Manifesto of Islam - 4

Moral Behavior--the Expression of Beauty in External Action

The External action impelled by the Right Ideal consists in the expression of the qualities of Beauty in one's treatment of one's own self and of others. It is commonly known as Moral Action. The Right Ideal, like every other ideal, has a moral law of its own which determines strictly the nature and the quality of every action of the individual. Since this law is derived from the qualities of Beauty, the action of an individual who follows it accords with expresses and incarnates these qualities. The man who loves an ideal is urged to express and thereby to satisfy his love in all possible ways. The man who loves the Right Ideal, therefore, expresses it not only by contemplating Beauty but also by acting Beauty, that is by displaying it in all his daily actions. "Say: My prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are surely for Allah, the Lord of the worlds. No associate has He. And his am I commanded, and I am the first of those who submit" (vi. 163-164).

The Love of Beauty and Moral Action are Inseparable

If he does not do so, it means he has not yet acquired any love or any realist ion of the Beauty of the Creator and His qualities. For it is impossible that a person should feel attracted to the qualities of Beauty like justice, Truth, Goodness and Love, etc., but should resort to injustice instead of justice, cruelty and enmity instead of love, and falsehood instead of truth when it comes to expressing his loves and hates or likes and dislikes in actual deeds. If he is a sincere lover, he does his utmost to act in accordance with these qualities in spite of internal and external obstructions. When he does so he gets a clearer and fuller realisation of their beauty and evolves his love to a higher level and rises to a higher stage of self-knowledge. For love gains in power and intensity by expression and becomes weak by neglect. 

A man who acts rightly once finds it easier to act rightly again. If a man who has the habit of being cruel makes one successful effort to be kind, the next such effort becomes easier for him and the next still easier, on account of the growth of his love. A wrong action has the contrary effect. A man who deviates from the right path and acts wrongly once on account of his insufficient realisation of Beauty finds it still more difficult to come forward to the right path. His realisation of Beauty undergoes further deterioration. Thus the evolution of our self-knowledge or love depends upon the moral quality of our action. A man who has realisation of Beauty and expresses it by means of contemplation in the form of Zikr and Fikr, but does not express it in all his daily actions, can never rise to higher and higher levels of self-knowledge. On the contrary, his love is bound to degenerate because he more than unmakes by his deeds what he makes by his meditations. He is like a person who walks for two hours in the morning in the direction of his goal but walks the whole day in just the opposite direction. Such a person can never reach his destination but must continue to recede ever farther and farther from it.

How Moral Action becomes Gradually Easier and Easier

Perfect, faultless and absolute obedience to the moral law of the Right Ideal is not possible in the beginning of love when love is necessarily weak. It is possible only at the highest stage of the evolution of self. Before this stage is reached the lover falls a victim to slips and errors frequently in spite of his efforts. But when, owing to his regular habits of prayers and continuous contemplation of Beauty for some time by means of Zikr and Fikr, he is able to add to his love a little, his added love gives him a greater control over himself and makes it easier for him to act morally. Thus his action becomes nobler and purer, safer from slips and errors and more in accordance with the qualities of Beauty. Such action, therefore, evolves and strengthens his realisation of Beauty all the more and raises him to a still higher level of self-knowledge. When, equipped with this realisation of Beauty, he returns to him habits of Zikr and Fikr, he finds that he can indulge in them with a much greater concentration of mind and can derive from them much more pleasure than what was possible for him before. Such contemplation of Beauty, therefore, evolves his love and consequently facilitates his moral action all the more. In this way moral action and contemplation go hand in hand assisting each other to raise him to higher and higher levels of self-consciousness till he attains to the highest possible stage of the evolution of his love. This will indicate that, if love is allowed to have its own way and if its demands of action and endeavour are satisfied continuously after it has once emerged, it goes on adding to itself until it has achieved the maximum of its intensity and power. "And Allah increases in guidance those who go aright" (xix. 76). "And those who strive hard for Us, We shall certainly guide them in Our ways" (xxix. 69). "Surely they were youths who believed in their Lord and We increased them in guidance" (xviii.13).

The Nature of a Sin

(a) Its Causes. A slip or an error on the part of a believer occurs when for a while his urge for Beauty finds expression in a wrong idea not consistent with the Right ideal. This happens when a wrong idea attracts him away from his ideal and diverts his love into a wrong channel. The result is a wrong action calculated to serve and strengthen the love of this wrong idea at the expense of that of the Right ideal. That is why a man who commits one sin is prone to commit another. The Nature of a Wrong Idea. A wrong idea consists of a belief that a particular action, although not consistent with the Right Ideal, will yield a particular relief or pleasure. The believer knows that this action is contrary to the requirements of Beauty and that his love demands that he must hate the idea along with the pleasure attending it. yet, if his love is not strong enough, if it has not sufficiently developed, he begins to prefer the idea and the pleasure associated with it to the demands of his love and the pleasure associated with it to the demands of his love and thus for the time being the whole of his love which is really meant for his ideal is diverted entirely towards this idea. In other words, for the moment he ceases to be a believer or a lover of the True Ideal. The result is a wrong action. (b) Its Effects on the Self. When the wrong action caused by a wrong idea has run its course and its pleasure has ended, the believer is free to love his ideal again. But now he finds that his love for the ideal has decreased and the love of the ideal that had led him astray and of other connected ideas has increased in the same proportion. A wrong action strengthens the love of the wrong idea that is the cause of it and weakens the love of the Right ideal to the same extent on account of the operation of an inexorable law of our nature. Similarly, a right action strengthens the love of the Right ideal and weakens the love of wrong ideas. Every action. However insignificant it may appear to be, is, therefore, important and works either to the disadvantage or advantage of the individual.

The Way to Avoid a Sin

A wrong idea grips first of all the imagination of the individual and later on takes control of his faculties of action. From the moment it enters the mind it begins to steal more and more of the love of self-meant for the Right Ideal till it becomes strong enough to crate the relevant action. This means that a wrong action can be stopped easily when it is at the earlier part of its thought-stage. Evil doing is the result of a prolonged evil thinking. Before every wicked deed there is a wicked thought which has been loved and liked for a considerable time owing to an error. If the thought is not resisted and expelled from the mind immediately and totally, the deed is bound to follow. Hence a true believer is alerted as soon as his imagination begins to go astray. Fearing lest he should stoop t an action that is contrary to the urge of his nature and lose the love of his Creator he makes an immediate effort to expel the evil idea from his mind and succeeds in his effort. "Those who guard against evil when a thought from the devil visits them, they become mindful, and they begin to see" (vii. 201). As a reward for desisting from an evil desire in this way he evolves his love and consequently enjoys a blissful life here as well as in the Hereafter. As long as a man has the slightest attachment for a wrong idea in a remote corner of his heart, whether he acts according to that idea or not, he is not a true believer or a true lover at all. As a tradition of the Prophet puts it " not a grain of faith remains with him". Sin is the movement of the self in a direction opposite to that in which the self wants to move by its nature, opposite to that of its progress or evolution. It alters the condition of the self and becomes its permanent disability which retard its progress as long as it is not got rid of.

The Way to get rid of the Evil Effects of a Sin.

The Process of Self-Purification. The way to get rid of the evil effects of a sin is to go back to the mental state or the emotional attitude that preceded and caused the wrong action, to study it, to analyze it and thereby to realise that what he loved and liked was really ugly and detestable and further to make sure that this present realisation of the repetition of that emotional attitude and the resulting action in future. For this purpose he has to return to the contemplation of Beauty and to indulge in it long enough and with a sufficient concentration of mind to recover his realisation of Beauty that was lost at the time he made his wrong moral judgment which preceded the wrong action. As soon as he regains this realisation of Beauty, his love if free to advance on the path of evolution again. This process though which the self of the believer has to pas in order to purify itself of its sin in known as taubah or returning. Returning or taubah as a mental effort has four constituents: (!) The admission of the error, i.e. the realisation that what he loved was really ugly. This is accompanied by an acute sense of loss and an irresistible feeling of repentance. "And others have acknowledged their faults, _they mixed a good deed with another that was evil" (ix, 102). (2) A sincere and confident resolve not to repeat the error either in his thought or action. "O you who believe, turn to Allah with sincere repentance" (Ixvi.8). (3) The effort to regain by contemplation the contact with Reality or the love of Beauty and the consequent moral attitude that was lost. "Then whoever believes and acts aright, they shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve " (vi.48). (4) The revival of a full belief in the Creator's qualities of Beauty implying the realisation that the real sustainer and evolver of his self is not he himself but his Creator and the evolutionary movement of his self, if he regains it, will be the result of His approval and pleasure which means, first of all, His forgiveness. "And whoever does evil or wrongs his soul, then asks forgiveness of Allah, will find Allah Forgiving, Merciful" (iv. 110). All these psychological requirements are completely satisfied when he says from the core of his heart and repeats till he experiences their full significance, the words: "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves; and if Thou forgive us not, and have mercy on us, we shall certainly be of the losers" (vii. 23). or the words: "There is no Lord but Thou, all Beauty belongs to Thee Surely I am of those who have wronged (themselves)" (xxi. 87). Complete purification of the self is not possible unless it breaks away completely from all desires which are foreign to its nature and feels the full force of the desire for Beauty which is the real urge of its being. "And break away (from everything) and submit to Him" (lxxiii.8). Nothing short of a sincere repentance and a sense of utter loss, capable of bringing tears profusely to the eyes accompanied by a persistent effort to re-establish the lost contact with Reality and to re-acquire the abandoned belief by means of contemplation, can enable the self to shed the desires which are not its own, The best time for such an ablution of tears is the last part of night when conditions of quiet and seclusion are particularly favorable for concentration and inner effort. "O thou covering thyself up rise to pray by night except a little , half of it, or lesson it a little, or add to it, and recite the Quran in a leisurely manner" (lxxiii. 1-4).

Midnight Prayers

That is why the Prophet said: "The midnight prayers of a man are the best of all his prayers".

The Magnitude of a Sin

Errors are great or small according as they affect the self's love more or less adversely. A persistent error even if it is insignificant is highly injurious to the self's evolution.

The Stage when a Sin becomes Impossible

As love evolves, errors become less and less in number and magnitude till at last they disappear entirely. At this stage the Right Love dominates the consciousness of the believer completely. His struggle against wrong ideas ceases entirely and he finds that, while it is very easy for him to act morally, it is very difficult for him to act otherwise. Thus the diversion of a believer's love to wrong ideas is always due to an inadequate knowledge or love of Beauty.

The Sources of Wrong Ideas

The wrong ideas conflicting with the Right Ideal have their source either in the power of habits or in the power of instincts.

(a) Habits.

As long as a person loves wrong ideal his entire practical life is dominated by it. Consequently he develops a set of habits of thought and action which, in due course of time, become firmly established and continue to serve that ideal and support and maintain its love by a force of their own. These habits cling to him in spite of him and continue to influence his thought and action even after he has acquired a realisation of the Beauty of the right ideal and pledged himself to love and serve it. They can be eradicated not by counteracting them directly but by fostering new habits consistent with the Right Ideal. As these new right habits develop they take the place of the old wrong habits which die our gradually by disuse. This explains why Islam lays stress on regularity and punctuality in prayers and devotions. "Prayer indeed has been enjoined on the believer at fixed times" ( iv.103). The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "The best of the moral deeds are those which are performed regularly." When the believer has developed a set of right habits which dot and intersperse the whole of his practical life, he finds that their automatic action not only leads to a forced reservation of a portion of his time for devotion to the Right ideal but also serves as a continuous reminder to him to stick to the moral code of his ideal all the time. As wrong habits support and maintain a wrong love, so right habits support and maintain the right love. That action, when repeated, become automatic, is a favour of Nature on account of which a person's conscious choice and deliberately controlled attention become increasingly available for moral judgments and moral actions which he needs for the proper direction of that part of his life which is not yet controlled by his habits. Until a person's consciousness is cleared entirely of wrong habits and dominated completely by right habits, his love cannot be said to have developed up to the highest extent.

(b) Instincts.

Wrong ideas which have their source in the instincts (like feeding, sex, pugnacity, self-assertion, etc.) are extraordinarily powerful because the instincts, which have for their object the preservation of the live of the individual and t he race, have a biological compulsion and their satisfaction is attended by a particular kind of pleasure. In the absence of the love of the Right Ideal we often become so enamored of the pleasure derived from the satisfaction of our instinctive desires that we ascribe all the beauty and excellence that we seek to this pleasure. The result is that these desires become our sole ideal and the whole of our love meant for the Right Ideal begins to flow towards them. In such a case we give them an exaggerated importance and satisfy them not for the sake of, and up to the limits prescribed by, their object and nature, i.e. for the maintenance of life and race but for the sake of the pleasure that they give us. In such a case we are living not even on the animal plane of life but very much below that plane, because an animal never seeks to satisfy his instinctive desires beyond the limit prescribed by their biological necessity. That is why such people are mentioned by the Quran as follows: "They are cattle; nay they are more astray" (vii.179). Their ideal consists of their own lower desires. "Hast thou seen him who takes his low desire for his god" (xxv. 43).

A Task of Major Importance for a Believer_Struggle with Himself

A task of major important which confronts a believer in the earlier stages of the development of his self-consciousness is to fight against the compulsion and the temptation of these desires with a view to keeping them within their own limits and not to permit them to encroach upon the love of the Right ideal so that the latter has an unobstructed course of evolution. He has not only to keep the instinctive desires within their own bounds but also to acquire the power to curb and crush them up to any extent (even up to the extent of sacrificing his life) for the sake of his love, whenever necessary. This latter exigency arises for a believer when he is faced with a difficulty and feels the temptation to overcome it by resorting to activities which are contrary to the requirements of his ideal or when he ahs to participate willingly in a righteous war in which he is required to go without food and drink and to suffer several other hardships and even to sacrifice his life.

The Importance of Fasting (Saum)

The task of fighting against the compulsion and temptation of the instinctive desires is difficult but the believer's untiring efforts make it easy for him. He slips very often but recovers each time and rises to march forward towards his goal with added vigor. Islam provides him with an opportunity to train himself for this inner struggle by enjoining upon him to fast continuously for one month_ during the particular moth of Ramazan_ every year. He is required to fast every day during this month so that he may learn to check and control his instinctive desires and even to crush them totally for the sake of his love. The more he opposes these desires for the sake of his ideal by fasting, the greater is his realisation of the Beauty of his ideal. The reason is that he can oppose these desires only with the help of the power of his love which, therefore, increases in force and intensity in proportion to the success of his effort to oppose them. The training that he acquires in this way stands him in good stead when a conflict between himself, i.e. his love, and the compulsion of his instincts is afoot. It enables him to defeat the instinctive desires and to win a victory for his love which makes its next victory easier and the next still easier till his love, feeding itself constantly on Beauty through his contemplation and moral action, becomes strong enough to make all slips and errors impossible for him. At this stage it is easier for him to obey his ideal even at the risk of his life than to obey his instincts. At this stage his quest for Beauty is safe from the interference of his lower desires and he enjoys a peace of mind which is the good fortune of only those who enter Paradise. "So no one knows what refreshment of the eyes is hidden for them as a reward for what they did" (xxxii. 17). "And as for him who fears to stand before his Lord and restrains himself from low desires, the Garden is surely the abode" (lxxix. 40). 

Professor James defined moral action as action in the line of the "greatest" resistance. But there is a stage in the evolution of self when moral action becomes action in the line of the "least" resistance. It is only at the time of action that love is tested and it is by passing the tests of action that it becomes real and actual and can rise to higher and higher levels of strength and purity. The effort to act morally, resisting one's instinctive inclinations and desires, is really an effort to acquire a still greater realisation of the beauty of the Right Ideal.

A Believer Turns a Misfortune into a Blessing

Patience in the face of difficulties also affords the believer a precious training to control his instinctive desires for the sake of his ideal. "And seek assistance through patience and prayer, and this is hard except for the humble ones" (ii.450). Such a patience coupled with devotions and prayers to the Creator enables the individual not only to pass safely a critical period in the evolution of his self when he is most likely to slip but also to raise himself to a far higher stage of self-consciousness. The Quran states this fact is the following words: "And We shall certainly try you with something of fear and hunger and loss of property and lives and fruits. And give good new to the patient, who, when a misfortune befalls them, say: "Surely we are Allah's and to Him we shall return" (ii. 155-156).

The Way to Maintain Mental Health

If wrong ideas are not combated successfully it is a grave danger not only to the evolution of an individual's love but also to him mental health. The root cause of a nervous disease (worry, hysteria, obsession, phobia, or madness) is the conflict of some ideas or ideals with the patient's ideal. When a believer feels attracted to a wrong idea and acts in accordance with the requirements of this idea rather than with those of his ideal, there is a slip or an error. As already stated, the full realisation of the error comes to the individual only when the desire has spent its force and when the process of its satisfaction has run its course to the end. When this happens, the love of the Right Ideal return to him although it is now wounded and violated. This situation is attended by a very distressing mental condition which is known as a conflict or a dissociation of the mind. Taubah or returning is the only cure for a mental conflict and its effects. If, however, a person has already succeeded in raising himself to the highest possible stage of his self-consciousness, he cannot suffer from a mental conflict.

The Evolution of Love or Self – Knowledge has no End

Men's capacity for love varies. When other things are equal it is always in proportion to their intelligence. Highly intelligent people have a strong urge for Beauty and are capable of loving very deeply and passionately. A believer should develop his love as much as his own natural capacity for love can allow it develop. So long as he is not able to act perfectly in accordance with the requirements of the Right Ideal, he must be sure that there is some wrong ideal lurking in his mind and mis-appropriating a portion of his natural capacity for love, meant really for the Right Ideal, and the there is yet need for him to act and struggle for the purification of his love. But even when his love has reached the highest possible stage of its development in this life, it cannot be said that he has acquired a full realisation of the Beauty of the Creator. The Beauty of the Creator that we are forced by our nature to seek and love has no limit and it is not possible for anybody to attain to its complete realisation. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: We have not known you as we should know you.