Power, intellectuals and ethics: Production and utilization of political ethics in the thought of Taha Abdulrahman, Rachid Al Ghannouchi, and Necmettin Erbakan

This research explores the effect of political participation on production environment of political-ethical values and their utilization in contemporary Muslim thought through the lens of three important figures: Taha Abdulrahman, Rachid Al Ghannouchi, and Necmettin Erbakan in a comparative analytical manner. That is done by examining their environment of Political Ethicalzation, which is the environment in which political-ethical value production takes place. Suggesting the inputs, processes, dynamics, and overall outcomes of said environment. The main values and outcomes are then categorized into evaluative and transformative values, to each a chapter had been allocated. Followed by a comparative analysis based on a suitable criterion for the subject at hand. Thus, for the environment of production, three areas of comparison took place: Abstraction versus Concretization, Idealism versus Practicality, and Collectivity versus Individuality. As for evaluative political ethical values, four areas of comparison were utilized: ability of Ontological evaluation, ability of Epistemological evaluation, ability of Axiological evaluation, and lastly, Evaluative Fragmentability. Finally, primary transformative Political ethical values were comparatively analyzed through another four areas: political mobility in the philosophy of the government system and public policy, political mobility in formation of political parties and groups, influencing elections, and lastly, Applicational Fragmentability. The study found out that, it can be noted that concretization, practicality, collectivism in the political-ethical production environment increases the closer the Intellectual is to political mobilization. while abstraction, Idealism, and Individualism increases the more distant an Intellectual is from political participation. In the same manner, it has been demonstrated that the ability to evaluate political reality through political-ethical frameworks produced by the three intellectuals had been affected by their level of political participation, as the greater the political participation of the intellectual, the lower the level of ontological and epistemological evaluation in his Political-ethical framework. And the less political participation, the greater the ontological and epistemological evaluative capacity. While it seems that the axiological evaluative capacity is not affected by political participation except in terms of the breadth and narrowness of the evaluative areas. As for the transformational ability of intellectuals' political-ethical values, It has been argued that the ability to transform political reality through political-ethical frameworks produced by the three intellectuals was affected by their level of political participation as the greater the political participation of the intellectual is correlated to a higher level of political mobility in changing the philosophy of the government system, public policies, formation of political parties, and influencing elections. On the other hand, lesser political participation is reflected in a lower level of political mobility and transformative ability. Lastly, this research indicates that the evaluative and applicational fragmentability of an intellectual's frameworks had been affected by their level of political participation; as a higher level of political participation indicates a greater evaluative and applicational fragmentability. And a lower level of political participation is correlated with a lower evaluative and applicational fragmentability. Keywords: Intellectuals, political ethics, Taha Abdulrahman, Ghannouchi, Erbakan, theoretical ethics, Islam and politics.