Faith and Morality: The Islamic View A bdul Khaliq There is a point of view popular with some religious thinkers-among them Muslims-that religion and morality are two separate institutions and have very little to do with each other. This is because the former is centered in God, while the latter is entirely human in content and approach. ’ According to this view, an individual can be moral without subscribing to any recognizable religion. Furthermore, a deeply religious person occupies a sta- tion in life where usual relations with the world, including those with other people, are perceived as being so lowly and mundane that they become ir- relevant. This is, to say the least, not the essential Qur’anic standpoint. The w a n , as well as a number of sayings of the Prophet, does not envi- sage an estrangement between God and humanity. Human beings are said to have been created after the image of God: Who is nearer to each person than hisher own jugular vein ( w a n 50: 16). They a so close to each other that they may possibly enter into a mutual dialogue. There is thus an organically intimate relevance of the individual’s religious faith with the subsequent per- formance of the corresponding moral actions. In the Qur’an, the word rfmanC (they held on to faith [in God]) is almost invariably followed by ‘amiZC al sdibcit (they performed g o o d actions). However, it must be undelstood that faith is not an honorific term, a characteristic that may be inculcated into an person’s character in its own right. It rather refets to a barely psychological state, an attitude of mind A person may have faith in the all-good God or in some evil being(s) (Qur’an 4:31). In the first case, such an individual is necessarily good, in the other, he/she is bound to be morally bad. Abdul Khaliq is Iqbal Professor and chairman of the Depaament of Philosophy, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Inkma- tional Conference of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, held at Karachi, Pakistan, during 3-7 January 1992.. ‘This was the position of the Mu‘tazili, who generally held that ethical characteristics are determined by a person’s natural reason rather than by revelation. Thus, for them, revelation simply confirms these characteristics. More recently, this was the declared opinion of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, a nineteenth-century religious-political thinker of the Indian subcontinent. ’Muhammad M. Khiin, The Translation and Meanings of Sahih Al-Bukhai (Medina: Islamic University, n.d.), 160 (Kitgb a1 Isti’ziin, no. 246). 306 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 Despite the Qur'anic concept of a close relationship between faith and ac- tion, early Muslim theologians, prompted by certain extratheological and es- pecially political ~e8sofls, argued about whether there is or is not a necessary relationship between faith and action. There were two opposing points of view. At one extreme were the Murji'ah, who believed that faith consisted only of the knowledge of God and the Prophet and that it was accompanied by a public acknowledgment of what He had revealed through Muhammad. For them, it had nothing to do with actions. A petson in whose heart was a faith in God would not cease to be a mu'min even if he/she committed a grave sin. Some even believed that outward allegiance to Judaism or Chris- tianity did not detract from an individual's immcin. According to the group at the other end, the Khawiirij, actions were a necessary constituent of faith. In their opinion, if a Muslim committed a grave sin, he/she had lost faith and instantly became an apostate. Having been categorized as an a p t a t e , it became the duty of the pious Muslims to kill him/her. These two extremist attitudes led to tyo opposing ethical positions. The Murji'ah encouraged unlimited tolerance and what sometimes amounted to moral laxity and licentiousness, whereas the Khawiirij became synonymous with a rigid and bigoted stance in all social and moral mattem. The Mu'tazilah, tried to follow an intermediate course between these two ex- tremes. According to them, a Muslim who committed a grave sin neither lacked in nor lost his/her faith: he/she occupied an intermediate position between the two. In the present paper, I have used "faith" as the closest equivalent of the Qur'anic term imtfn. Most translators, however, have used "belief" which, I hold, is an incorrect rendering. This will become clear as the distinct connota- tions of these two terms are brought out in the following pages. The one basic difference between belief and faith, as these words are used in English, is that the former is propositional, while the latter is nonproposi- tional, in character. I always "believe that" such and such is the case. Even "belief in" statements can be reduced easily to "belief that" ones so that the object of this verb becomes a propition. For example, "he believes in angels" means "he believes that angels exist." Faith, on the other hand, is always "faith in" some being or reality, and that is not translatable into any "faith that" statement. Belief has only an academic significance, and every new belief only adds itself to that particular individual's intellectual bio- graphy, whereas faith implies the total commitment of one's cognition, af- fection, and conation to the object of his/her faith. As a result, there is another distinction: belief is subject to change and is replaceable when richer evidence in the relevant case becomes available. A change of faith is not so easy: it is p i b l e only when the petson possessing it goes through an entire metamorphosis and becomes, in effect, a new per- Abdul Khaliq Faith and Morality 307 son. If we seek to further compare belief and faith as modes of knowledge, we may profitably refer to the distinction made by Bertrand Russell between "knowledge by acquaintance" and "knowledge by descri~tion."~ Belief would correspond to knowledge by description, and faith to knowledge by acquain- tance. The latter, however, has an additional characteristic: it stands for that kind of knowledge in which the object of acquaintance is somehow personal, with the d t that it almost amounts to an I-Thou encounter between the individual with faith and that in whom/which this faith is reposed. In view of the above, it can be seen that the Qur'anic word imdn should be translated as "faith" rather than "belief." fmdn and its derivatives, as used in various contexts, behaves as a directly and immediately experiential act so that it comes out as a shahduh: the individual of faith in the capacity of a direct observer confidently bearing testimony to what has been observed. It involves one's whole being, for commitment to the truth is always total. Thus it is used nonpropositionally in almost all of its occurrences in the Q ~ r ' a n . ~ In the Qur'anic worldview, because one's faith in God or, to be more general, one's faith in the Unseen, is a commitment, it implies a whole meta- physics and an entire philosophy of life. The metaphysics thus conceived has a close relevance to the visible reality. In the visible universe around us, there aTe three levels of being which, in an ascending order of excellence, may be enumerated as the level of matter, the level of life, and the level of mind and consciousness. Each level has its own laws of nature peculiar to itself, which means that the higher is always " s u p e r n a t ~ l " and "metaphysical" vis-a-vis the lower. In a way, the higher also presides over the lower and serves as the ideal to which the latter can aspire. For example, life is metaphysical for matter, and mind is metaphysical for both life and matter. Based on the same pattern, the universe constituted by God's will and His plan of action is metaphysical for all strata of beings below; the latter in turn are destined to share the former and carry it out. Such is the intimacy of the relationship between the metaphysical beyond and the visible present. Inci- dentally, the whole conception of the universe implies that physical sciences on the one hand, and metaphysics on the other, have the reciptocal right of mutual intervention. Some critics object to this out of their fear that such an a m g e m e n t would jeopardize unnecessarily the autonomy and the "freedom of inquiry" of the positive sciences. But this fear is not justified. Sciences necessarily need a metaphysical outlook, as such an outlook pro- vides significant pointers to the direction in which scientific progress should 3E3e~rand Russell, P r o b k m of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1%8), 'For a more detailed discussion of this subject, see Abdul Khaliq, Problems of Muslim chapter 5. Theology (More: Izharsws, 1989), chapter 3. 308 The Amencan Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 advance. Without these pointers, there is a likelihood that scientists may be led into undesirable and sometimes blind alleys. A person’s moral behavior and understanding also need a healthy metaphysics. The Qur’an is very clear on this point, for it declares that the Book of God provides guidance only to thm who have a “knowledge of the ultimate state of affairs,” for which it uses the term fm6n (faith) (Qur’an 2:2-3). A metaphysics grounded in the Islamic faith is therefore different from Western metaphysics, which, in general, is a purely rational construction. Ac- cording to the Qur’an, we do not calculate and reason out metaphysics: we rather experience it, have an encounter with it, and live it. It is a matter of the individual’s psychological formation that prepares him/her for hi&er role in life. Kant, we are reminded here, had declared metaphysics, the endeavor to gain knowledge of being beyond phenomenal reality, an impossibility. The door to metaphysical knowledge has thus remained largely closed for those philosophers who accept teason as the only mode of knowledge. The Qur’an, on the other hand, declares knowledge of the ultimate reality to be the outcome of a ”faithful” commitment and, therefore, a thoroughly possible enterprise. Metaphysics, being thus a matter of an individual’s personal experience, is not just a postulate of morality; it is part and parcel of moral behavior. An individual is known and tecognized by the kind of metaphysics he/she holds. A reference to the Socratic maxim of “knowledge is virtue” is apt here. For Socrates, knowledge (of virtue) is not simply a prerequisite of virtuous behavior, both, for all practical purposes, are mutually identical. Similarly, in Islam, subscribing to a metaphysical system and performing certain actions in accordance with that system are two aspects of the same phenomenon. The Supreme Reality of Islam-God-is not an abstract concept, but a Being possessing a will and a plan of action and qualified by the beautiful names (ul asmcf’ ul hasanah) that symbolize the ideals of perfection for the moral agent. The greater an individual’s closeness to these ideals, the better he/she is from the moral as well as spiritual point of view. Equally truly, if a person has faith in evil forces and has constructed the cortesponding metaphysics, his/her be-havior will become erratic and undesirable. In conclusion, the cause of an individual’s or a people’s moral degenera- tion is to be sought in the loss of truly religious faith. A rejuvenation and ce- mentation of a truly religious faith will automatically reinstate morality. But how can this actually be accomplished? A search for an answer to this ques- tion is an independent subject requiring separate treatment. Abdul Khaliq: Faith and Morality 309 References Abdul Khaliq. Problems of Muslim Theology. Lahore: Izharsons, 1989. -----. Qur'an Studies: A Philosophical Exposition. Lahore: Victory Book Bank, 1990. Griffiths, A. P., ed. Knowledge and Belief London: Oxford University Pies,, 1967. Hook, Sidney, ed. Religious Experience and Truth. London: Oliver and B)Q 1962. Khan, Sir Sayyid Ahmad. Maqalat-e-Sir Sayyid. Lahore: Majlis-e-taraqqi-e­ adab, n.d. (in Urdu). Russell, Bertrand. Problems of Philosophy. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Smith, W. C. Faith and Belief Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979.