by: Dr Sani Badron
With reference to excellent ethics, there are four principal virtues from which all other virtues flow. This refers to prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. Each of the first three chief virtues is a mean between two vicious extremes of excess and of defect. Prudence or wisdom is a mean between deceit and stupidity; fortitude, between rashness and cowardice; and temperance or self-control, between profligacy and insensibility. The mean is relative to one's nature and inherent capacity, position, wealth and circumstances.
As such, virtue allows for and reflects men's individual differences. Such an allowance for individual differences relates Islamic thought to Western moralists like Aristotle, John Stuart Mill and John Dewey. Erudite scholars like al-Ghazzali have stressed the difficulty of determining the mean. It is like the straight path (al-sirat al-mustaqim) which is thinner than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword, so to speak. Therefore, man should constantly turn to God for guidance, since without His guidance and mercy no one can be guarded against the hazards of vice in this life which is full of pleasures or pains or both. uslim scholars of various persuasions such as al-Ghazzali, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Taymiyyah have emphasized that it is through the conjunction of reason and revelation (al-‘aql wa al-shar‘) that the moral perfection of moderation is achieved. In contradistinction to those three virtuous aspects of ethics, justice is not a mean between two extremes but rather, so to speak, an extreme opposed to another extreme: injustice (al-zulm).
Indeed, in discussing the virtue of justice, thinkers such as al-Ghazzali equates it with the whole of virtue.
However, three different aspects of justice may be distinguished: first, socio-political justice, which is concerning the orderly relation of the different members of the country to each other; second, moral justice, concerned with the orderly relation of the parts of the soul to each other; and third, economic justice, concerned with the rules of equity in business transactions. Following al-Ghazzali, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas has aptly remarked that the philosophic virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are not in themselves sufficient to produce in the self the kind of abiding happiness-an abiding happiness that is not determined by external and temporal circumstances of pains and pleasures. This will become clearer in the following explanation of types of good or happiness according to the worldview of Islam.
Happiness (sa‘adah) is indeed the chief good of man. In the worldview of Islam, there are two primary aspects of happiness, of the hereafter and of the temporal life, emphasizing however that the hereafter's happiness is genuine while the temporal life's one is purely metaphorical. It must be noted, however, that here there is absolutely no implication whatsoever of any attitude of neglect or being unmindful of the temporal life in Islam. Not only does Islam never deny that there are subordinate modes of good but it also asserts that whatever conduces to the ultimate good is good too.
Indeed, the otherworldly happiness itself cannot be achieved without certain subordinate goods.
As such, some such goods are the means to the end, the hereafter's happiness. The subordinate goods include the four principal virtues mentioned above; the bodily virtues of health, strength, good looks and a long life; the external virtues of wealth, family, social influence and noble birth; and the divine virtues (al-fadilah al-tawfiqiyyah) of guidance (hidayah), good counsel (rushd), direction (tasdid) and support (ta'yid).
We thus see that although the philosophic virtues are not sufficient to produce in the human soul the abiding happiness, their acceptance is justified if they do not come into conflict with religion.
Their usefulness for the attainment of happiness is even further acknowledged provided that some reformulation of their meanings has been effected in agreement with the higher order such as those virtues derived from the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. For acquainting ones with the moral virtues derived from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, readers are invited to study, for instance, Qadi ‘Iyad's Al-Shifa' bi Ta‘rif Huquq al-Mustafa, translated by Aisha Abdarrahman Bewley, Muhammad Messenger of Allah (Granada: Madinah Press, 1991), and Shibli Nu‘mani, Sirat-un-Nabi, translated by Sibtain Ahmad ‘Allamah Shibli's Sirat-un-Nabi Volume II (Karachi: Jamiyat-ul-Falah, 1971). In other words, the rational virtues must be reformulated and assimilated into the religious framework.
In the religious framework, the interpretation of human destiny extends to horizons beyond the temporal existence.
With reference to excellent ethics, there are four principal virtues from which all other virtues flow. This refers to prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. Each of the first three chief virtues is a mean between two vicious extremes of excess and of defect. Prudence or wisdom is a mean between deceit and stupidity; fortitude, between rashness and cowardice; and temperance or self-control, between profligacy and insensibility. The mean is relative to one's nature and inherent capacity, position, wealth and circumstances.
As such, virtue allows for and reflects men's individual differences. Such an allowance for individual differences relates Islamic thought to Western moralists like Aristotle, John Stuart Mill and John Dewey. Erudite scholars like al-Ghazzali have stressed the difficulty of determining the mean. It is like the straight path (al-sirat al-mustaqim) which is thinner than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword, so to speak. Therefore, man should constantly turn to God for guidance, since without His guidance and mercy no one can be guarded against the hazards of vice in this life which is full of pleasures or pains or both. uslim scholars of various persuasions such as al-Ghazzali, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Taymiyyah have emphasized that it is through the conjunction of reason and revelation (al-‘aql wa al-shar‘) that the moral perfection of moderation is achieved. In contradistinction to those three virtuous aspects of ethics, justice is not a mean between two extremes but rather, so to speak, an extreme opposed to another extreme: injustice (al-zulm).
Indeed, in discussing the virtue of justice, thinkers such as al-Ghazzali equates it with the whole of virtue.
However, three different aspects of justice may be distinguished: first, socio-political justice, which is concerning the orderly relation of the different members of the country to each other; second, moral justice, concerned with the orderly relation of the parts of the soul to each other; and third, economic justice, concerned with the rules of equity in business transactions. Following al-Ghazzali, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas has aptly remarked that the philosophic virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are not in themselves sufficient to produce in the self the kind of abiding happiness-an abiding happiness that is not determined by external and temporal circumstances of pains and pleasures. This will become clearer in the following explanation of types of good or happiness according to the worldview of Islam.
Happiness (sa‘adah) is indeed the chief good of man. In the worldview of Islam, there are two primary aspects of happiness, of the hereafter and of the temporal life, emphasizing however that the hereafter's happiness is genuine while the temporal life's one is purely metaphorical. It must be noted, however, that here there is absolutely no implication whatsoever of any attitude of neglect or being unmindful of the temporal life in Islam. Not only does Islam never deny that there are subordinate modes of good but it also asserts that whatever conduces to the ultimate good is good too.
Indeed, the otherworldly happiness itself cannot be achieved without certain subordinate goods.
As such, some such goods are the means to the end, the hereafter's happiness. The subordinate goods include the four principal virtues mentioned above; the bodily virtues of health, strength, good looks and a long life; the external virtues of wealth, family, social influence and noble birth; and the divine virtues (al-fadilah al-tawfiqiyyah) of guidance (hidayah), good counsel (rushd), direction (tasdid) and support (ta'yid).
We thus see that although the philosophic virtues are not sufficient to produce in the human soul the abiding happiness, their acceptance is justified if they do not come into conflict with religion.
Their usefulness for the attainment of happiness is even further acknowledged provided that some reformulation of their meanings has been effected in agreement with the higher order such as those virtues derived from the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. For acquainting ones with the moral virtues derived from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, readers are invited to study, for instance, Qadi ‘Iyad's Al-Shifa' bi Ta‘rif Huquq al-Mustafa, translated by Aisha Abdarrahman Bewley, Muhammad Messenger of Allah (Granada: Madinah Press, 1991), and Shibli Nu‘mani, Sirat-un-Nabi, translated by Sibtain Ahmad ‘Allamah Shibli's Sirat-un-Nabi Volume II (Karachi: Jamiyat-ul-Falah, 1971). In other words, the rational virtues must be reformulated and assimilated into the religious framework.
In the religious framework, the interpretation of human destiny extends to horizons beyond the temporal existence.
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