The purpose of writing this book did not
extend beyond discussing what is halal and haram in actions
and outward behavior. As for the halal and haram in the
actions of the mind and the movements of the soul, it was not our
intention to deal with them in this volume even though such diseases of
the soul as envy and covetousness pride and arrogance, hypocrisy and
ostentation, greed and lust, are among the major sins. Islam declares
unrelenting war on them, and the Prophet (peace be on him) has warned of
their evil consequences characterizing some of them as "the diseases
of earlier nations" and calling them "the razor" which
shaves not hair but religion
Anyone who studies the Qur'an and the Sunnah
of the Prophet (peace be on him) knows that soundness of heart and
integrity of soul are considered as the basis of success, both for the
individual and for the society, in this world and in the Hereafter: Indeed,
Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is
in themselves....(13:11)
The Day on which (neither) wealth nor sons will
be of no avail except to the one who brings to Allah a sound heart. (26:88-89)
Hence, the Prophet (peace be on him) has said, The
halal is clear and the haram is clear. Between the two there
are doubtful matters concerning which people do not know whether they are halal
or haram. One who avoids them in order to safeguard his
religion and honor is safe, while if someone engages in a part of them he
may be doing something haram, like one who grazes his animals near
the hima (the grounds reserved for animals belonging to the king
which are out of bounds for others' animals); it is thus quite likely that
some of his animals will stray into it. Truly, every king has a hima, and
the hima of Allah is what He has prohibited. (Reported
by al-Bukhari, Muslim, and others; the narration is taken from al-Tirmidhi.)
He then explained the value of the heart, the source of the
emotions, inclinations, and intentions which are the basis of all human
behavior, saying, In the body there is a piece of
flesh such that if it is good the whole body is good, while if it is
corrupted the whole body is corrupted, and that is the heart.
For the heart is the chief organ of the body and rules it. If
the ruler is good, the subjects are good, but if the ruler becomes
corrupt, the subjects become corrupt.
In the scale of Allah it is the heart and
the intentions which have weight, not the face and the tongue:
Allah does not look at your
physical features, but He looks at your hearts.
Deeds are judged by their intentions, and everyone will be judged
according to what he intended.
Such is the place of the actions of the
heart and the affairs of the soul in Islam. However, because they relate
to the character of the individual rather than to what is lawful and what
is prohibited, we have not dealt with them in this volume. These inner
aspects of Islam have been discussed by other scholars and by Muslim Sufis
in great depth and detail. They have referred to the moral and spiritual
sins as "diseases of the heart," have diagnosed their causes,
and have prescribed remedies for them in the light of the Book of Allah
and the noble Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be on him). Imam al-Ghazzali
has devoted one-fourth of his encyclopedic work about Islam, Ihya 'ulum
al-deen, to this topic, terming them "fatal diseases," since
they lead a person to degradation in this world and to the Fire in the
Hereafter.
Another point to be noted is that we have
dealt here only with sins of "commission" and not those of
"omission," although sins are of two kinds: doing something
which is forbidden and not doing something which is obligatory. The second
type of sin was not the subject matter of this book, although we have
touched upon it here and there in the course of discussion. Had we aimed
at describing the sins of omission, we would have been discussing an
entirely different subject; we would then have been describing all the
obligations which Allah has laid upon the Muslim, for unquestionably not
doing them or neglecting them is haram. For example, seeking
knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim man and woman. If the Muslim
keeps himself in the darkness of ignorance, he will commit sins through
lack of knowledge and consequently will not carry out his religious
obligations such as salat, zakat, fasting, and hajj, which
are pillars of Islam. It is not permissible for the Muslim to abandon them
without a legitimate excuse since not to carry them out is a major sin,
while to downgrade their value and ignore them is to abandon Islam.
To give another example, it is an
obligation on the Muslim ummah to muster military power to the
utmost extent of its capacity in order to defend itself and to keep the
enemy of Allah and of Islam at bay. This is a general obligation on the
entire community of Islam and, in particular, on those who are at the helm
of affairs accordingly, the neglect of such an important obligation is a
major sin and a great shame. We could go on multiplying examples, since
the case of all the other obligations, whether individual or collective,
is similar.
We do not claim to have covered the whole
range of what is halal and what is haram. In these pages we
have only highlighted the most important matters which are permissible or
prohibited in the personal, family, and social life of the Muslim,
especially those matters which people neglect or consider insignificant
due to their ignorance of the reasons behind a prohibition or permission.
We have attempted to show the deep wisdom of the Islamic Shari'ah in
its legislations concerning the halal and haram, so that
anyone who possesses two eyes can observe that Allah Ta'ala is not
arbitrary in His commandments, neither permitting things in order to be
indulgent to people nor prohibiting them in order to make their lives
miserable. Rather, He has legislated for them what is in their own best
interest, safeguarding their lives, intellect, property, morals and honor,
and guiding them toward success in this world and in the Hereafter.
All man-made laws are inherently defective
and incomplete, since the law-makers, whether they be individuals,
governments, or legislatures, 1imit themselves to dealing with material
considerations, neglecting the demands of religion and morality. They are
forever confined within the narrow bounds of nationalism and the interests
of a sector of mankind, paying little attention to the world at large and
to the wider concerns of humanity; they legislate for the present, not
knowing what lies in their future, nor what the effects of their laws will
be. Over and above all this, legislators are human beings subject to their
own weaknesses, desires, and prejudices ("Indeed,
he (man) is unjust, ignorant.") (33:72) It is therefore
not strange that man-made laws are shortsighted, shallow, biased toward
the material interests of the society, and that they provide only
temporary remedies. It should not be surprising if human legislation
concerning what is legal or illegal is to a great extent influenced by
public opinion, by lobbyists, and by what is popular or unpopular;
accordingly, things are often made legal even if it is known that they are
extremely dangerous and evil in their consequences.
One example of this may be sufficient. The
government of the United States legalized drinking, repealing the earlier
legislation which had banned it. The repeal of prohibition was enacted
despite full knowledge of the evil and harm which the consumption of
alcohol causes to individuals, families, and society. In contrast to this,
the Shari'ah of Islam is free of all such defects. How can it be
otherwise when it was legislated by the All-Knowing Creator Who is aware
of His creation, what is suitable for it, and of what it is capable? ...Allah
knows the one who makes corruption from him who sets things right....(2:220)
Should He not know Who created (all things)? And
He is the Subtle, the Aware. (67:14)
This is the legislation of the All-Wise
God. He did not prohibit anything unnecessarily nor permit anything
randomly. His creation is mand His laws are harmonious.
It isthe legislation of the All-Merciful
Lord. He desires ease for human beings and does not desire hardship for
them. How can it be otherwise, when He is more compassionate to His
servants than the mothers who bore them?
It is the legislation of the All-Powerful
King. He is independent of His servants and is not partial to one race or
one generation, permitting to some what He prohibits to others. How could
this be, when He is the Lord of all being?
This is what the Muslim believes concerning
what Allah has made halal or haram and what He has
legislated in relation to other aspects. He therefore accepts it with a
convinced mind, a contented heart, and with a strong determination to
implement it. Indeed, he believes that his happiness in this world and his
success in the Hereafter depend entirely upon his observing the limits set
by Allah following His injunctions, and observing His prohibitions. In
order to secure his happiness and success in both worlds, therefore, he
must restrain himself from transgressing these limits.
In order to illustrate how observant the
first generation of Muslims was with regard to the limits set by Allah and
how hard they strove to implement His commands, we cite two examples from
their lives.
In our discussion concerning the
prohibition of alcohol, we mentioned how deeply the Arabs loved drinking
wine and how greatly they enjoyed drinking parties. Then Allah Ta'ala
gradually turned them away from drinking until He revealed the decisive
verse prohibiting it totally and forever, calling it "an
abomination of Satan's doing." (5:93 (90) ) Thereupon the
Prophet (peace be on him) forbade Muslims to drink alcohol, to sell it, or
to give it as a gift to non-Muslims.
When the Muslims heard about the
prohibition of khamr, they at once brought out their stocks of wine
and poured them into the streets of Madinah as a declaration that they had
abandoned drinking. Even more remarkable in expressing their total
submission to what Allah had legislated was the action of those who were
engaged in drinking wine when the verse, "Will
you not then desist?" (5:94 (91) ) reached them. Without
hesitating for a moment they threw whatever drinks were left in their
glasses upon the ground, exclaiming, "O Lord, we have desisted!"
When we compare this manifest success in
combating and eradicating alcohol from the Islamic society with the
disastrous failure of the government of the United States (A
more detailed discussion of this comparison is given in our book, Al-'aqidah
dururat li al-hayat (The Role of Belief in Life), under the heading of
"Belief and), which decided one day to combat this evil by
means of laws and force, we cannot escape the obvious conclusion that
human beings do not reform themselves except by means of the Shari'ah of
Allah, which relies on the faith and the consciences of the people before
endeavoring to apply authority and force.
This concerns the response of the first
generation of Muslim women to Allah's prohibiting women the display of
their adornment and enjoining modesty and the covering of their 'awrah.
During the period of jahiliyyah women used to go about with
their hair, neck and breasts uncovered, displaying the ornaments they wore
such as earrings and necklaces. Allah Ta'ala then prohibited Muslim women
this wanton display of the period of Ignorance, commanding them to be
different and distinguishable from the women of jahiliyyah by
observing modesty and by drawing their head-coverings over their hair,
neck and bosoms in order to conceal them.
The following are narrations from the
Mother of the Believers, 'Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her),
concerning the manner in which the Muhajir and Ansar women
received the divine injunction which required a major change in their
life-styles, affecting their appearance, dress, and ornamentation. She
said, "May Allah shower His mercy on the early Muhajir women.
When the verse, 'That they should draw their
head-coverings over their bosoms' (24:31) was revealed, they
tore up their garments to cover themselves."
(Reported by al-Bukhari.)
Once when some women were in the company of
'Aishah, they mentioned the women of the Quraish and their merits. 'Aishah
remarked, The Quraish women were indeed good,
but, by Allah, I have seen no one better than the women of the Ansar in
applying the Book of Allah and believing in the revelation. When the ayah
of Surah al-Noor, 'That they
should draw their head-coverings over their bosoms,'
was revealed, their men returned to their homes and recited it to their
women. No sooner did the man recite it to his wife, his daughter, his
sister, or any other female relative, then she tied any piece of cloth
available to her, perhaps from a curtain having pictures on it (on her
head), so that when they came to pray behind the Prophet (peace be on
him), it looked as if crows were sitting on their heads.
(Ibn
Kathir mentions this in his discussion of this ayah, on the
authority of Ibn Abi Hatim.)
This was the response of the believing
women to what Allah had legislated for them. They hastened to implement
what He had commanded and to abandon what He had prohibited without
hesitating, stopping to think about it, or waiting. They did not even
delay a day or two so that they could get a suitable, soft piece of cloth
and sew it to fit their heads and cover their bosoms, rather, any cloth
which was available, whether rough, brightly-colored, or having pictures
on it, was sufficiently soft and befitting. If no other cloth was found,
they simply tore up the garments they were wearing and tied the strips to
their heads, not caring about their appearance, which, as the Mother of
the believers has described it, resembled that of crows sitting on their
heads.
The point we wish to stress here is that
mere academic knowledge of the halal and haram, and of the
limits of these is not sufficient. Although the major sins and principal
obligations are known to every Muslim, nonetheless we find a great many of
them indulging in these sins and neglecting those obligations, and rushing
toward the Fire with their eyes wide open.
If the Muslim is well-versed in the
knowledge of his religion and its Shari'ah, and at the same time
possesses a fully alert conscience which safeguards the limits so that
they cannot be overstepped, he is indeed rich in all goodness. The Prophet
(peace be on him) spoke the truth when he said, "When
Allah intends good for a person, He makes his own soul a watcher over
him." (AI-Iraqi said, "Al-Dailami
reported it in Musnad al-firdaus on good authority.")
We end our book with the following
supplication which has come to us from the early Muslims: O Allah, make
us independent of Thy haram with Thy halal, of disobedience
to Thee with obedience to Thee, and of any other than Thee with Thy
bounty.
All praise is for Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala,
Who guided us to this; had He not given us guidance, we would not have
been guided.
