Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 229
229 of the good qualities of others. It might make a man proud and boastful. All these are harmful qualities against which we have been warned and from which we must seek to safeguard ourselves. One of the prayers taught in the Quran is to seek refuge with God against envy and the mischief of an envious person (113:6). Against faultfinding, the Prophet has said: “If a person falsely imputes to another a moral or spiritual fault, let him beware lest the same fault manifest itself in him which he has falsely imputed to another. ” The Quran forbids holding other people in scorn or despising them. “Let not one people despise another, haply that people may turn out to be better than themselves, and let not women despise other women, haply these may turn out to be better than themselves” (49:12). Pride and boastfulness and other consequences of the unregulated operation of the instinct of ambition are condemned. “God loves not him who is proud and boastful” (4:37). The urge toward the propagation of the race is another natural instinct. It is wrong to think that the exercise of this natural instinct is incompatible with the cultivation of the highest spiritual values. This is contrary to the entire concept of moral and spiritual values as inculcated by Islam. Natural instincts are a bounty of God as much as are mental and physical capacities. It is not their essential nature, but their proper or improper exercise, that is good or evil.