By Dr. Tariq Abdul Haleem
January 18, 2019 – 12 Jumada al-Awwal 1440
Praise be to Allah, and prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, his family and companions.
Introduction
My wish has been, ever since I became acquainted with the Book of Allah the Almighty and its wisdom seeped into my mind, its fragrance into my heart, and its style into my conduct and pen, to write something on the subject I have chosen as the title of this research: "Ethics in the Noble Quran."
When the Quran was revealed to the Chosen Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the Arabs were characterized by morals that intertwined ancient, barren, dark ignorance with established but worn-out customs. Their character was formed from what they were naturally disposed to from two sources: their desert Bedouin nature on one hand, and what descended to them from the heritage of Abraham and Ishmael (peace be upon them) on the other. Thus, they possessed much of noble character, chivalry, hospitality, and refusal to accept humiliation, but they also had many moral defects, such as burying daughters alive, widespread adultery, wine, and usury.
This moral mixture, with its bumps and lumps, was among the reasons for the Lord of the Worlds' choice of that nation—lost at that time, magnificent afterward—for His final message, and His choice of the Chosen Messenger of Allah ﷺ for the final message within it.
It has been reported from the righteous predecessors that "the latter part of this nation will only be reformed by what reformed its earlier part." This is one of the most truthful statements made about the nation of Muhammad ﷺ. The nature of this nation, whose predecessors lived, and whose successors still live, in a dry desert atmosphere whose vast land forms its entirety, with some maritime outlets surrounding it, then two main rivers—the Nile and Euphrates—gave this nation certain characteristics in terms of psychological formation and social structure. These two matters—psychological formation and social structure—are the components of customs and morals, insofar as customs are the social character that all people in a specific environment agree upon to be acceptable character for everyone, whose violation attracts attention with disgust and rejection.
The Noble Quran has pointed to the effect of environment on physical and moral formation, and what people conventionally agree upon, whether elevated or base. Allah the Almighty said regarding the Children of Israel: "And when you said, 'O Moses, we can never endure one [kind of] food. So call upon your Lord to bring forth for us from the earth its green herbs and its cucumbers and its garlic and its lentils and its onions.' [Moses] said, 'Would you exchange what is better for what is less? Go into [any] settlement and indeed, you will have what you have asked.' And they were covered with humiliation and poverty and returned with anger from Allah..." (Al-Baqarah 61). The Children of Israel had become accustomed to eating inferior food, so they could not be patient with the superior food. Thus their morals were shaped by this inferiority, which became a cause for their behavior that brought humiliation and poverty upon them. Ibn Khaldun pointed to the effect of the environment on the physical and moral formation of human beings in his great book "The Introduction of Ibn Khaldun."
Individual character is the product of interaction between individual personality and the social customs and norms that form social character.
The Noble Quran embodies the best that an individual character can be, and the best that social custom should be, knowing that Allah the Almighty is aware of the relationship we mentioned, and He has combined them in the best harmony, removing contradictions and placing the principle of mutual pushing and pulling in its proper place. While we see secular civilizations pride themselves on making individual behavior absolute without restriction or limitation, they constrain society with constraints it cannot transgress, through the strictness of man-made laws.
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