The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 28
28 Essence of Islam-III to her son out of pure sympathy. This is the highest grade of doing good, which cannot be surpassed. God Almighty has made all these categories of doing good contingent upon the demands of time and occasion and has clearly laid down in the above verse, that if these good acts are not done on their proper occasion, they will become vices. 'Adl [fairness] will become Fahshā' [foul], or in other words, crossing limits will result in an undesirable situation. And Ihsan [right] would become Munkar [wrong] which reason and conscience reject. And Itā'i dhil Qurbā [spontaneous compassion] will turn into transgression, that is, this ill-placed sympathy would create an ugly situation. Actually, Baghī means such ex- cessive rain as destroys the harvest; hence exceeding the appropriate limits is also Baghĩ. In short, any of these three qualities, exercised out of place, would deteriorate in character; that is why these are made contingent upon the due observance of occa- sion and place. Here it should be remembered that jus- tice, benevolence or graciousness as between kindred are not by themselves moral qualities. These are man's natu- ral states and faculties, which are found even in children before their reason is developed. To become moral, the exercise of reason is the condition precedent. Another re- quirement is that every natural faculty should be exer- cised in its proper occasion and place. [Islāmī Uşül kī Philosophy, Rūķānī Khazā'in, vol. 10, pp. 353-354] True Courage Of all the natural states of man is one that resembles courage. For example, a suckling sometimes tries to put its hand into the fire because of this natural faculty. Be- fore being exposed to various frightening experiences, a