Clamouring\nfor justice perhaps has become the norm of the day. From East to West, people\ndemand justice from their respective governments which have admitted to giving their\nbest to restore justice or to put it in place. But what is the real meaning of\n\u201cjustice\u201d? Are we, and the governments, talking about the same justice, in all its\nforms and functions? Or, perhaps, the form of justice from the perspective of the\ngovernment differs from that of the peoples\u2019? So, in all honesty, are both even\nonline when it comes to justice? As nothing will come out of it if either one\nis offline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some\nthink justice means purely \u201cequality\u201d. \nJustice has never been to mean equality from the religious, cultural or\nphilosophical viewpoints since the primordial days. It is wrongly taken to mean\nequality to those who feel they have not been treated justly for some reasons\neither due to gender, race, sets of behaviour or such like. The \u201cunequal\ntreatment\u201d they have been receiving has undoubtedly led to the struggle for the\nemancipation of women, as known in terms of the \u201cfeminism\u201d groups today which clamour\nfor \u201cequal\u201d rights between men and women; while the LGBT groups demand for\ntheir rights of same-sex marriage and the like, as well as many other similar\ngroups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Classically,\njustice was regarded as one of the four cardinal virtues, and sometimes as the\nmost important of the four, i.e., courage, temperance, justice and wisdom.\nAristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics<\/em> identifies justice with \u2018complete virtue\u2019. For the\nWest, justice takes on different meanings\nin different practical contexts, whether in the public or private domains.\nHowever, the principle of justice in Islam is unique and all-encompassing, for\nit covers all spheres of life, irrespective of public or private matters. Its\nmaxim in relation to justice is to \u201cput thing in its proper place\u201d. Though the phrase is simple and neat, the\nexplanation is indeed deep. Tan Sri Professor Dr. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas,\none of the renowned scholars and philosophers of this century, has shed very\ninteresting insights on the concept of justice in several of his books, the\nlatest one being On Justice and the Nature of Man<\/em>. Justice in Islam is\nnot just a matter of how individuals are treated, or giving what is due to\nothers, i.e. one\u2019s rights as in the Western cultures as propounded by scholars such\nas John Rawls and David Hume, but it is more than that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As for \u201cputting thing in its place\u201d,\nthis does not just apply to physical items like the decluttering queen, Marie\nKondo\u2019s concept of KonMari where\neverything in a house should have its own space or place to make the home neat\nand tidy. \u201cThings\u201d in the idea of justice can be physical and also spiritual or\nmetaphysical, and likewise \u201cplace\u201d can be visible and also hierarchical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a small child, I remember a\nreligious teacher giving an example on what the concept of justice meant. If\none has two children, a boy and a girl, and in the midst of preparing for Hari\nRaya, one wants to do justice to both of them. What would one buy for the two\nchildren? Certainly, one wouldn\u2019t buy two songkoks, or two tudungs, because the\ngirl wouldn\u2019t wear a songkok, while the boy wouldn\u2019t wear a tudung. Hence, the songkok\nwould be for the boy while the tudung for the girl. Such is called doing\n\u201cjustice\u201d. Though they are not \u201cequal\u201d, one is putting thing in its proper\nplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people also think that justice\nmeans levelling everyone to the same rank since, supposedly, \u201call men are\nequal\u201d. Some even gave the Qur\u2019anic quotation from the al-Hujurat<\/em> chapter verse 13 to support their contention, \u201cthe most\nnoble amongst you in the sight of Allah is the one who has the most piety\u201d. I\nremember an anecdote when Prof. al-Attas gave a lecture abroad and during the Q&A\nsession, a gentleman who came forward to the microphone said that he would not\nwant to address the speaker as \u201cProfessor\u201d or \u201cDr.\u201d but rather \u201cbrother\u201d,\nbecause according to him, all men were brothers and equal in Islam. Prof. al-Attas\nlaughed and said that it was true all men were brothers and equal but not\neveryone was the same and of equal rank. There were people who were higher in\nrank than others and we must accord justice to everyone according to their hierarchical\norder. Only then could we be said to do justice. He then asked: \u201cDo you call\nyour father brother?\u201d This drew laughter from the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If we recall, we would not find any\nCompanion of the Prophet (may peace be upon him) calling the Prophet by his\nname, \u201cMuhammad\u201d. Instead, they would call him either \u201cO Prophet of Allah\u201d or\n\u201cO Messenger of Allah\u201d. This is doing justice to the Prophet and it is a\nculmination of adab<\/em>,as\nwell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice has to do with the innate nature\nof man or in Arabic \u201cfitrah<\/em>\u201d. Man will be unable to execute justice if\nhe does not know his true nature, his purpose of existence and his duties in\nthe world. He must also know the right order and place of himself, his nature,\nhis God, his surroundings and everything in this created world, and only then,\nby knowing the right places for the right things, would he be able to perform\njustice. Otherwise, it would be like a blind man groping in the dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clamouring for justice perhaps has become the norm of the day. From East to West, people demand justice from their respective governments which have admitted to giving their best to restore justice or to put it in place. But what is the real meaning of \u201cjustice\u201d? Are we, and the governments, talking about the same justice, in all its forms …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bernama","category-232","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}