ETHICS OF ISLAM

PREFACE

Let's start the book by mentioning the name of Allah!

Name of Allah is the best refuge,

His blessings, can never be measured nor calculated,

He is the Lord who mercies much and loves to forgive!

Allahu ta'ala pities all human beings in the world. He creates and sends everyone the blessings they need. He also teaches them how to use these blessings to attain happiness of this and the next worlds. Imam ar-Rabbani, may Allahu ta'ala be pleased with him, in his 259th letter informs us that those disbelievers who never heard of Islam will not be punished in the hell. They will be annihilated along with the animals after their Judgement. People who hear about Islam and ponder about it, and then accept it will be blessed with heaven. He gave a lifelong time-span for pondering. He forgives those who become believers after diving into disbelief and deviation by being deceived through their own souls, evil friends, harmful books, and foreign radio stations. He saves them from the infinite disasters. He does not show the path of salvation to tyrants, wicked and depraved persons. He lets them stay in the denial quicksand that they have fallen into and which they like and desire. In the next world, He will forgive whom He wishes among the believers who supposed to go to hell and will send them to heaven after they are punished in the hell for their sins. He is the only One who, creates all living beings, keeps them in existence at every moment, and protects them against fear and horror.

If anyone thanks and praises anyone else anytime and at any place for any reason, these thanks and praises are all due to Allahu ta'ala. Because He is the only One who creates and sends all kinds of blessings and goodness. If He would not remind, create, and give strength, no one could ever do any goodness or harm to anyone else. Only His desires come into existence. No one can do anything against His desire.

May our prayers and greetings be unto His beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who is the most beautiful and highest of all human beings in all respects and be unto all of his progeny, relatives, and companions, may Allahu ta'ala be well pleased with them, who spread good morals and knowledge.

Muslims are required to learn "Islamic Knowledge." It is divided into two branches, "Religious knowledge" and "Scientific knowledge." The scientific knowledge is called "Wisdom" (Hikmat). Our Prophet, peace be upon him, said, "Wisdom is the lost property of a Muslim. He should pick it up wherever he may find it." This hadith commands us to learn scientific knowledge. Essence of "Religious knowledge" is twenty subjects. Eight of them are the main knowledge, and the other twelve is the supplementary knowledge. One of the main knowledge is the "Knowledge of Ethics."

[A Muslim who has good morals and advanced in the scientific knowledge of his time is called a civil or a progressive Muslim. Alternately, a person who is advanced in scientific knowledge and established basic industries but has poor morals is called tyrant, retrogressive, bandit or dictator. Those who are lagging behind the scientific knowledge and arts and have poor morals are called savages or vulgar people. Civilization means building cities and serving human beings. They can accomplish this through scientific knowledge, arts, and beautiful morals. In short, when the scientific knowledge and arts are accompanied with beautiful morals, it is called civilization. A civilized person uses scientific knowledge and arts for serving humanity. Alternately, tyrants use them for torturing. We can see that a true Muslim is a progressive person. Unbelievers are retrogressive, and miserable persons. It is apparent that civilization means constructing buildings and developing cities. This is only possible through science and technology. Advancement in technology is due to addition of new ideas to the ideas of the previous generations. People's living in peace and comfort is only possible through ethics of Islam.]

Learning Islamic knowledge as much as necessary is an obligatory duty (Fard) for every Muslim. Islamic scholars have written many books on this subject. The following books on the subject of ethics are well known: Akhlaq an-Nasiri by Nasiruddin-i Muhammad Tusi, Akhlaq al-Jalali by Jalaluddin-i Muhammad Dawani and Akhlaq al-Muhsini by Husayn Vaiz-i Kashifi from Hirat. We translated the first chapter of this book from the book Barika written by Muhammad Hadimi, may Allahu ta'ala be pleased with him. In the first chapter of this book we will deal with unacceptable poor morals rejected by Islam and their prescribed cures. Poor morals are due to maladies of the spiritual heart. They cause infinite death and destruction of the spiritual heart (Qalb) and the spirit (Ruh). In the second chapter of this book, we will describe the meaning of ethics (Akhlaq) and its varieties by taking from the beginning chapters of the book Akhlaq al-Alai written in Turkish by Ali bin Amrullah, may Allahu ta'ala be pleased with him, who passed away in 979 Hijri, 1572 A.D. at Edirne/Turkey.

The uncorrupt youngsters who read this book will understand and appreciate that their ancestors were healthy persons with good morals. They were also industrious, civilized, and progressive persons. By learning the truth about their ancestors they will not be tricked by the lies and slanders of their enemies.

The name of the author of the book Akhlaq an-Nasiri was Muhammad bin Fahraddin Nasiruddin al-Tusi. He was born in Hijri 597 at the city of Tus (Mashhad) and passed away in Hijri 672 [1273 A.D.] at Baghdad. He belonged to Shi'ite section of the Muslims. He was one of the persons who was instrumental of Hulagu's destruction of Baghdad and mass killings, e.g., hundreds of thousands of Muslims. He became the prime minister of Hulagu. He founded a new library that included 400,000 books and a planetarium and an Academy. He wrote many books.

Muhammad Jalaluddin-i Dawani, may Allahu ta'ala be pleased with him, was born in 829 Hijri and passed away 908 Hijri [1503 A.D.] at Shiraz. He is one of the most profound among the Islamic scholars. He wrote many books. His book Akhlaq al-Alai is in Persian. Its eighth printing was accomplished in 1304 Hijri, 1882 A.D. at India. It has been translated into English.

Husayn bin Ali Vaiz-i Kashifi, may Allahu ta'ala be pleased with him, was a preacher in the city of Hirat. He passed away in Hijri 910, 1505 A.D. at Hirat.

Oh virtuous youngsters! Oh noble and dear children of those martyrs who spent their lives for learning and spreading beautiful moral teachings of Islam as well as sacrificed their lives for spreading the religion of Allah to all human beings! Do learn well the whole and correct Islamic religion and its beautiful ethics brought and dedicated to you for safekeeping by our honorable ancestors. Protect this holy safekeeping (Amanat) with all your might and power against the attacks of our enemies, i.e., those who attack our lives, properties, religion, and ethics and who are getting ready to take over our beautiful country! Strive hard by spreading this correct religion everywhere to save all human beings from infinite disasters. Let it be known that our religion orders us to have beautiful morals, mutual love for each other, respect for the elders and compassion for the youngsters, as well as, doing goodness to everyone irrespective of their religion or irreligion. Pay everyone's due rights and wages! Do not violate laws of the land and do not oppose orders of the government! Pay your taxes on their due times! Never forget that Allahu ta'ala is the helper of the righteous people! Let us love and help each other so that Allahu ta'ala would also help us.

Islamic scholars say: "Allahu ta'ala created three things in humans: Intellect (Aql), spiritual heart (Qalb), and soul (Nafs). We can see none of them. We can understand their existence by observing their effects or the things done by them or by the information related to us by our religion. Intellect and soul are located at our brain and the spiritual heart is found over the biological heart that is in the left side of our chest. They are not made of matter and do not occupy space. Their existence in these places is similar to the existence of the electric in a light bulb or the magnetic field's existence in an induction bobbin. Intellect tries to understand Islamic knowledge. It understands Islamic knowledge and its good and useful as well as evil and harmful variations or portions. The good and evil are discriminated in accordance with the divine law. The Intellect, which recognizes the divine law (Shari'at) and wants to obey it, is called "correctly thinking intellect," (Aql al-salim). The people who have little intelligence and always make mistakes are called stupids or fools. The people who have no intelligence are called crazy. Correctly thinking intellect relates good things taught by the divine law to the spiritual heart. The spiritual heart decides to do these good things. It uses the action nerves, which come out of the brain and go to the organs, to give orders to the organs so that they carry out these good things. Assimilation of the desire of doing good or evil things into the spiritual heart is called ethics (Akhlaq). The soul is excessively fond of worldly pleasures. It does not think whether these are good, evil, useful or harmful. Its desires are not compatible with the divine law. Doing things that are forbidden by the divine law strengthens the soul. It would try to convince the spiritual heart to carry out the worst things. It deceives the spiritual heart by showing the evil and harmful things as good things. It strives to attain its pleasures by convincing the spiritual heart to carry out its desires. Strengthening spiritual heart and weakening the soul is necessary so that the soul will not be able to deceive the spiritual heart and that the spiritual heart will not become a evil natured one. Strengthening of the spiritual heart is similar to the strengthening of the intellect. The intellect is strengthened by studying and learning the knowledge of Islam. The heart is strengthened (cleansed) by carrying out the commandments ordered by divine law. Carrying out the commandments ordered by divine law requires sincerity (Ikhlas). Sincerity means carrying out the deeds because they are ordered by Allahu ta'ala and not expecting any other benefits by doing them. Having sincerity in the heart can only be accomplished by the spiritual heart's mentioning the name of Allahu ta'ala often (making Dhikr of Allah through the Qalb). Accomplishing "Dhikr of Qalb" can only be possible by learning from a perfect Sufi master (Murshid al-Kamil-the Perfect Guide). It further requires emptying the spiritual heart from all worldly thoughts formed in the brain due to the sensory information coming from the organs. If no worldly thought left in the spiritual heart, it starts to do "Dhikr of Allah" automatically. It is similar to emptying the water from a battle. When one empties the water, the air automatically enters the battle. Protecting the spiritual heart from worldly thoughts could be accomplished through the spiritual heart's benefiting (getting "Fayd" (Nur (light, spiritual luminance)) from the spiritual heart of the perfect Sufi master. The spiritual luminance (Fayd) flows from one spiritual heart to another by way of love. Death of the perfect spiritual guide or his being in a distance country does not stop the flow of spiritual luminance (Fayd). The perfect spiritual guide (Murshid al-kamil) is an "Ahl as-sunnat" scholar (Alim) who knows Islamic knowledge in depth and does all of his actions sincerely (with Ikhlas) according to this knowledge. Obeying to the divine law and getting spiritual luminance (Fayd) from the perfect guide (Murshid al-kamil) strengthens the spiritual heart and conversely weakens the soul. Thus, the soul (Nafs) does not want the spiritual heart's obeying the divine law (Shari'at) or conversing (Sohbat) with the perfect spiritual guide (Murshid al-kamil) or reading the books written by the perfect spiritual guide. It wants spiritual heart to be irreligious and non-believer. Therefore, those who do not follow their intellect and instead follow their soul (Nafs) become irreligious. The soul (Nafs) does not die but when it is weakened, it cannot deceive the spiritual heart any longer.

1997 A.D. 1375 Hijri Shamsi 1418 Hijri Kameri

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

The Ethics of Islam is a very difficult subject. A person who wants to read and understand this book has to have certain background or prerequisites. Anyone who attended high school or college knows that one cannot take a course unless meets its prerequisites. Actually required prerequisites are very long for this book. Basically, one has to be quite learned about the Islamic religion. We employed various techniques and strived very hard to make the book readable by those who do not have the required prerequisites. Those who don't have the background have to approach this book like taking a difficult course in the school. Getting a good grade from a difficult course requires lots of time (unquantifiable by us) and studying. Understanding and learning ethics of Islam also requires much time and studying. We can assure the reader that if you read this book like a novel, you will not gain anything. Knowing the difficulty involved, we have used simple words while constructing the sentences. When some words did not have corresponding English versions, sometimes, we added simplified explanatory phrases and used them instead. When certain words were repeated often, using their simplified explanations again and again was very difficult (e.g., Ahl al-bidat, Amr al-maruf, Fard, Halal, Haram, Wajib, Jaiz, Makruh, Tanzih al-Makruh, Tahrim al-Makruh and the like). We have put these simplified explanatory phrases at the beginning of the chapter as "Keywords" so that the reader may refer to it and we could use the keyword in the text. In other instances, certain terms were used in their original form, e.g., Sunnat, Hadith, Jihad, Fitna, Amr al-maruf or Nahy anil munkar. Another difficulty involves citing an action as permissible or forbidden or the like. During the past 1400 years of Islamic history, judgements were passed by the scholars or qualified judges of their times almost on every action of a person. This book also repeats various kinds of judgements after explaining an action or affair. These judgements are different from an ordinary judgement passed by a judge in the sense that these have connotations of bringing rewards or punishments in the next world. The reader must learn their meaning before advancing any further in the subject. A good strategy might be, reading the chapter once and then coming back and reading it again. The translator, where appropriate, added explanations within a curly parenthesis, e.g., {...}. Also, to make the subject matter easier for those who are familiar with Arabic, we have included Arabic terms along with their English versions.