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_001.jpg) Islam has laid down some universal fundamental rights for
humanity as a whole, which are to be observed and respected under all
circumstances. To achieve these rights, Islam provides not only legal
safeguards, but also a very effective moral system. Thus, whatever leads to
the welfare of the individual or the society is morally good in Islam and whatever
is injurious is morally bad. Islam attaches so much importance to the love of
God and love of man that it warns against too much formalism. We read in the
Quran:
“It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the
East or West; but it is righteousness to believe in God and the Last Day and
the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out
of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer,
for those who ask, and for the freeing of captives; to be steadfast in prayers,
and practice regular charity; to fulfill the contracts which you made; and to
be firm and patient in pain and adversity and throughout all periods of panic.
Such are the people of truth, the God-conscious.” (Quran 2:177)
We are given a beautiful description of the righteous
and God-conscious man in these verses. He should obey salutary regulations,
but he should fix his gaze on the love of God and the love of his fellow-men.
We are given four directions:
a) Our faith should be true and sincere,
b) We must be prepared to show it in deeds of
charity to our fellow-men,
c) We must be good citizens, supporting social
organizations, and
d) Our own individual soul must be firm and
unshaken in all circumstances.
This is the standard by which a particular mode of
conduct is judged and classified as good or bad. This standard of judgment
provides the nucleus around which the whole moral conduct should revolve. Before
laying down any moral injunctions, Islam seeks to firmly implant in man’s heart
the conviction that his dealings are with God, who sees him at all times and in
all places; that he may hide himself form the whole world, but not from Him;
that he may deceive everyone but cannot deceive God; that he can flee from the
clutches of anyone else, but not from God’s.
Thus, by setting God’s pleasure as the objective of man’s
life, Islam has furnished the highest possible standard of morality. This is
bound to provide limitless avenues for the moral evolution of humanity. By making
Divine revelation as the primary source of knowledge, it gives permanence and
stability to the moral standards which afford reasonable scope for genuine
adjustments, adaptations and innovations though not for perversions, wild
variation, atomistic relativism or moral fluidity. It provides a sanction to
morality in the love and fear of God, which will impel man to obey the moral
law even without any external pressure. Through belief in God and the Day of
Judgment, it furnishes a force which enables a person to adopt the moral
conduct with earnestness and sincerity, with all the devotion of heart and
soul.
It does not, through a false sense of originality and
innovation, provide any novel moral virtues, nor does it seek to minimize the
importance of well-known moral norms, nor does it give exaggerated importance
to some and neglect others without cause. It takes up all the commonly known
moral virtues and with a sense of balance and proportion it assigns a suitable
place and function to each one of them in the total scheme of life. It widens
the scope of man’s individual and collective life – his domestic associations,
his civic conduct, and his activities in the political, economic, legal,
educational, and social realms. It covers his life from home to society, from
the dining-table to the battlefield and peace conferences, literally from the
cradle to the grave. In short, no sphere of life is exempt from the universal
and comprehensive application of the moral principles of Islam. It makes morality
reign supreme and ensures that the affairs of life, instead of dominated by
selfish desires and petty interests, should be regulated by norms of morality.
It stipulates for man a system of life that is based on
all good and is free from all evil. It encourages people not only to practice
virtue, but also to establish virtue and eradicate vice, to bid good and to
forbid wrong. It wants that their verdict of conscience should prevail, and
virtue must be subdued to play second fiddle to evil. Those who respond to
this call are gathered together into a community and given the name Muslim. And
the singular object underlying the formation of this community (Ummah) is that
it should make an organized effort to establish and enforce goodness and suppress
and eradicate evil.
Here we furnish some basic moral teachings of Islam for
various aspects of a Muslim’s life. They cover the broad spectrum of personal
moral conduct of a Muslim as well as his social responsibilities.
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