Islam's Functional Moral System

See, in Islam, we're realistic. This is a realistic religion. This is a practical religion. We have practical, realistic moral values. You're not gonna hear us talking about turn the other cheek.

Doesn't make any sense. You're not gonna hear us talking about love thy enemy or bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. No. Absolutely not. We don't believe that, and we're not gonna pretend that we do believe that.

It's unnatural. It's unintelligent. That's not moral. That's not actually moral. That's not functional morality.

See, that's why I said in Islam morality basically comes down to something very simple, is obedience and disobedience. Not subjective interpretations of good and bad. We deal with observable actions. We have clear boundaries. We deal with adherence to commands, realistic demands that are absolutely doable and that are not ambiguous.

And we judge exclusively on the basis of behavior. You either prayed five times a day or you did not. You either fasted in Ramadan or you did not. You either committed zina or you did not. These are concrete, verifiable, and action based.

Everybody knows what the wrong things are. And so we have a system. We have a a a a societal system, a cultural system, a family system, a legal system to ensure individual and collective compliance with proper behavior. And this is reinforced in our societies by innumerable safeguards. This is practical morality.

This is functional morality. And this is what is completely absent and missing in the West. You can't say one thing and do another in Islam because the only thing that we look at is your conscious deeds and your conscious behavior. You might feel all kinds of ways. We don't care about that.

You might feel anger. You might feel rage. You might feel lust. You might feel hatred or whatever the case may be. Your heart is your problem.

I'm sorry. This is your personal private struggle. Your heart is your problem. We just care about what you act upon. Obedience and disobedience.

We don't get distracted by abstract moral declarations. If your deeds don't back that up, if your actions don't back that up, we might like you or dislike you. It doesn't matter. Makes no difference. You might be our friend or you might be our enemy.

Good, bad, decent, indecent, what have you. You might have a pure heart or an impure heart. That's not our business. Like I said, this is not our business. Your actions are what we look at.

Your actions are your actions. Your obedience is obedience. Your disobedience is disobedience. No matter who the person is who's doing it. Like I say, your soul is entirely your business.

That's entirely your concern. And it's not our job to cleanse your soul if it needs cleansing except insofar as the enforcement of right actions in the society can be a way to change the orientation of your soul.