Beyond Empathy Fatigue: What Do We Really Owe Others?

4/7/2026

by: Ustadh Ubaydullah evans

Resident Scholar, ALIM

Empathy fatigue is a reality. Even those who esteem the Prophetic ideal of universal mercy get burned out.

In his 2006 book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, English-American philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah, mentioned the Shallow Pond Theorists. Apparently, they were a group of activists who advocated a minimalist lifestyle.

They would advance the following scenario: Imagine that you were driving an exclusive, vintage automobile restored to perfection and you saw a man bleeding on the side of the road in distress. Is there any chance that you would ignore the man or speed past him for want of preserving the pristine interior of your car? Of course, no one with a scintilla of humanity would answer in the affirmative. Such a scenario places the moral imperative of choosing another’s survival over our luxury into sharp relief. If any of us were faced with this situation, there would simply be no alternative besides helping the injured man.

The Shallow Pond Theorists would urge people to analogically apply this reasoning to the vital needs of indigent people all over the world. Is the urgency of actually seeing the injured man on the side of the road the only thing that makes the moral imperative clear? If you were just as assured that people needed help as critically and urgently as the bleeding man in the hypothetical scenario, could you, in good conscience, give priority to your luxury over their survival?

As far as formal logic is concerned, theirs wasn’t a bad syllogism. However, very few people were compelled by this. Appiah opines that the line of reasoning employed by the Shallow Pond Theorists didn’t compel people because it overlooked something quintessentially human. Namely, that most of us, even with deep commitments to compassion and empathy, refuse to accept that our primary purpose in life is alleviating the hardships of others.

Quite the reverse, many of us identify our primary purpose in affording ourselves experiences and luxuries through which we seek to enhance our humanity.

To that end, Islamic jurisprudents have advanced the following criteria: Human acquisition can be divided into three categories:

Daruriyyat (Absolute necessities): These are the things without which life cannot be sustained.
Hajiyyat (Legitimate needs): These are not absolute necessities but it wouldn’t be correct to refer to them as luxuries. Think about running water, indoor plumbing, or a refrigerator.
Tahsiniyyat (Luxuries): These are the things that give us culture. In other words, those things that mark human communities and individuals as possessed of the ability to live beyond mere subsistence and survival.

Upon this framework, one can see how luxuries are appreciable. The dilemma, highlighted by our opening hypothetical scenario, is balancing one’s desire for luxury and all of its attendant refinement and culture with the right of one’s fellows to their absolute necessities and legitimate needs. The moral system of Islam is more nuanced than the stark, austere, commitments of The Shallow Pond Theorists. However, the imperative of serving the less fortunate is no less urgent.

Most Muslims are familiar with Zakah, the pillar of Islamic practice which requires the financially capable to offer a portion of their wealth to the less fortunate annually. At just 2.5% of the cumulative value of the relevant categories (of wealth) it is clearly not intended as prohibitive.

However, the moral implication of making this payment–which some might even regard as nominal–is huge. In brief, if one makes this payment, the use of the remaining portion–within things which are permissible–is one’s own prerogative. No one who pays the required amount of zakat can be morally impugned for how they spend their money–even if we think they spend on luxuries that are absurd.

In fact, I think this is one of the most neglected aspects of the Quranic teaching. Hoarding wealth so that it isn’t invested in a manner that generates economic opportunity is actually just as bad–and arguably even worse–than spending it wastefully.

At the very least, one who spends allows their money to contribute to the consumer economy. The money of a hoarder brings benefit to no one. Ironically, not even himself.

Nonetheless, the attainment of virtue requires something different of us. One of the great misfortunes of our age is that we’ve confused moral foundations with moral ceilings. The oft-invoked Five Pillars of Islam are not moral ceilings; they do not exhaust our moral/ethical potential. Simply put, Muslims understand the Five Pillars to be the means by which a human being can acquit themselves of being derelict in their duty before God. And we believe that this leads to salvation. However, the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) represents the moral ceiling of the human being. It is from both the grace and wisdom of God that He has not made such a lofty standard (the Sunnah) an obligation. It expresses His grace because truthfully, how many of us could give as the Prophet (ﷺ) gave? In one narration collected by Imam at-Tirmidhi in his Shamaa’il: a man asked the Prophet (ﷺ) for something and the Prophet explained that he didn’t have in his possession what the man had requested. When the man looked disappointed, the Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Go and procure whatever you need. Instruct the vendor to credit the purchase to me and I’ll clear the balance.” To give all you have is an expression of great generosity. But to give even what you don’t have is an expression of superlative virtue. Who amongst us is ready to be tasked with that?

Additionally, we have been told to embrace the Prophetic Way voluntarily so that it doesn’t become a source of fatigue or resentment. The famed jurist and sage, Ahmad Zarruq (May God be pleased with him), notably said, “every extreme will be followed by its opposite.” Consider the demanding ethic of The Shallow Pond Theorists. If we were to impose such an austere ethic on people one can only imagine how dissatisfaction with it would lead to successive periods of excess and prodigality.

About the author

Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans is ALIM’s first Scholar-in-Residence. He converted to Islam while in high school. Upon conversion, Ustadh Ubaydullah began studying some of the foundational books of Islam under the private tutelage of local scholars while simultaneously pursuing a degree in journalism from Columbia. Since then, he has studied at Chicagoland’s Institute of Islamic Education (IIE), in Tarim, Yemen, and Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, where he is the first African-American to graduate from its Shari’a program. Ustadh Ubaydullah also instructs with the Ta’leef Collective and the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) at times. As the ALIM Scholar-in-Residence, Ustadh Ubaydullah is a core instructor at the ALIM Summer Program. He teaches History of Islamic Law, Shama'il, and Aphorisims of Ibn Ata'illah along with other courses.

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