Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 201
201 root they prevail in the end and the first foundations of vice are laid. Then begins the second stage of vice, Munkar , which affects a man’s acts and conduct. Other people are displeased by such conduct and disapprove of it, but so far it remains confined to acts which affect the individual alone, for instance, loose talk, falsehood, etc. At this stage a man develops only a few vices, is ashamed of them and is afraid to indulge in more seri- ous ones. If, however, he fails to keep a sharp lookout over his own conduct and takes no steps to check his career of vice, he arrives at the third stage, which is called Baghyi , that is, vices which injure other people and amount to an open violation of rules of moral conduct. The word Baghyi means revolt, and the third stage of vice, therefore, indicates that the evil-doer openly revolts against moral laws and throws off his allegiance to them. He now takes pleasure in vice, and boasts of it, and reproof and admonition are lost upon him. By indicating these different stages of virtue and vice, Islam has rendered it easy for all persons to ascertain their true position in the moral scale and to take steps and adopt measures for their moral improvement. At every stage a man has a definite object put before him, which does not appear to him to be impossible of at- tainment and which, therefore, does not discourage him. For instance, nothing would appear stranger or more hopeless to a man who is so steeped in vice that he does not possess the slightest conception of virtue or moral- ity, than to be told that he must so reform himself as to make virtue a part of his nature and to spend the rest of