Islamic ethics (Arabic: أخلاق إسلامية) is the "philosophical reflection upon moral conduct" with a view to defining "good character" and attaining the "pleasure of God" (raza-e Ilahi).
[4] Many scholars consider it shaped as a successful amalgamation of the Qur'anic teachings, the teachings of Muhammad, the precedents of Islamic jurists (see Sharia and Fiqh), the pre-Islamic Arabian tradition, and non-Arabic elements (including Persian and Greek ideas) embedded in or integrated with a generally Islamic structure.
[3] Although Muhammad's preaching produced a "radical change in moral values based on the sanctions of the new religion ... and fear of God and of the Last Judgment"; the tribal practice of Arabs did not completely die out.
[7][8]: 470 Adab (Arabic: أدب) in the context of behavior, refers to prescribed Islamic etiquette: "refinement, good manners, morals, decorum, decency, humaneness" (according to the book Religion and Law).
"[citation needed] Iḥsān (also Ihsaan, Arabic: إحسان), is an Arabic term meaning "beautification", "perfection" or "excellence", but is also defined in Islam (by Malcolm Clark) as ethics/morality "literally virtue, including right living", and (according to Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood) is a matter of taking one's inner faith and showing it in both deed and action.
[23] Also in Mustadrak Hakim is the narration of Ubada ibn as-Samit: The Messenger of Allah said, "Who among you will give me his pledge to do three things?"
", where in reply Muhammad lists the "Five Pillars of Islam", the "Six Articles of Faith", and describes Ihsan (which Clark defines as ethics, or "virtue and including right living") thusly: Besides the Quran and hadith, there are a number of other sources, (not all universally followed in Islam): While Christian ethics (with its original sin), and to a lesser extent Judiaism, focus on the "universal presence of sin and related needs of salvation", and on holy nature of asceticism (at least in Catholicism).
[34] The establishment of Islam brought a great transformation in the society, moral order of life, world view, and the hierarchy of values in the Arabian Peninsula.
But although pre-Islamic Arabia exemplified "heedlessness", it was not entirely without merit, and certain aspects—such as the care for one's near kin, for widows, orphans, and others in need and for the establishment of justice—would be retained in Islam, re-ordered in importance and placed in the context of strict monotheism.
[34] According to Lenn Goodman, many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic and rational approaches in discourses regarding values.
[38] Maturidism, another orthodox theological school of Sunni Islam, however, overshadowed by Ash'arism in the last centuries, yet still prominent in Central Asia, adheres to the belief of objective morality, which can be deducted through reason.
These were usually accommodated within the Islamic legal framework, as seen in the early Caliphate, Al-Andalus, the Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman Millet system.
In a notable example, Zoroastrian practice of incestuous "self-marriage" where a man could marry his mother, sister or daughter, was to be tolerated according to Ibn Qayyim (1292–1350).
According to Juan Campo, the charge of apostasy has often been used by religious authorities to condemn and punish skeptics, dissidents, and minorities in their communities.
[48] An example being the toleration of medieval physician, philosopher and alchemist Abu Bakr al-Razi (865–925 CE), who argued that the Quran was "illogical and self-contradictory".
Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad quotes a letter by a cousin of Caliph al-Ma'mun, in which he gives permission to a Christian he was attempting to convert to speak his mind freely, as evidence that in Islam even religious controversies were not exempt from open discussion.
[49] In a letter written by the fourth Rashidun Caliph and first cousin of Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Talib to his governor of Egypt, Malik al-Ashtar.
The Caliph advises his governor on dealings with the poor masses thusly: Out of your hours of work, fix a time for the complainants and for those who want to approach you with their grievances.
Do not let your army and police be in the audience hall at such times so that those who have grievances against your regime may speak to you freely, unreservedly and without fear.
Inspired by the Qur'anic verse: "All living beings roaming the earth and winged birds soaring in the sky are communities like yourselves."
(6:38), the Shafi'i jurist 'Izz al-Din Ibn 'Abd al-Salam al-Sulami (d. 1262) formulated the first full-fledged charter of the rights of livestock and animals in his legal treatise Rules for Judgement in the Cases of Living Beings (Qawa'id al-ahkam fi masalih al-anam) which was based on the stories and sayings of Muhammad.
Tom Verde writes in Aramco World that in early Islam, after Muslims established themselves in Medina, Muhammad surveyed the natural resources in the region—the wadis (riverbeds); the rich, black volcanic soil; the high rangelands—and decreed that they be preserved and set aside as a hima ("protected place").
[6] Another source, (Technical University Darmstadt), describes "virtue theory" ethics as emphasizing moral education to "develop good habits of character based" on "rules like 'do not steal'," etc.
[61] They recognized the dual aspect of character – innate and acquired – and thus noted that with conscious practice it could be changed to a certain degree.
[62] Ethics or "Disposition" is a "faculty" (malakah),[65] "a property of the soul" (nafs), "which comes into existence through exercise and repetitive practice" is not easily destroyed.
A particular malakah may appear because of one of the following reasons: Although fitra produces certain dispositions, (it is thought) man can surpass nature through free will and effort.
[70] The science also dwells on how the level of human virtue is determined by discipline and effort;[71] the movement between the extremes of human behavior, "the lowest is below beasts and the highest surpasses even the angels;"[72] how 'knowledge is the thickest of veils', preventing man from seeing reality (haqiqah when ethics and purification (tazkiyah) have not been mastered; and how by improving their akhlaq, the Muslims improve their Ibadah (worship).
[citation needed] Tazkiyah al-nafs, "is the purification of the soul from inclination towards evils and sins, and the development of its fitrah (natural unsocialized state) towards goodness, which leads to its uprightness and its reaching ihsaan [perfection or at least excellence]", according to Anas Karzoon.
[79] They include kindness (to people and animals), charity,[81] forgiveness, honesty, patience, justice, respecting parents and elders, keeping promises, and controlling one's anger.