EA - Unveiling the Longtermism Framework in Islam: Urging Muslims to Embrace Future-Oriented Values through 'Islamic Longtermism' by Zayn A

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Unveiling the Longtermism Framework in Islam: Urging Muslims to Embrace Future-Oriented Values through 'Islamic Longtermism', published by Zayn A on August 15, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.I. IntroductionLongtermism is the notion that those who will live in the long-term future matter just as much, morally, as those beings that are alive today; that, although current conceptions of who society ought to care about appears restricted to living people, this understanding must change because there is, on society at large, a moral obligation to care, and to ensure that future people are able to live their lives satisfactorily.[1] MacAskill coined the term Longtermism in 2017, in a bid to help concretize the idea of caring about future people into one word that helped make it sound like a consequential movement.[2]This, however, is not to say that the ideas that longtermism espouses are particularly brand new. To the contrary, it has been admitted that longtermism builds on a rather long historical concern for future people.[3]A perception that may be gleaned is that longtermism is a 'Western' idea, so to speak. In this regard, one need not look further than the leading scholarship in this area,[4] where most of the literature comes from, who it talks about, and the solutions espoused[5] - all seem to originate from Western perspectives. Consequently, longtermism could perhaps mistakenly be seen as a completely novel concept emerging from the West, and its recent surge in popularity only serves as evidence to this notion.[6] .In this piece, I seek to illustrate how Islam, and the initial flagbearers of Islam,[7] have historically preached tenets of longtermism, despite the religion finding inception some several centuries ago.[8] In fact, I will show in this piece that, not only is there a moral obligation on societies to care about future people, but that Islam, the Prophet, the Caliphs and even its prominent leaders place this obligation as one that is of great importance. This will be done with the following end in mind: that to convince Muslims to think in longtermist ways, the best method will be to find evidence that the idea finds some backing within Islamic teaching.II. Justifying the Study and Laying GroundworkAt the very onset, one may question the very utility of this piece, by questioning why involving an Islamic perspective is at all necessary. In other words, what are the ramifications of an Islamic viewpoint of longtermism? In response to such argumentative resistance, one may merely resort to stating that this discussion is important for its own sake. That may be true. However, there are certainly a deeper reasons.Since its inception in 2017, when MacAskill offered the term 'longtermism', the main impetus pushing him to coin this word, essentially, was to make it appealing as a movement.[9] He opined that the previous renditions of phrases and terms that were used to appeal to longtermism, as we now know it, were 'a mishmash'. The entire point of the term and its meaning, was to make it 'attractive' as a movement for the wider public.[10] From the foregoing, it becomes clear that the conceptualizers of the term sought to find ways to make longtermism appeal to the public, presumably so that the movement gains support. In fact, it could be said that various undertakings have since occurred to do just that: increase the movements following. Whether using moral arguments, or other ideological arguments, much has been done to try and popularise the longtermist thought.Some discussion, on the Effective Altruism Forum, as well as other informal platforms, has taken place on how it may be possible to bring in the Christian contingent onboard to the idea of Effective Altruism and longtermism.[11] But, this avenue, using the Christian religion to ga...