Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
PART 1. FUNDAMENTAL DUTIES
TOWARDS ALL HUMAN BEINGS
I.Duties relating to the Happiness of Others.
II.Duties
relating to the Moral Perfection of Others.
Chapter 1.
DUTIES RELATING TOTHE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS
(1) DUTIES OF OMISSION
END: Abstinence from
ill-wishing and ill-doing to fellow-beings:—
A. Comprehensive Commands;
B. Specific Command:
1.Duties of Love.
2.Duties of Respect
A. Comprehensive Commands relating to the duty of abstaining
from all evil against fellow-beings:
(i)With regard to the duties of omission
pertaining to the happiness of other individuals, in their capacity basically and purely as human beings, the Holy Qur’an
has laid down certain comprehensive commands through which Muslims have been
ordered to abstain from committing every conceivable form of evil against them.
For instance:
“… and He (i.e., God) forbids
lewdness and wickedness (i.e., all evil conduct) and infringement (of the
rights of others). He exhorts you that haply you may be admonished.” (16:90).
“… and wrong not mankind in their things* …” (7:85).
*According to Baidawi, things imply ‘rights’ of human beings. (See his Tafsir, p.300).
“And those who break the Covenant
of Allah after having pledged their word thereto, and sever that which Allah
has commanded should be joined* and work mischief (i.e., cause
moral corruption and material disorder) in the land: on them is the Curse and
for them is the terrible Abode (i.e. Hell)” (13:25).
* According to the commentators of the Holy Qur’an, it refers to the non-fulfillment of duties which men owe to God and to parents, family, neighbors, community, country and fellow-creatures in general. (See Abdul Majid Daryabadi, op. cit. Vol. 1., n. 118).
“Say (O Muhammad): my Lord forbids
only indecencies, such of them as are open and such as are secret, and sin, and
infringement (of the rights of others) without justice…” (7:33).
“Work not confusion in the earth
after the fair ordering (thereof), and call on Him in fear and hope. Lo! the
Mercy of Allah is (always) near to those who do right,” (7:56).
“… and He has
set up the Balance, that you transgress not the balance (of justice in your
actions).” (55:7-8).
“… you shall neither wrong nor be
wronged.” (2:279).
(ii)Wrong-doing has not been allowed even against worst
enemies:
“… and let not
the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice…”
(5:9).
(iii)Wrong-doing to anyone is so severely abhorred that even
befriending the wrong-doer is most severely condemned:
“And incline not to those who do
wrong, or else the Fire will seize you—and you have no protectors other than
Allah,—nor you would then be succored.” (11:113).
Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
7.ESSENTIAL
GOODNESS OF MAN’S NATURE:
The Holy Qur’an says:
“Assuredly We have created Man in the best make [1]
(having the goodliest nature).” (95:4).
This verse establishes the essential
goodness of human nature in contradistinction to ideational culture where Man,
has been conceived to have been born either with the stigma of sin or fettered
to the chains of re-incarnation; and it proves human competence for pursuing
good successfully and fighting evil on individual and collective levels.
The story of Adam may also be
mentioned in the present context. That the angels, who are holy and pure,
prostrated before him, while Iblees, the embodiment of evil, refused to do so,
indicates that, in his very creation, Man has affinity with the angels and
thereby with goodness, while evil is set in disharmony with him and,
consequently, with his nature.
In short, Man is the goodliest
specimen of God’s handiwork, born sinless and with essentially good nature.
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8. CONFLICT IN HUMAN NATURE:
However, essentially good though
human nature is, Man has been created to pursue moral struggle and, therefore,
while he is capable of scaling the loftiest heights of perfection adequate to
his nature, he can also sink to the lowest of the low in Creation, as it has been
said:
“Thereafter (i.e., in consequence of wrong use of his
opportunities and misuse of his free-will by Man) We (as the Author of the
Universal Scheme) abase him (to be) the lowest of the low (—he himself having
destroyed his original purity and goodness),—save those who believe and
practise righteousness. Theirs shall be a reward unfailing.” (95:5-6).
This double capacity—for moral
success and for moral failure— is grounded in the conflict with which human
nature has been endowed, as the Holy Qur’an says:
“By the Sun and his (glorious) splendour, by the Moon
as she follows him, by the Day as it shows up (the Sun’s) glory, by the Night
as it conceals it, by the Firmament and its (wonderful) structure, by the Earth
and its (wide) expanse, by the Soul and Him Who gave itproportion and order, and inspired it with
the wickedness thereof (which comes through the devil and is developed to a
responsible human act by Man’s own free-will) and the piety thereof (which
comes through the angels and is developed to a responsible human act by Man’s
own free-will), truly he succeeds that keeps it pure and he fails that corrupts
it.” (91:1-10).
The conflict between wickedness and
piety in the human soul, mentioned above, is there;—and it must have been so,
because the moral situation can arise only in a situation of conflict. That
conflict develops in the following way:
On the one side, there is excessive
love of instinctive desires in human nature, the reality of which has been
emphasised in these words:
“Fair-seeming in the eyes of human beings is the love
of things they covet (under the impact of instinctive urges): women and sons,
heaped up hoards of gold and silver, horses branded (for blood and excellence),
and (wealth of) cattle and well-tilled land. All that is the enjoyment of the
life of the world: but in nearness to God is the best of goals.” (3:14).
On the other side, there is ingrained
in the human soul the pursuit of ideals—the highest among them being the ideal
of attaining nearness to God, referred to at the end of the above verse.
Leading one’s life in the pursuit of noble ideals has been beautifully
emphasised in the verses which immediately follow. There, it has been said:
“Say (O Muhammad!): shall I give you glad tidings of
things far better than those (i.e. objects of instinctive desires recounted in
3:14)? For the righteous are Gardens in nearness to their Lord with rivers
flowing beneath; therein is their eternal home; with companions pure (and holy);
and the Good Pleasure of Allah. For in Allah’s sight are all His
servants,—(namely) those who say: ‘Our Lord! we have indeed believed, wherefore
forgive us our sins and protect us from the agony of the Fire’: those who
practise Sabr (i.e., patience, perseverance and self-control), who are truthful,
who worship devoutly, who spend (for their fellow-beings), and who pray for
forgiveness in the early hours of the morning.” (3:15-17).
It may be observed that, according to
the Holy Qur’an, the attraction for the objects of instincts is neither
condemnable in itself nor irrelevant to the requirements of the “best make” in
which Man has been created. The Qur’anic moral guidance aims at the balanced,
appropriate and just satisfaction of both the aspects of human nature— the
sentient and the rational [2]—that
have been bestowed upon it by its Creator, to which the following verse bears
reference through the emphasis on ideal human nature :
“So set your purpose for religion as one by nature
upright—the nature (framed) of Allah, in which He has created Man. There is no
altering (the laws of) Allah’s creation. That is the right religion (containing
the philosophy of human conduct), but most men know not.” (30:30).
It should be noted, however, that,
according to the Holy Qur’an, the human self has, as already stated, three
stages of, and states in, development:
1.the nafs-al-ammarah,
2.the nafs-al-lawwamah,
3.the nafs-al-mutma’innah,
Now, what renders the pursuit of the
instinctive demands questionable is the nafs-al-ammarah,[3] or
the Impelling Self, which impels the moral agent to satisfy these demands
unchecked, and thus to commit evil, as the Holy Qur’an says:
“… Verily the Self impels to evil, unless my Lord do
bestow His Mercy, but surely my Lord is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (12:53).
Then there is the stage, and the
state, of nafs-al-lawwamah or the Reproaching Self, which reproaches when the
instinctive demands are fulfilled under the impact of nafs-al-ammarah. The Holy
Qur’an refers to nafs-al-lawwÉmah in the following verse:
“And I do call to witness the Reproaching Self.”
(75:2).
Therefore, the healthy development of
the human self lies in counteracting the evil force of the Impelling Self and
conquering it. Once it is conquered, the human self outgrows the torture of
self-reproach and becomes nafs-al-mutma’innah or the Beatified Self.[4]
The Holy Qur’an refers to the Beatified Self and its reward thus:
“O you Beatified Soul! return unto your Lord well
pleased (yourself) and well pleasing (unto Him). Enter you among My Devotees
and enter you My Garden.” (89:27-30).
Reverting to the excessive attraction
for the objects of instincts, it may be said that the instinctive urges have
their respective goals which can be achieved through much less instinctive
exertion than what is required by the disproportionately-excessive demand that
afflicts an un-balanced personality. Thus, if personality is integrated through
tazkiyah, and the necessary minimum fulfilment of—instead of excessive
indulgence in—the instinctive urges becomes the guiding light of human conduct,
the surplus energy available thereby can be utilised in the pursuit of higher
values—that being necessary for all cultural development and progress.
[2] The conflict between these two aspects of human nature may present
a difficult situation only to those—like the Christians, the Buddhists and the
Hindus—according to whom not the wrong manner of fulfilling the instinctive
wants but the instinctive wants themselves are evil.
