Good manners, as defined in the Qur’an and by the Prophet, are applied ethics. They are qualitatively different from other ethical systems because the Qur’an and the Prophet consider them acts of worship. When the social need for ethics extends beyond regulating individual behavior to organizing institutional and governmental sectors, they can become part of the legal system.
It is unfortunate that many Muslims understand worshiping God as merely performing the five daily prayers and other pillars, while the Qur’an urges every Muslim, male or female, to align their life with the will of God. Allah in the Qur’an explains that He created us with a unique gift of consciousness and enhanced our ability to reason. He then asked us to use reason when making choices. These choices, faced daily, are between obeying God and pleasing our own egos. This is the essence of moral ethics.
Why moral ethics? What other kinds of ethics are there? It isn’t about different ethics, but a different perspective on ethics. Some study ethics from a normative view, which looks at moral standards based on consequences, establishing right from wrong by the outcome. Other ethical theories include Metaethics, which studies the origin of ethical principles, and Applied Ethics, which addresses specific societal issues like abortion and the environment.
If we consciously and freely choose God, we will live in harmony with His commandments, which are essentially the same in all three Abrahamic religions. These commandments are the subject of this book, as they were understood, practiced, and recommended by our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), who led by example and was a servant leader par excellence. Choosing God freely leads to a lifestyle of compassion, mercy, and service to others.
If we don’t choose God, we choose our own egos, our Nafs, our selfishness. This choice opposes the first one, as it encourages us to promote our own interests at the expense of others. We may find ourselves using and abusing others, climbing over them to satisfy our selfish drive.
Yet this daily choice, upon which we either confirm our faith in God or betray it, is not clear to everyone. People go through life without realizing that these choices are acts of worship that will affect their eternal life in the hereafter.
A Muslim learns the purpose of life and how to live it from the Qur’an and the Sunna. The Qur’an is the Word of God revealed through the Angel Gabriel to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). It is considered the final revelation, applicable for all times based on our understanding of its text. The Qur’an continues to reveal new meanings to its readers.
The Sunnah is the way of life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Muslims strive to follow the Sunnah in everyday life, worshiping as he worshipped, eating as he ate, solving problems as he did, and caring for the family as he did.
This book explores how Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) responded to various situations related to moral issues, good manners, and ethics in general. His ahadith (sayings) help us understand how to respond to similar problems and issues we face. However, we need to understand that the decisions and decrees regarding these problems, known as Sunna or traditions, are applied Qur’anic teachings by the Prophet (pbuh) for issues raised in the 7th century in Mecca or Medina.
For centuries, some Muslims followed the Sunna literally, while others considered the methodology followed by the Prophet (pbuh) to reach his decisions and the intent behind what he said (makassed), applying that to contemporary situations. The debate on these issues is heating up as Muslims continue to rediscover their religion.
One of the first decisions taken by Prophet Muhammad after arriving in Yathrib was to change its name to Medina, marking the beginning of a new era for humanity. He penned a civil Constitution known as the Charter of Medina, aiming to govern a multi-religious pluralistic society, allowing religious freedom for all its inhabitants.
The Constitution or Charter of Medina predated the English Magna Carta by almost six centuries. It was implemented for ten years (622-632 A.D.) and applied to 10,000 citizens living in Medina at that time. Remarkably, approximately 45% of the total population in Medina consisted of non-Muslims; around 40% were Jews, and only 15% were Muslims when the Charter was signed. These numbers were recorded by Prophet Muhammad through a census he commissioned.
The Charter consists of 63 clauses, which set forth the formation of a sovereign nation-state with common citizenship for all communities (Jews, Christians, Muslims, and idol worshipers). The Charter protects fundamental human rights for all citizens, including equality, cooperation, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion. Clause 30 specifically states that Jews and non-Muslims are entitled to practice their own faith without any restrictions. In short, the Charter of Medina was the first document in history to establish religious freedom as a fundamental constitutional right.
The reason I mentioned the Charter of Medina in this introduction is because it was a novel and unique document at that time. It represented a new ethical dimension of how to deal with a variety of people from different origins and religious affiliations and to teach them to accept others as equals. This was truly new for Arabia and perhaps for humanity.
In the several hundred years following the death of the Prophet and the unique unparalleled experiment in creating a civil pluralistic state that the Prophet led in Medina, Muslims continued to make major contributions to ethics. An example is the remarkable work by Ibn Miskawayh (932-1030), who authored systematic treatments of ethics in books such as Tahzib al Akhlaq, Al Fauz al Asghar, and Kitab al Saa’dah.
According to Ibn Miskawayh, the task of ethics is not only to justify and analyse basic concepts but also to discuss the methods of attaining a virtuous life.
Al Ghazali (1058-1111) also emphasized Islamic ethics, focusing on the importance of fulfilling one’s duties as required by the Qur’an and Sunnah. According to him, performing duties has two divisions: duties directed to God and duties directed towards one’s fellow humans. Performing both duties require the implementation of ethics because ethics guide Muslims to stay on the right path. Without ethics, people would not bother with their duties.
In his important book Ihya Ulum Uddeen (The Revival of Religious Sciences), Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali defined ethics: “Character is a term for a firmly entrenched form in the soul from which actions emanate with ease and facility, without need for reflection or deliberation. Inasmuch as this form in the soul produces beautiful and praiseworthy actions by the measures of reason and the shari’a, it is called a good character; and inasmuch as it produces repugnant actions, it is called a bad character. We have specified that it be a firmly entrenched form, for he who spends of his wealth rarely, and for a specific need of his, cannot be called generous unless this quality is firmly established within him. And we have further stipulated that, actions proceed from…”
The Qur’an uses the term ‘righteousness’ to describe moral behavior within a society. Morals and ethics serve as instruments of behavioral regulation, with ethics focusing on societal perspectives and morals on personal capacity.
The Qur’an also teaches that societal advancement or degeneration depends on observing ethical standards, not just material progress. Thus, ethics are required for both the way the head of state conducts government business and the way the rest of the population behaves. The Qur’an emphasizes that he who attains salvation is one who purifies his soul of moral corruptions, while the loser, who is a menace to others, corrupts his soul.
When God wanted to describe Prophet Muhammad in the Qur’an, He did not say, “You are the greatest prophet I ever sent to humanity,” but rather, “And you are a man of great moral character” (Qur’an 68:4). To describe the believers’ community that follows the Qur’an, God said, “You are the best community brought forth for the good of mankind, promoting what is right (ma’rouf), forbidding what is wrong (munkar), and believing in God” (Qur’an 3:110).
The threat of a lack of ethical discipline is not only recognized by the Qur’an as a threat to Muslims but also as a threat to humanity. Alexis Carrel, the renowned French scholar, writes in this regard, “As soon as we renounced the precepts of the Gospel, we renounced all interior discipline. The new generation is not even aware that such a discipline ever existed. Temperance, honour, truthfulness, responsibility, purity, self-mastery, love of one’s neighbour, heroism are outworn expressions; meaningless words which provoke nothing but a contemptuous smile from the young.
“For modern man, the only rule of conduct is his own good pleasure. Everyone is enclosed in his own egoism like the crab in its shell and, again like the crab, seeks to devour his neighbour. This is the final result of having abandoned those rules which, in the past, Western man had the courage and wisdom to impose on his individual and social conduct.”
The main reason society needs an agreed-upon set of ethics is to ensure that the behaviour of its members, based on agreed-upon moral standards, is acceptable at a societal level and will not lead to conflict. By keeping the moral fabric of society intact, we increase its chance for peaceful survival.
Moral values hold great importance for personal, social, and spiritual development. Values, morals, and ethics are inextricably tied together. Values are what we learn from childhood; the ‘stuff’ we acquire from our parents and immediate surroundings. …Values are the motivational power behind purposeful action. Moral values are meant to make the quest to find the higher self easier. Unfortunately, many among us may find it difficult to follow values such as truthfulness, honesty, and forgiveness in our lives because we have not perceived the subtle gains that come from following these values. Or, perhaps, we are careless in realizing the importance of values in life. Ethics, on the other hand, are how we actually behave in the face of difficult situations that test our moral fiber. Ethics are the code or principles on which one’s character depends.
Society in general and the economic system in particular require trust built on ethical foundations and social norms as the basis for successful cooperation. Economic activities in modern society have become increasingly complex and lacking in transparency due to the rapid development of new technologies, products, services, and the globalization of supply.
Complexity and lack of transparency create information asymmetry, giving producers, managers, and employees an edge over consumers, capital owners, and public authorities. Even if information is available in principle, it may come at a high cost, and individuals, struggling with the high degree of complexity, may instead tend to opt for emotional judgment and herding behaviour.
Decisions made under incomplete information often lead to unforeseeable and economically and socially inefficient outcomes. Examples from various fields include the global financial crisis, environmental damage, and new health problems in the workplace.
An economist’s standard solution for such inefficiencies is to look for appropriate government regulations. But the more complex a phenomenon is, the more complex the regulatory system has to be to solve it. Usually, any rules, laws, and contracts leave scope for circumventing or undermining them, and excluding such imperfections may be burdensome.
Trust, therefore, offers a shortcut solution, especially if it grows out of common ethical foundations and social norms such as professionalism (where people take pride in the quality of their work) and reputation. Ethical foundations and social norms protect individuals and help firms boost their creative potential and market value.
Such ethical foundations and norms have long been important for professional groups in areas where producers have superior information to customers and government authorities—for example, physicians, dentists, and lawyers. A decent society requires that boards and managers of firms also follow established ethical foundations and norms, including when decisions are made about remuneration systems, which today often have very little link with actual contributions to the economic performance of the firm.
How would such an approach to ethical foundations and social norms affect the world’s ability to deal with global problems such as climate change and financial crises? How is it possible to restore trust in social norms? What is the role of ethical diversity when looking for common ethical foundations even at a global level? What is the role of politics?
Which activities should be subject to regulation and which should be left to business norms or market norms? What does this approach to ethics and social norms imply for business activities such as product development, marketing, and acceptable forms of competition among firms? What does it imply for the relationships of businesses with their employees, customers, and suppliers? How can business norms be enforced?
Human beings are social beings who prefer to live in a society. To regulate human behaviour, we give legislative support to some explicit ethical norms, which are called laws. But laws cannot be sufficient by themselves, and where the law ends, ethics begins. These values are necessary to bring about social integration and control deviant behaviour.
These are the issues Muslims living in a modern state will have to face daily. Either we build highly regulated bureaucratic states where regulations and procedures become a hindrance to conducting business and developing, or we build an ethical human being who is self-motivated to serve.
The purpose of this collection of prophetic traditions is to build better individuals and, consequently, a better society. All that is necessary to stop our downslide in the Muslim world is for good people to start following the prophetic example and to be examples for others to follow. Nowadays, our enemies have us entangled in so many struggles that a hard-working man feels fortunate if he can make a living for himself and his family. Our real purpose instead should be to create a life, a worthy, useful life, where Muslims are “witnesses to their message before people “, which means speaking in a decent way, preventing cheating and corruption, respecting the environment, and encouraging the humane and ethical treatment of animals. Integrity in politics and the rejection of usurious speculation in economics are principles that are pushing Muslim citizens and scholars to explore new avenues to bring public life and interpersonal ethics together.