Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on the work of the German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) to explore how young Muslim clerics struggle to inhabit and pursue an ethical calling under neoliberal economic conditions.

Paper long abstract:

This paper reflects on how deregulated economies pose obstacles to committed Muslims seeking to lead ethical lives informed by the shari'a tradition. It draws on multiyear ethnographical research conducted in Shi'i Lebanon as well as on conversations with small store owners struggling to develop commercial practices that comport with shari'a-derived norms and precepts. Store owners committed to Islamic normativity complain that Lebanon's deregulated market forces them to sell their products (e.g., cellphones and electronic accessories) well below the listed price—a predicament that makes it difficult for them to abide by the principles of fairness and commercial ethics embodied by the shari'a.

While much of the current scholarship on Islamic law focuses on secular state apparatuses and the way they have reconfigured the shari'a (most notably by enforcing it as "family law"), I shift the analytical focus to the market. I argue that neoliberal economics, too, interrupts the shari'a ethical tradition. In doing so, I bring into focus the extent to which the capacity to pursue an ethical life is impacted by social, political and material conditions. To explore this problem, I turn to Bertolt Brecht's literary work: more specifically, those pieces engaging the question of religious ethics in a capitalist world, such as The Good Person of Szechwan (1943) and Saint Joan of the Stockyards (1931).