthermore, the concept of al-Nābit indicates the possibility of the emergence of an individual whose epistemic and axiological orientation is inconsistent with the dominant condition of society.On this basis, the present article proposes the concept of the “inner virtuous city” as an analytical concept. This concept is by no means a historical term used by Ibn Bājja; rather, it is employed to formulate one of the educational implications of his thought. By the “inner virtuous city,” the study means an intellectual, epistemic, and ethical order within an individual’s life that enables the person, to the extent possible, to preserve the path toward human perfection within an undesirable social environment.The findings indicate that an educational reinterpretation of Ibn Bājja’s thought can be formulated around five principal components: intellectual independence, self-regulation, continuous epistemic development, the capacity to live in an undesirable environment, and social participation without rational assimilation. Accordingly, the central implication of this reinterpretation for contemporary education is the idea of “social presence accompanied by rational independence.”