The Moral Concept in Islam

The Foundation's Word

All praise be to Allah. Blessings and peace be upon the last of His prophets, Muhammad, and upon his purified household and the righteous among his companions.
Positive schools of thought have become numerous. Their solutions to man's complicated problems have branched out, but the crisis remains. Contemporary man is still suffering and paying a high price in our world. These days our world lies in ruins for none other than a moral crisis.

The moral crisis has deepened because man has mistreated his environment, nature, universe and himself. These things find basis in the fact that man has violated the order of the Almighty Creator.

The deviated solutions are two:

- The first: has lost the truth and mistaken its diagnosis of reality. It has deviated from the aim.

- The second: has succeeded in diagnosing the matter and limiting the problem. Still, it has become lost in researching the solutions. Thus, it has wavered to the right and left without reaching any practical results.

Islam, being Allah's upright religion and His tolerant law, is the only true solution because it has been issued by the Lord of people, Who knows what He has created, and Who plans what avails, and leads everything toward rightness and perfection. Islam is the regulation that fits man's nature and the needs of his life.
When Muhammad (peace be upon him and his household) was appointed a Prophet, he raised the banner of reform and said:

"Verily, I have been sent to complete good manners."

For this reason, Islam has principles and orders. They are a high edifice of sublime values. They are an immortal school of high moral standards. Human life becomes happy and righteous with them.

In this booklet, we discuss this important subject and its various aspects. Meanwhile, we compare Islam with the material schools. May Allah make Muslims avail themselves of it. Our prayer is that we praise Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.

Ideas Explaining Human Behaviour

To study manners and limit their truth and value and explain their existence with individuals and communities is basically connected with ideology and the general philosophy of life. The philosophers and ethics scholars studied the moral and behavioral aspects of individuals and communities. They composed ideas and theories to explain man's moral nature and decide the ethical situation of individuals and communities.

When psychology developed and separated from philosophy, it began studying subjects the philosophers had studied before. It studied human behavior and the factors that formed it. Civilization and material mental schools then adopted the ideas of the psychological schools which suited their philosophy and attitude. They adopted such ideas to explain human behavior and justify their mental attitudes and behavioral philosophy. It is useful to mention the research procedures the scientists followed, especially the studies based on experimental, statistical and observational methods, to distinguish the Islamic theory from materialism.

The school of psychology followed two kinds of study and two stages of experiments to form a theory to explain human behavior and know the psychological motive (the moral talent) during the reactions with external motive or the internal incentive of need and expression.

The First Stage: This stage was followed to describe and observe external behavior and collect specimens.

The Second Stage: This stage was used to analyze, explain and formulate a theory about these observations.

It is important for us to mention that the method, based on Islamic rules, also follows an inductive and statistical research for the behavioral phenomena of individuals and uses such research to understand human behavior by explaining and analyzing these phenomenon. This school then uses a completely different set of causes and motives connected to these phenomenon. In this way it is similar to the analytical schools. Nevertheless, there are two basic differences between the Islamic school and the others. They are:

1. The Islamic school admits that the personal formation of man and his behavioral pattern is affected by many factors such as environment, heredity, the influence of the glands and hormone secretions, physiological activities, and so on. Still, man has the will and ability to change his behavior and reject the evil disposition and overcome it; otherwise he will incline towards it. This may be achieved by finding an environment empty of corrupt motives, spreading righteous manners, habituating the personality and rebuilding it.

2. The difference between the Islamic school and others lies in explaining behavior and its general philosophy. According to the Islamic school, not only personal motives are a group of reactions to the external motives and the internal incentives,
 

* PRESENTED BY: AL-BALAGH FOUNDATION