Our previous article (“Adab defines Islamic education”) has clarified how adab manifests the beautification of ethics, whose fundamentals are ultimately based upon the worldview of Islam. This directly contradicts one of the integrals of secularization, namely the “relativization of all human values”.
Islam disagrees with a secular view that each and every value system is relative to human opinions and personal beliefs. Relativism denies that there are ultimate and final values, ethical rules and codes of conduct.
Secularist is of the opinion that every value system is transient and open to change with the times and generations. “Deconsecration of values” implies that man shall remove all religious support from ethics; secularization claims that mankind has an absolute freedom to change moral values, all on his own.
Moreover, relativism denies that right and wrong are objective. For secularist, right and wrong are of human’s making; ethics merely consists in inventing right and wrong. Indeed, there is a book by J. L. Mackie which is titled Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong.
Relativism may be illustrated by the following humorous anecdote: Once, Mulla Nasruddin, was acting as a judge. Two men came to him looking for fair decision. The plaintiff’s lawyer put forth a strong reasoning, and Nasruddin said: “Yes, you are right.” But later, the defendant’s lawyer presented powerful argument of his case, and Nasruddin said: “Yes, you are also right.” Court’s Registrar, who was witnessing the situation, said with amazement: “I just cannot understand you, my lord. Both the plaintiff and respondent could never be right at the same time.” In a state of desperation, Nasruddin replied: “You are right too.”
Contrary to relativism, Islam understands ethics as akhlaq (which is the plural of khuluq), refering to the moulding of man’s nature according to which he is created by Allah. In fact, Islam identifies khuluq with fitrah-that is, a natural religious disposition of which human being is created-or with tabi‘ah, i.e. an innate temper with which human being is created.
To be ethical is not to invent right and wrong, but rather to be in harmony with human’s purity of being and spirituality.
This original sense of khuluq is very relevant to the Qur’anic verse: “By the Soul, and the proportion and order given to it” (al-Shams, 91: 7). ‘Allamah ‘Abdullah Yusuf Ali clarifies that “Allah creates the soul, and gives it order, proportion, and relative perfection, in order to adapt it for the particular circumstances, in which it has to live its life. God breathes into it an understanding of what is sin, impiety, wrongdoing and what is piety and right conduct, in the special circumstances in which it may be placed.”
Thus, in contrast to the cognate term khalq, which is used to refer to the fashioning of the “outer man” with its peculiar qualities and attributes, ethics (khuluq) is primarily used to mean the moral character of the “inner man”-i.e. his intellect or soul, with its peculiar qualities and attributes.
Hence, Islamic ethics signify one’s habit in its capacity as one’s “second nature”. The aforementioned meaning is illustrated clearly in the Qur’an, to the effect that the Prophet Muhammad “stands on an exalted standard of character (khuluq ‘azim)” in reference to the very core of his being (al-Qalam, 68: 4).
There is also the prophetic Tradition that “nothing is heavier in the mizan than goodness of the moral character (husn al-khuluq).” The mizan refers to eschatological Balance in which good and evil actions of every human being will be weighed in the Afterlife.
Another tradition narrated by Sayyidah ‘A’ishah emphasized the fact that whereto the Prophet Muhammad clung was the Qur’an, including its rules of discipline (adab), its commands and prohibitions, as well as the excellence and beauties and gracious things comprised in it. Our previous article has also mentioned another relevant fundamental fact, that the Qur’an is a means (ma’dabah) which God has prepared in the earth for men’s learning right and wrong.
As such, it is clear that Islamic ethics as well as good discipline of the mind were based on what is taught by Allah through the Qur’an, which was immediately translated into a living reality intimately and profoundly lived in the experience of the Prophet Muhammad, whom the first community of the believers emulated. The Qur’an and the Prophet thus guide the next generations of Muslim by their confirming and affirming this prophetic example in their lives, just as the first community had exemplified earlier.
Even when later in history the Muslims’ rule expanded to become a great civilization encountering other world cultures, such a basic structure of Islamic ethics and intellectual discipline remained intact. This made it possible for Muslims to approve and appropriate those traditions and elements which did not contradict such a super-structure of universal Qur’anic teachings, regardless whether it was of pre-Islamic Arabic, Persian, Greek, or any other origin.