The historical development of the concept of justice

The present paper is an overview of the historical development of the concept of justice in human thought, disregarding the Islamic contributions. Starting with the viewpoints of ancient philosophers about justice, the paper then introduces the innovations of Christianity in this respect. Afterwards, the innovations of the intellectuals in the age of modernity concerning the conceptual development of justice are dealt with. Finally, the paper studies the innovations of two contemporary philosophers. The ultimate goal of the paper is to falsify the fallacy that “justice is a purely rational concept and prior to religious precepts.” If it is true that pure reason has nothing clear and unquestionable to say about justice and rationalists throughout the history had different, and sometimes contradictory, understandings of justice, the followers of the holly Qur’an and hadiths have to introduce a particular conceptualization of justice according to Islamic sources and place it on the pick of social values, putting away Platonic, Ciceronian, Rawlsian, and Nozickian concepts of justice.