Islam's Intellectual Morality

The way we think about religion and the way we the way we understand religion, the way we understand morality is of paramount importance to our lives, to our approach to our lives, our approach to society, our approach to interpersonal relations, and so on. It's crucial for our own mental and emotional well-being, and it's crucial for what sort of a civilization we're gonna have because this determines everything. Your understanding of morality, your values, and so on, this determines everything. What is at the core of the West's complete failure as a civilization, and in my opinion, at the core of what is their failure as a civilization is the basis upon which they assign value. Because they assign value according to a strictly materialistic criteria, therefore morality, ethics, principles, and religion itself are not matters of any practical importance to them.

They have not given as a civilization so called, any priority to evolving morally, to developing any sort of practical morality that can govern their lives. What they have are, as I said, vague idealistic sort of utopian platitudes. Whether you're talking about, you know, Christian love your enemies type of a a belief system or a free speech belief system. These are completely empty unrealistic values. They're obtuse and abstract and absolutist which means that they are not functional in real life because for them, morality, ethics, principles and religion are basically just decorative.

And so every individual decides for himself or for herself. He decides for himself or herself what is moral or upright behavior. There's no standard. Even if they're religious. Every individual can decide for himself or herself, which means again, do as thou wilt, which is famously the single solitary commandment of Satanism.

So when they say, for example, follow your heart, it means do as thou wilt. And when they say life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it means do as thou wilt. And when they say do what feels right, it means do as thou wilt. This runs through their entire so called civilization. But in Islam, of course, as I said, we understand what religion actually is.

We understand that religion is our creator explaining existence to us, explaining ourselves to us, and explaining what our role is, what our relationship is to him, and understanding how to navigate the dunya. That's what religion gives us, provides for us, the guidance. And so in Islam, morality is not utopian, it's not idealistic, and it's not absolutist. You know, Allah talks again and again about what is better and what is worse. Instructing the believers to strive to do what is better and to avoid doing what is worse.

So for example, when Allah says, repel evil with what is better than evil. Because even a lesser evil is better than a worse evil, and thus it has more goodness in it. A simplistic western mindset might say that this means repelling evil with evil, which is seems to be a paradox or a contradiction. But that's because they have no sense of nuance. They have no understanding about the the scale of good and evil, the degrees of good and evil, of better and worse.

But for us, we understand that a greater evil can be restrained or can be repelled by a lesser evil. And the goodness here is in making that choice, is in making that decision. That's where the goodness is. The outcome, of that decision is not pure absolute goodness. It's not the ideal outcome.

It's not a utopian outcome. It's not a perfect outcome. It's a better outcome. And that's the practical application of morality. Choosing the lesser of two evils in the West is portrayed as essentially damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Essentially, they see the pursuit of good as a losing proposition. It's they'd say it's like one step forward two steps back sort of scenario. That's the way they see it. You can never make any real headway because they have this utopian ideal that they think is supposed to be. That that's supposed to be the point of pursuing goodness, pursuing right.

Well, that's not the way we see it. Better is better. Simple. And you deal with what is right in front of you. What moral decision you have to make right now, and if you choose what is better than what is worse, then that's a win.

That's the way we see it. You have now applied your moral sense successfully. We deal with moral issues realistically, not idealistically, which fuels the whole creative intellectual process of itch de head through which we can address reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. And by approaching matters in this way, we can actually move towards that should be by means of the can be. Insisting on an an unachievable ideal results in neither the eradication nor even the minimization of wrongdoing.

You see how this idealistic absolutist view of morality of right and wrong and good and bad, instead of the practical view of better and worse. You can see how this view actually just actually allows evil to flourish. It actually obstructs any sort of incremental gradual measures from restricting and limiting and decreasing evil. Because it pretends that the only solution must be a total solution, and therefore if you can't have a total solution, then don't bother doing anything. You know, despite how many westerners like to depict Islam, as being very rigid and being very strict and so forth, with a kind of black and white attitude about right and wrong.

The reality is that Muslims approach these issues with a deeply human understanding, with compassion, with forgiveness, and with the knowledge that all any of us are trying to do in this life is to just be better, which doesn't necessarily result in us being the best that we can possibly be, but hopefully it also result it does result in us not being the worst that we could be. When we become practiced in taking a more precise and realistic approach to the application of our values, then we build that discipline, we build that skill set, and it's an analytical skill set, it's a problem solving skill set. And that's essentially how Muslims approach moral issues, as problems to be solved. I e how we can apply what Allah has taught us about reality. How can we apply the core principles of trying to make a situation better in this situation?

This is an extremely useful and beneficial approach to life in all areas of life. And taking this approach does require the development of several other qualities and habits. Good habits, good qualities, such as gathering relevant information before making a judgment. Striving to understand any and all contributing factors, limiting factors, you know, the the prevailing conditions and so on in any scenario. So that we can properly identify the realistic available options in any given scenario.

Being truly moral requires being truly analytical. It requires being truly realistic and truly practical. And this is supposed to apply to our opinions as well. This diligence and this conscientiousness, this sort of circumspection. And this runs through everything in Islam.

Taking the time and making the effort, the effort that is required if you want to be just, if you want to be fair. And this is something that the western approach doesn't do. They don't do that. And when I see Muslims expressing, online, for example, knee jerk opinions, uninformed judgments, condemnations, and so on, I see psychological colonization because you're acting like a Westerner. You're not you're not acting like someone who takes morality seriously even though you're pretending that you're motivated by morality.

That's so characteristically western. Because again, morality, right and wrong, good and bad, are feelings based for the West. The good thing is what makes them feel good about themselves. The right thing is whatever satisfies their emotions. That's the way they operate, but that's not our way.

For Muslims, morality, acting morally is essentially an intellectual undertaking, not an emotional undertaking. We have to suppress our nafs. We have to remove our feelings from the calculation. Because for example, we know from Allah in the Quran, we know that we may love something that's bad for us. And we may hate something that's good for us.

And we were taught to not let our dislike or our hatred or our enmity, we're not supposed to let that get in the way of us being just, honest, being truthful. So Allah informed us that subjectivity interferes with justice. It interferes with acting morally. We have to discipline our minds to be objective in order for us to determine any sort of a moral decision properly. In order to determine the moral course of action.

The course of action that actually constitutes repelling evil with what's better.