We conclude that environment, heredity, education, and man's personal conditions have an influence on forming manners, directing talents and psychological readiness, and their root degree in the deep side of man.
2. The Moral Values: They are abstract measures used to know the human qualities such as justice, mercy, trust, truthfulness, sincerity, oppression, cowardice, cruelty, etc.
The Islamic mission has brought the supreme values. Besides, it has limited the nature and the practical situations of such values.
3. The Moral Subjects: They are the subjects where these values are embodied or they are the actions or the practical behavior which the individual practices or they are the practical manners which the devoted person displays according to the moral qualities and values he possesses. For example, the subject of justice, meaning to put a thing in its place. To put things in their place and give each person his right will make an action called justice. Another example is truthfulness, meaning the agreement with reality in every word or action. So, whenever the action or the word is in accord with the objective reality, we call it truthfulness.
Consequently, when man acts and speaks in accord with reality, he makes the subject of truthfulness. In this manner, man may make a moral subject with every moral attitude, whether this attitude is good or evil. Man does that through his moral readiness and in the light of the moral concepts and values he chooses and believes in.
The Practical Aims of the Moral Formation
"...Verily Allah changes not the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves..."
Holy Qur'an (13: 11)
Islam has taken a lot of care in forming the internal self of man. It has made every effort to purify and educate man's conscience and habituate his psychological powers and talents. Islam does all these things to create internal personal power, to make agreement between the direction and the human behavioral movement and make a sound human character. Islam wants such a character to live the life of balanced emotion and behave according to a moral account. Such an account must balance between the two terms of the human behavioral equation, namely, between the individual and the society.
Hence, moral education and formation have practical aims and important behavioral purposes. They may be summarized as follows:
1. Educating the human gifts and developing the righteous, good trends in them (virtues).
2. Controlling the ill, evil trends and incentives (vices), uprooting them from the human deep self, and protecting them from the bad behavioral phenomena such as hypocrisy, oppression, cheating, treason, greed,...etc.
3. Ensuring psychological happiness and social peace depending on balance and the internal self-stability of man.
Accordingly, when man is liable to the vices and evil incentives and trends, he does not get the mental tranquillity and happy life. In the meantime, he cannot ensure the human relations based on stability and peace.
4. Moral formation and education make man behave politely without suffering or mental conflict. Moreover, they enable him to have the internal readiness to conform to the Islamic mission.
So, the Islamic laws and their concepts in economics, politics, social laws, worship, and personal behavior become practical after the moral education and the righteous, psychological formation.
5. To build man's talents morally, to save him from schizophrenia and the emotional tension affecting the mean persons, these diseases, and the like, affect such persons because they suffer from an intense, psychological conflict. This conflict takes place between the internal content and the internal direction of man. On the other hand, it takes place between the practical, external behavior the man practices in his society and his society looking at his behavior with disgust.
But there is another person. This person has moral talents. These talents help him to choose the good attitudes and actions without any difficulty or mental conflict. This person is sound mentally, empty of complexes and of the internal conflict. He is far away from the contradiction between his ideas and attitudes. He feels pleasure and happiness, for his intention and incentives are in accordance with the mental attitude towards the action he takes. Moreover, he does not feel disobedience and deviation from what is right.
6. Uprooting social hypocrisy: This disease strikes the ill-mannered persons. These people become a danger, threatening life and society on the grounds that these persons have no sound, psychological base for behavior. They do not depend on any unified, moral attitude. Furthermore, they cannot protect themselves from falling into the den of hypocrisy. These persons show hypocrisy in their everyday dealings. In other words, they show hypocrisy in politics, propagation, jobs, religion, etc.
These corrupt persons live in a state of division. They are divided between the personal reality representing them and the fear of social pressure. For this reason, they resort to hypocrisy. In other words, they affect good manners, righteous behavior, and agreeable ideas. They do all these things to please others and get rid of their anger and scorn.
To protect the human being from falling into this deep abyss, Islam has made every effort to create a moral immunization, to build a good moral talent and ensure the psychological base for good behavior. Islam has done all these things to uproot social hypocrisy and get rid of its destructive marks.
7. Sound moral formation protects the social entity and civilization from destroying itself and collapsing.
Islam educates the person morally to make him fit his social environment and conditions. Through this education, Islam is able to build a constructive, stable unity in the society. Such a unity will play an important role in developing righteous, good human abilities, uplifting civilization and social welfare. Besides, the human behavioral incentives do several things. For example, they urge man to obey the law and keep the regulations for life and human social interests. For this reason, the Muslim state will be able to fulfill its tasks without resorting to force against the individual and the society except in rare conditions. This is because the moral society is disciplined. Under it, man's character develops his will and freedom anew. Meanwhile, his feeling towards his humanity increases because his personal feeling towards his responsibility increases. He depends on himself. He discovers his value. Moreover, he will find himself to be able to choose the right actions and attitudes optionally. He feels that he is in no need of a power to force him to do any action or leave one behind. So, the practical result of this education is that the Muslim turns into a pioneering good power in this world. He loves and practices such a good feeling voluntarily. Thus, good increases in the society. Righteous human behavioral aspects develop, and society reaps good fruit.
But, when the moral conscience is absent, the person becomes like a wild animal. He is afraid of the government and its laws. He waits for an opportunity to attack the regulations of life and the good achievements of civilization. Therefore, the person becomes a corrupt, evil element on the earth. When he breaks the laws, he misuses the aspects of good and peace.
Now, we may conclude that man is not real and perfect without good manners. The society cannot live in harmony and peace. It cannot be far away from crime, corruption and aggression except under the power and law. Rather, it needs good manners. Therefore, good manners must take first place in ensuring the behavioral discipline and finding the practical motives for constructive human action in all fields of life, such as science, politics, economics, individual treatment, etc.
In view of the fact that the mere lawful power is not able to do its basic functions, namely organizing and improving society, simply with the formal application and forcible implementation, therefore the lawful power must take into account human incentives and purpose hidden behind a response. In view of this, there are three important elements for social life to be completely stable. The elements are:
1. The Good Law.
2. The Good Manners.
3. The Good Power.
The Islamic mission has brought the best law and the best behavioral form for mankind. It has also considered the subject of political power, establishing the state, and the ruler's and leaders' qualities, all of these contributing to the basic principles for building society and achieving man's happiness.
The Islamic Explanation of the Moral Concept
Philosophers, moralists, psychologists, and sociologists have devoted much of their attention to the subject of morals. Many schools and theories have been discussed on this subject. They have explained the moral values, individual and social morals, incentive and purpose, and moral relations.
The Muslim moralists have also studied this field. They have written extensively about morals. That is because morals play a vital role in making the Muslim law, forming the Muslim character, and limiting the Muslim behavioral pattern.
When we shed light on the most important axis that explains morals, and limit the Islamic viewpoint regarding morals, we conclude these ideas from general Islamic concepts which depend on the following two points:
1. The Holy Qur'an and the purified Sunnah.
2. The general intellectual conclusions and studies which Muslim moralists have made in this field.
Since the beginning of the moral schools, many studies have been made. Some of these schools have followed extreme material methods. They have abstracted man from morals. They have accepted, forwarded and supported instinctive behavior. They have regarded morals as shackles depressing man's will and preventing him from expressing himself. For this reason, all these schools, like existentialism, Freudism, pragmatism, Marxism and Darwinism have stressed that there are no inclusive, stable human values that can be applied to all men in all conditions. Rather, these schools believe that morals are partial, relative matters produced by individual human experience or certain social and economic conditions. They ask men to cancel moral behavior and follow instinct that does not adopt moral values nor conform to their laws.
For example, Marxism thinks that morals are a group of shackles made by the ruling class to paralyze the anti-class domination, increasing mass movement.
Marxism thinks that morals are a bourgeois trick. Such a trick has been created to mislead the toiling, poor masses and divert them from the struggle against class domination through some concepts such as truth, justice, mercy, duty, patience, etc.
These extreme material schools have existed to rob man of his humanity. They have subjected mankind to various kinds of exploitation, greed, social corruption, and behavioral psychological deviation. They have also lost their scientific efforts and achievements after losing their human aims and their spiritual values in life.
When these material schools chose the method of adaptability and went too far in responding to the instinctive, material incentives, they produced material, capitalistic, Marxist, Nazi, fascist and other similar civilizations. Because of these civilizations, man has faced various kinds of oppression, persecution and torture. He has been yoked with worry, fear, hunger and terrorism.
To this material school, denying all human morals and values, we find an opposite school. This school is also extreme. It disdains the material side of man. Some priests and monks created this school in Europe. In our Islamic world, the Sufis also founded an extreme, moral school. However, the pure Islamic moral theory is different from all of the above. It depends on the following bases:
1. Islam believes that the human moral feeling is natural and that morals represent the human side heading for social and personal perfection. Man's natural feelings grow and become perfect under continuous practice, guidance, and education. This feeling expresses the accurate formation of man. Meanwhile, it also expresses the arrangement of natural incentives to organize his life and adjust the balance of behavioral motives and incentives.
The existence of the basic processes of moral feeling in all mankind attests to this fact. So, the moral conscience, guilt, sympathy, striving for self-perfection and ridding oneself of defects are all common natural facts.
These common natural facts scientifically and objectively prove the Islamic viewpoint that moral feeling is a natural one hidden in the deep human self.
2. Islam believes that the moral values are common rules and principles. They are applied to all mankind in all individual and social conditions. This is so because they are