Way of The Seekers — Page 28
28 THE after high morals? Correspondingly, why turn away from low morals? Western thinkers having had more to do with the ultimate nature of things, have given this question special importance. What is the moral purpose? Moral purpose is Moral Achievement of the highest order. This would have been impossible but for the roots of man’s nature being imbued with moral potentialities. Only a Being like God could have pro- vided for this. The moral potentialities of man are at work at all ages and in all circumstances. With the given potentialities man became ready to respond wherever and whenever moral stimuli were present. Some of the Western scholars believe that high morals are intrinsically good, good in themselves. They believe that we should strive for high morals for their own sake. No ulterior purpose is needed. To them high morals are their own justification. Muslim moralists have returned a different answer. There should be one preponderant motive to all moral actions, high and low. This would be thawab or divinely determined merit. Imam Ghazali is quite explicit on the point. He goes so far as to say that if a man keeps away from adultery not for thawab but for the sake of his health, he is not truly pious. Against the doctrine of thawab, West oriented writers raise two objections. According to them, when a physician treats a patient not for health’s sake but for the sake of thawab, he is not fully moral. He is instead a kind of tradesman. He is as good a believer in give and take as is the latter. Then why should the one be considered superior and the other inferior? Their second objection is: if a man keep away from adultery for the sake of his health, or good reputation, he has as much title to being chaste as anyone else. After all, has not Shariah prohibited adultery? You say because no concern is shown for spiritual merit as such, therefore, such abstention is expedient, not moral.