The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cxxxiv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION A mother's love and care for her child spring from emotions or from dispositions, shaped out of emotions. The philosopher's regard for his neighbour springs from reasoned altruism. Reasoned conduct is not constant or consistent, because reflection often tends to fail and all the relevant facts cannot always be attended to before action is ordered. Hesitation and deliberation, the essentials of all reasoned conduct, also tend to be prolonged. But conduct which springs from emotions or from tendencies shaped out of emotions is spontaneous, constant and consistent. A mother may seem over- sacrificing, but rational appeals will not dissuade her from the path laid down for her by nature. When the child is in trouble, she will not sit and deliberate, but will at once set about doing what she thinks is good for the child. All her thoughts will bend to this end. It seems, therefore, that themes of moral reclamation will not succeed unless human individuals can be taught to act from dispositions and sentiments rooted in their natural emotions and impulses. When the call comes for action, response should not be held back by undue deliberation. It should spring spontaneously from within each individual and should not have to be forced from without by appeals to reason. True, emotions are usually accorded a place second to reason. But this is because we only think of uncultured or misguided emotions. Conduct which becomes related to emotions only reduces or abolishes the period of hesitation and deliberation intervening between a call for action and the action itself. The elimination of this period is necessary if actions are to be quick and numerous. A person who deliberates too much or too often wastes time which should be spent in action. But the person who grasps a truth and then converts that truth into an emotion never hesitates to respond whenever there is a call for action. Such a person can never be beaten by one given to deliberating. His output is twenty times more than the output of the other. Spontaneity and apparent impulsiveness cannot reduce the value of his actions. For he does not really act from impulses: he deliberates and acquires insight into ends and means. This insight he welds into his emotions. He acts spontaneously and apparently unthinkingly, but his actions have a rational basis and are the result of deliberation. Only for him deliberation once concluded, does not have to be gone through again and again. To deliberate overmuch or to deliberate again and again cannot be rational. Any large-scale reclamation or reconstruction of the world, therefore, will have to wait not on intellectual clarity and intellectual conviction, but will have to be linked with the normal emotions and impulses of man. The greatest possible intellectual clarity will not rid us of doubts and uncertainties. There is one way to escape doubts, and that is to grasp a truth and then to assimilate it into our character. When this is done, truths no longer strike us as objects for apprehension or enjoyment, but serve as signals and guides for action and achievement. For the ordinary man, this cviii