Feeling, Thinking, and Moral Hierarchies: Reflections on the Qur’an and Jane Austen’s "Sense and Sensibility"

What is the relationship between intellect, feelings, and moral action in different contexts? In this talk, Dr Karen Bauer considers this question in two texts from vastly different times and places: the Qur’an, from 7^th century Arabia, and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, published in England in 1811. Despite their obvious dissimilarities, these texts share a central concern with morality. Their heroes undergo a process of moral growth; their villains are morally vacuous despite having wealth and social power. In both texts, a moral hierarchy supersedes social hierarchies, and moral superiority is shown by feeling, thinking, and acting properly such that, ultimately, having the correct emotional comportment could be considered as the basis for all moral behaviour.

Dr Karen Bauer is an associate professor in Qur'anic Studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. Her books include Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur'an: A Patronage of Piety (2023, with Feras Hamza), and Gender Hierarchy in the Qur'an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses (2015). Her recent work has focused on emotions in the Qur'an. In addition to being an avid reader of the Qur'an, she is also an avid (though amateur) reader of Jane Austen; this is the first time she has sought to compare the two.