ENDS TO WHICH THE MORAL LAW IS DIRECTED

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

Chapter 3

ENDS TO WHICH THE MORAL LAW IS DIRECTED

 

1. The Immediate Ends:

Morality being an action determined by Law, the difficulty arises: how to accommodate the purposive character of human activity in the scheme of moral life. It is, however, resolved when we find in the Holy Qur’an that the Law is directed to a four-dimensional End, those dimensions being:

1.       Moral and Spiritual Well-being of the Moral Agent.

           The Holy Qur’an says:

“Oh you who believe! if you are careful of your duty to Allah (i.e., if you obey the Divine Law), He will grant you a Criterion (to judge between right and wrong), remove from you your (moral and spiritual) ills, and bestow on you forgiveness …” (8:29).

2.       Moral and Spiritual Well-being of Others.

           The Holy Qur’an says:

“You are the best group, evolved for the service of humanity, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong …” (3:110).

3.       Material Well-being of Others,         

The Holy Qur’an says:

“… and do you good (to others) as Allah has been good to you …” (28:77).

4.       Material Well-being of the Moral Agent:

           The Holy Qur’an says:

“… and forget not your portion (of Happiness) in this world …” (28:77).

 

The Law is directed to the above four-dimensional End, without either the Law or the End becoming subservient to each other. Because the very act in obedience to the Law is at the same time the immediate fulfilment of the End. Thus the Holy Qur’an harmonises the concepts of the ‘Law’ and the ‘End’, and establishes the principle that virtue should be regarded as consequential activity and not merely as ‘Duty for the sake of Duty’.

 

Here it should be properly understood that the End is to be conceived as an organic whole, and its four dimensions are to be realised in harmony, namely, on the principle of balance enunciated and emphasised in the Holy Qur’an (55:7-9). Otherwise, they are capable of coming into clash with one another, thereby thwarting the goals of integrated development of the individual and the creation of a social order based on the concept of integralistic culture—both being the Qur’anic goals of morality.

 

It may be observed in passing that this Qur’anic view of the four-dimensional End is richer and more sound than Kant’s formula wherein two dimensions of the End alone emerge explicitly, viz. (1) the moral perfection of the agent (or, the morally-struggling individual), in the sense of the attainment of a perfectly good will, and (2) the happiness of others. (Kant: Preface to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, E.T., Abbot, pp. 296-302). 

 

In this connection Prof. Lillie observes:

“… this double standard of morality is surely a strange one for the philosopher who emphasised consistency and denied the relevancy of pleasant consequences to the rightness of actions. If perfection or the good will is the only good or the highest good for ourselves, it surely must also be the highest good for other people and, however little we can do for other people’s perfection, to do that little is far more important morally than to seek their happiness. And if happiness be a good for other people, it surely must also be a good for our selves.” (Introduction to Ethics, p. 175).

 

2. The Ultimate End:

While the Holy Qur’an is definitely committed to the view that the moral value has to be pursued at its own level as an absolute value, in order that the purity of motive and consequently the purity of moral action is not damaged, it does not subscribe to Kant’s barren philosophical stand point which regards morality as the Supreme Good. Rather, it views morality in the perspective of spirituality, or, the transcendental dimension of the human personality, and hence it prescribes a spiritual end as the ultimate end for which a Muslim should always aspire, regarding it as the Supreme Good. That end is the absolute harmonisation of the human will with the Divine Will through the Qur’anic technique of the spiritualisation of morality.^[1] Says the Holy Qur’an: 

“But the most righteous shall be removed far from it (i.e., the Fire),—he who spends his wealth for increase in self-purification, and has in his mind no favour from anyone for which a reward is expected in return, but only the desire to seek the Countenance of his Lord Most High; and soon will he attain (complete) satisfaction.” (92:17-21).

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[1] It may be pointed out here that this is the actual pursuit of Tasawwuf, which is a vital dimension of Islamic orthodoxy; and this is also the actual implication of the Sufi doctrine of fanā. 

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

The Spirit according to which the Moral Law is to he practised

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

2. The Spirit according to which the Moral Law is to he practised:

The law is meant to be pursued as if it is self-imposed, i.e., it should form the behest of the higher self of the moral agent. But here would arise the difficulty: how to regard the Divine Law, which is externally-imposed, as a ‘Law self-imposed’. This difficulty arises, however, in the want of understanding with respect to the expression ‘divine origin’. Being of divine origin should not be taken to mean, according to the Qur’anic teaching, that the Divine Law is foreign to the nature of man and is merely thrust from outside on him by God to be obeyed. Rather, it is simultaneously the ‘Divine Law’ as well as the ‘Law of ideal Human Nature’, and constitutes, therefore, the very behest of the higher human self.

The identity of the ‘Divine Law’ and the ‘Law of ideal Human Nature’ has been explicitly proclaimed thus:

“So set your purpose for religion as by nature ^[1] upright—the nature (framed) of Allah in which He has created the human beings.^[2] There is no altering the laws of Allah’s creation. That is the right religion, but most men know not.”^[3] (30:30).

 

Here it should be noted that the ‘ideal nature’ is the same, and has always been the same, in all human beings, of whatever race or tribe or country. In the Holy Qur’an, this is implied in the fact that Divine Law relating to the ‘ideal nature’ has been revealed to all the communities of the world at one or the other period of human history (13:7). 

 

In history, it is confirmed by the fact that basic moral concepts have been the same in different civilisations and different ages—their differences consisting basically in the imperfect understanding of those concepts, or in their application to concrete problems of life. 

 

Mr. C.S. Lewis has put forward this truth ably thus: “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to—whether it was your own family or your fellow-citizen or everyone. But they have always agreed that you oughtn’t to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you mustn’t simply have any woman you liked.” (Broadcast Talks, p. 11). It means that we should affirm the existence of an absolute universal law, based on ideal human nature and underlying the moral judgments of human beings.

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[1] The nature conceived by the Holy Qur’an is governed by a universal law which is fundamentally rational.

[2] Here the Holy Qur’an refers to ideal human nature, i.e., the nature bestowed on humanity by God at the dawn of creation. It is not the same thing as Rousseau and some other moralists speak of in terms of ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ nature, because their view does not go beyond the spatio-temporal dimensions, wherein the modifications of the ‘ideal’ in respect of its manifestations must be presumed to have commenced at the very early period of human history—as we notice in the Holy Qur’an in connection with “the story of the two descendants of Adam.” (5:27).

[3] Cf. Cicero: “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its demands and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.” (Republic, 3.22).

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times