Language, Ownership, and the Boundaries of Bodily Autonomy

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بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

An Inquiry into Possessive Individualism, Islamic Stewardship, and the Grammar of the Self

Introduction: A Philosophical Fault Line

When Ayatollah Javadi Amoli—in his tafsir of Surah Al-Hamd—states that a human being possesses “real ownership, but limited” over their limbs and organs, he invokes a metaphysics that is profoundly at odds with the modern Anglophone understanding of bodily autonomy. At first glance, the phrase “real ownership” sounds Lockean, even capitalist. It seems to grant the self absolute dominion over its physical vessel. However, as Amoli develops his argument within the broader Islamic framework, it becomes clear that this “ownership” is a functional delegation of authority for moral accountability—not a property right for economic or existential exploitation.

This seemingly theological nuance is, in fact, the tip of an iceberg that reaches into linguistics, developmental psychology, and political economy. Why does the English language force us to say “my hand” while Spanish allows “las manos” (the hands)? Why do Islamic treatises speak of the “rights of the limbs” over the self? And why does capitalism, born in an English-speaking, Protestant milieu, treat the body as the first and most fundamental piece of alienable private property?

This article traces a speculative thread from grammar to ethics, arguing that the way we linguistically relate to our bodies prefigures how we treat them—and, ultimately, how we judge acts of suicide, self-harm, and mutilation.

The Linguistic Architecture of Selfhood – Hierarchical vs. Relational

In English, everyday speech demands a possessive adjective for the body: “I wash my hands,” “I raise my head.” The grammar forces a hierarchical relationship. The “I” is the sovereign owner; the “hand” is the subordinate asset. Exercising will becomes an act of command—the self issues an order, and the limb executes it. This perpetual grammatical re-assertion of ownership (“my,” “my,” “my”) cultivates a subtle psychological nudge toward possessive individualism: the self is a CEO, and the body is a managed portfolio of assets.

In Spanish—and other Romance languages—the structure is strikingly different: “Me lavo las manos” (literally: “I wash myself the hands”). The reflexive pronoun anchors the action to the self, while the definite article (“las”) treats the hand as a universal, default feature of human existence that happens to be attached to this particular person. The grammar implies a horizontal, egalitarian relationship. The self does not issue commands to a subordinate; the self participates with a co-performer. The hand is a trusted partner, not a rented machine.

Speculative psychological implication: The English speaker, forced into constant possessive re-claiming, may develop a vigilant, managerial posture toward their body. By using the definite article rather than the possessive, Spanish grammar does not force a conscious separation between the self and the body. The body is simply there, a natural medium of action, rather than an object to be continuously claimed. As a result, the Spanish speaker may experience a fluid, even unconscious integration with their flesh, moving through the world without the mental interruption of asserting ownership over each limb. One is a relationship of control; the other, a relationship of coexistence.

The Developmental Reality – The Limb as “Other”

Interestingly, developmental psychology validates the intuition that the limb begins as an “other.” An infant does not immediately recognize its hand as “mine.” In the first few months, the baby stares at its waving fingers as though observing a fascinating foreign object. Only through repeated sensorimotor feedback—the perfect contingency between visual input, proprioception, and motor command—does the infant map that visual hand onto the internal self.

By the time the child learns to speak, this mapping is largely complete. However, the language spoken reinforces whether that mapping is ontological (Spanish: the hand simply is) or contractual (English: the hand is owned by me). Thus, language does not determine reality, but it systematically directs attention. English directs attention to the boundary between self and limb; Spanish directs attention to the unity of the self-in-action.

The Islamic Paradigm – Stewardship over Sovereignty

It is within this linguistic background that Islamic theology introduces a radical corrective. In the Treatise on Rights (Risālat al-Ḥuqūq) attributed to Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-‘Abidin, the fourth Imam of Twelver Shi’a Islam, the human body is explicitly deconstructed into a series of moral relationships. The treatise states that each organ has a right (ḥaqq) over the human being:

  • The eyes have a right over you (you must not use them to see what is forbidden).
  • The ears have a right over you.
  • The tongue has a right over you.
  • The hands have a right over you.
  • The feet have a right over you.

This is not poetic metaphor; it is a legal and ethical framework. You do not own your hand in the sense of absolute sovereignty; rather, your hand holds a claim against you. You are obligated to rest it, feed it, and use it lawfully. The body is an amanah (trust) from God, and the self is merely the steward of that trust.

This is further reinforced by the Qur’anic doctrine of the witnessing of the limbs (24:24): “On the Day when their tongues, their hands, and their feet will bear witness against them concerning what they used to do.” The hand is not a passive, silent object; it is an active entity with moral standing. It will testify about how it was treated.

The Economic Metaphor – From Locke to Community

The English possessive model finds its ultimate philosophical justification in John Locke, whose Second Treatise of Government (1689) provided the metaphysical foundation for capitalism:

“Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. Every man has a property in his own person. This no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.”

Locke’s chain is explicit: Self → Body → Labor → Capital. Because I own “my” body, I own “my” labor; because I own my labor, I own the fruits of my labor. The hand is the primary unit of production, and its alienation (selling one’s labor for a wage) is the moral and economic foundation of free-market capitalism.

The communal/stewardship model, conversely, rejects alienability. If you do not ultimately own the hand, you cannot sell it, rent it without limits, or destroy it. The hand is embedded in a web of obligations: to the community, to the family, and to the Creator. This is why, in many Islamic legal systems, organ sales are categorically forbidden—you cannot alienate a trust. The body is a node in a network, not a discrete piece of property to be leveraged.

Speculative economic implication: The Anglophone capitalist worker, raised on “my labor,” likely experiences less cognitive dissonance when selling their body’s time to an employer. The Spanish-speaking or traditionally Islamic worker, raised on “the hands” (a given, a trust), may experience a deeper, unconscious discomfort when those hands are treated as interchangeable production units. This dissonance fuels labor movements and communal land-reform struggles, which are historically stronger in non-Anglophone, stewardship-oriented cultures.

Amoli’s “Real Ownership” – A Functional Delegation

Returning to Javadi Amoli’s tafsir, we can now decode his terminology with precision. When he says a human being has “real ownership, but limited” over their limbs, he is doing two things simultaneously:

Affirming genuine human agency (to reject extreme predestination, or jabr). If you do not “own” your actions in a real, existential sense, you cannot be morally accountable for them. The hand must actually obey your will for responsibility to exist.

Radically circumscribing that agency (to reject absolute delegation). This “ownership” is merely derivative and conditioned. It is a loan from the True Owner (God), explicitly forbidding alienation. You cannot sell the hand, you cannot destroy it, and you cannot use it in a way that violates the divine purpose for which it was created.

Amoli’s ownership is therefore a functional delegation of authority for the purpose of moral testing, not a property right for the purpose of existential sovereignty. The self is the middleman, perpetually accountable to the source (God) and to the vessel itself (the limb’s rights).

A Separate Inquiry – Suicide, Body Mutilation, and Self-Harm

If we apply the two paradigms—Possessive/Absolute (Lockean/English) versus Stewardship/Rights-based (Amoli/Islamic/Spanish-relational)—to the dark realities of suicide, self-harm, and mutilation, the divergences are stark and profound.

The Possessive/Absolute Model

In the Lockean paradigm, because the self is the absolute owner of its body, acts of self-destruction are interpreted primarily through the lenses of privacy, pathology, or autonomy:

Suicide: Legally decriminalized in most Western nations. It is seen as a private tragedy, a mental health crisis, or an exercise of ultimate bodily autonomy. The state may intervene to prevent harm, but philosophically, the act belongs to the “owner.” There is no cosmic crime because there is no cosmic trustee beyond the self.

Self-Harm (cutting, burning): Viewed clinically as a symptom of psychological distress. The moral judgment is absent; the focus is on therapy and risk mitigation. The hand’s “right” is never invoked.

Body Mutilation (extreme piercings, non-medical amputations, gender affirmation surgeries): Increasingly viewed in Western liberal democracies as protected expressions of identity or autonomy. The body is clay, and the self is the sculptor. The state generally respects the sculptor’s vision, provided the sculptor is deemed competent.

Theologically, this model treats the body as a machine; misuse is a mechanical failure, not a moral transgression.

The Stewardship/Rights-Based Model (Islamic/Relational)

In the paradigm established by the Risālat al-Ḥuqūq and philosophically defended by Amoli, the body is not private property. It is a sacred trust, and the limbs are moral agents with independent rights. The implications are radical:

  • Suicide: Categorically forbidden (ḥarām). The self is not the owner of the life it extinguishes; it is the guardian. To destroy the body is to destroy a trust without the permission of the True Owner. Furthermore, because the limbs will testify on Judgment Day, suicide is not just a private death; it is an act of unjust aggression against an entity (the body) that holds a moral claim against the soul.
  • Self-Harm (cutting, burning): Strictly prohibited unless medically necessary. The hand has a ḥaqq (right) to be preserved from unnecessary pain and damage. The stomach has a right to be fed lawfully and not poisoned. The self does not have the authority to inflict injury upon a limb, because the self is not the ultimate proprietor. In Islamic jurisprudence, self-mutilation can even carry legal penalties (such as blood money payable to oneself or one’s heirs, as a symbolic acknowledgment of the violated right).
  • Body Mutilation (extreme modification): Heavily restricted. While some Islamic legal schools permit minor cosmetic corrections (e.g., fixing a birth defect), non-medical, irreversible modifications are forbidden. Altering the creation of God without a dire, lawful necessity is a violation of the trust. The body is received from the Divine; it must be returned in a condition that reflects the original design, with allowances only for genuine healing.

    • The Theological Anchor: The Witnessing Limb

    The Qur’anic doctrine that the limbs will testify (24:24) lends an eerie, literal weight to this ethics. If you cut your hand in a fit of despair, that severed hand will not be silent on the Day of Judgment. It will articulate its grievance: “You violated my right to be whole. You used me against the purpose for which I was given to you.” This is the ultimate inversion of the possessive model. In Locke, the self owns the hand; in Islam, the hand is a separate moral entity that owns a right against the self.

    The English speaker, perpetually saying “my,” rehearses a metaphysics of radical autonomy. The body is a fortress, and the self is its sole sovereign. Suicide, self-harm, and mutilation are, at worst, poor management decisions.

    The Spanish and Islamic thinker, using the universal article or the language of trust, rehearses a metaphysics of radical relationality. The body is a bridge, and the self is merely the crossing. Suicide, self-harm, and mutilation are ontological violations—breaches of a contract with the Divine and with the limb itself.

    Conclusion: Speaking Our Ethics Into Existence

    The speculative journey from a Spanish definite article (las manos) to a hadith about the rights of limbs, to Amoli’s graded ontology of ownership, and finally to the ethics of suicide, reveals a hidden truth: Language does not merely describe reality; it rehearses our ethical commitments.

    Ayatollah Javadi Amoli’s phrase—“real ownership, but limited”—is the fulcrum of this entire debate. It grants humans enough agency to be morally responsible, but denies them enough sovereignty to be absolute lords. It is a philosophical tightrope stretched between fatalism and libertarianism. And how a society interprets this tightrope—whether it leans toward the possessive pronoun or the definite article—will ultimately determine how it judges the most intimate and tragic choices a human being can make with their own flesh.

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    Allahu A’lam