Bismillah. Wasalatu wasalaam, ala Rasulill kareem, wa Allah Alihi, wa
sahbihi, minastanabi Sunnahti eela yamideen. (May the peace and blessing of Allah be
upon the Prophet, his household and his companions, and whoever follows his
Sunnah until the day of judgement)

In parts I and II, we have examined the concept of faith in Islam, the pupose
for which man was created and his relationship to God.
To pick up from where we left off the last time, we will again continue with
Mawdudi's book, compiled from a talk he gave on Radio Pakistan in January of
1948, entitled, Islamic Way of Life.
In this segment, we will take a look at a subject of which there is much
speculation and little in depth knowledge by those who are often the critics of
it. Mainly, some aspects of The Shariah are isolated, picked out and criticized,
but it is important to take the Shariah as a whole concept formulated by
Allah (SWT) as a code of conduct for Mankind whom He created and as such, He has a
much better understanding of our nature and the code of conduct that will
enable us to live in harmony and with justice for all.

The Shariah is the law as laid down for Mankind by Allah (SWT) in the holy
Qur'an, and as relayed to his final Prophet, Muhammed Bin Abdullah, the
unlettered Prophet.

"And he does not speak from his own desires; it is a revelation which has
been revealed to him."
(Soorah An-Najm. 53:3)

Islamic Way of Life by Syed Abul Ala Mawdudi cont..........

On the Shariah, he states:

Its sources are the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon
him). The Final Book of God and the Final Messenger stands today as the
repositories of this truth, and they invite the whole of humanity to accept the
truth. God Almighty has endowed men with free will in the moral domain, and it is
to this free will that this acceptance bears reference. Consequently, it is
always a voluntary act and not of compulsion. Whosever agrees that the concept of
Reality stated by the Holy Prophet and the Holy Book is true, it is for him
to step forward and surrender his will to the Will of God.

It is this submission which is called "Islam", the fructification of
faith(Iman) in actual life, and those who do so, i.e., those who of their own free
will, accept God as their Sovereign, and surrender to His Divine Will and
undertake to regulate their lives, are called "Muslims." All those persons who thus
surrender themselves to the Will of God are welded into a community and this is
how the "Muslim society" comes into being. Thus, this is a principled
society, a society radically different from those which are founded on the basis of
race, color or territory. This society is the result of a deliberate choice and
effort; it is the outcome of a "contract" which takes place between human
beings and the Creator.

Those who enter into this contract, undertake to recognize God as their
Sovereign, His Guidance as Supreme, and His injunctions as absolute Law. They also
undertake to accept, without question or doubt His classifications of Good and
Evil, Right and Wrong, Permissible and Prohibited. In short, the Islamic
society agrees to limit its volition to the extent prescribed by the All-Knowing
God. In other words, it is God and not man whose will is the primary Source of
Law in a Muslim society. When such a society comes into existence, the Book
and the Messenger prescribed for it a code of life called the Shariah, and this
Society is bound to conform to it by virtue of the contract it has entered
into. It is, therefore, inconceivable that any Muslim society worth the name can
deliberately adopt a system of life other than the Shariah. If it does so, its
contract is ipso facto broken and the whole society becomes "un-Islamic".

But we must clearly distinguish between the everyday sins or violations of
the individuals and a deliberate revolt against the Shariah. The former may not
imply breaking up of the contract, while the latter would mean nothing short
of that. The point that should be clearly understood here is that if an Islamic
society consciously resolves not to accept the Shariah, and decides to enact
its own constitution and laws or borrows them from any other source in utter
disregard of the Shariah, such a society breaks its contract with God and
forfeits its right to be called "Islamic"

1.The Objectives and Characteristics of the Plan.

 Let us now proceed to understand the plan of life envisaged by the Shariah.
To understand that, it is essential that we start with a clear conception of
the objectives and the fundamentals of Shariah.
The main objective of the Shariah is to construct human life on the basis of
Ma'rufat (virtues) and to cleanse it of the Munkarat (vices ). The term
Ma'rufat proclaims as good and right everything declared by Allah and by His
messenger to be so.
Taking this definition as the norm, the term Ma'rufat should denote all the
virtues and good qualities that have always been accepted as "good" by the pure
and unadulterated human conscience.
Conversely, the word Munkarat refer s to everything that Allah and His
Apostle have denounced as evil. In the light of this understanding, it denotes all
the sins and evils that have always been condemned by pure human nature as
"evil". In short, the Ma 'rufat are in harmony with human nature and its
requirements in general, whilst the Munkarat are just the opposite. The Shariah gives a
clear view of these Ma'rufat and Munkarat and states them as the norms to
which the individual and social behavior should conform.
The Shariah does not, however, limit its function to providing us with an
inventory of virtues and vices only; it lays down the entire plan of life in such
a manner that virtues may flourish and vices may not pollute and destroy
human life. To achieve this end, the Shariah has embraced in its plan all the
factors that encourage the growth of good and has recommended steps for the
removal of impediments that might prevent its growth and development. The process
gives rise to subsidiary series of Ma'rufat consisting of the causes and means
initiating and nurturing the good, and yet another set of Ma'rufat consisting
of prohibitory commands in relation to those things which act as preventives or
impediments to good.

Similarly, there is a subsidiary list of Munkarat which might initiate or
allow growth of evil. The Shariah shapes the Islamic society in a way conducive
to the unfettered growth of good, virtue and truth in every sphere of human
activity, and gives full play to the forces of good in all directions. And at the
same time it removes all impediments in the path of virtue. Along with this,
it attempts to eradicate evils from its social plan by prohibiting vice, by
obviating the causes of its appearance and growth, by closing the inlets through
which it creeps into a society and by adopting deterrent measures to check
its occurrence.

2.Ma'rufat (Ma'roof)

The Shariah classifies Ma'rufat into three categories:

The Mandatory (Fardh and Wajib)
The Recommendatory (Matlub)
The Permissible (Mubah).

The observance of the mandatory(Ma'rufat) is obligatory on a Muslim society
and the Shariah has given clear and binding directions about them.

The recommendatory Ma'rufat are those which the Shariah wants a Muslim
society to observe and practice. Some of them have been very clearly demanded of us
while others have been recommended by implication and inference from the
sayings of the Holy Prophet(peace be upon him). Besides this, special arrangements
have been made for the growth and encouragement of some of them in the plan of
life enunciated by the Shariah. Others still have simply been recommended by
the Shariah leaving it to the society or to its more virtuous elements to look
to their promotion.

This leaves is with the permissible Ma'rufat.
Strictly speaking, according to the Shariah everything which has not been
expressly prohibited by it is a Permissible Ma'ruf  (i.e., Mubah).
It is not at all necessary that an express permission should exist about it
or that it should have been expressly left to our choice. Consequently, the
sphere of permissible Ma'rufat is very wide so much so that except for the things
specifically prohibited by the Shariah, everything is permissible for a
Muslim.
And this is exactly the sphere where we have been given freedom and where we
can legislate according to our own discretion to suit the requirements of our
age and conditions, of course in keeping with the general spirit of the
Shariah.

3. Munkarat (Munkar)

The Munkarat (or the things prohibited in Islam) have been grouped into two
categories:
Haram, i.e., those things which have been prohibited absolutely and
Makruh, i.e., those things which have been disliked and discouraged.

It has been enjoined on Muslims by clear mandatory injunctions to refrain
totally from everything that has been declared Haram. As for the Makruhat the
Shariah signifies its dislike in some way or another , i.e., either expressly or
by implication, giving an indication also as to the degree of such dislike.
For example, there are some Makruhat bordering on Haram, while others bear
affinity with the acts which are permissible. Of course, their number is very
large ranging between the two extremes of prohibitory and permissible actions.
More-over, in some cases, explicit measures have been prescribed by the Shariah
for the prevention of Makruhat, while in others such arrangements have been
left to the discretion of the society or of the individual.

4.Some other Characteristics

The Shariah, thus, prescribes directives for the regulation of our individual
as well as collective life. These directives touch such varied subjects as
religious rituals, personal character, morals, habits, family relationships,
social and economic affairs, administration, rights and duties of citizens,
judicial system, laws of war and peace and international relations. In short, it
embraces all the various departments of human life. These directives reveal what
is good and bad; what is beneficial and useful and what is injurious and
harmful; what are the virtues which we have to cultivate and encourage and what
are the evils which we have to suppress and guard against; what is the sphere of
our voluntary, untrammeled, personal and social action and what are its
limits; and finally, what ways and means we can adopt in establishing such a
dynamic order of society and what methods we should avoid.

The Shariah is a complete plan of life and an all embracing social order-
nothing superfluous, nothing lacking. Another remarkable feature of the Shariah
is that it is an organic whole. The entire plan of life propounded by Islam is
animated by the same spirit and hence, any arbitrary division of its plan is
bound to harm the spirit as well as the structure of the Islamic order. In this
respect, it might be compared to the human body which is an organic whole. A
leg pulled out of the body cannot be called one-eight or one-sixth man,
because after its separation from the living body, the leg can no longer perform its
human function. Nor can it be placed in the human function. Nor can it be
placed in the body of some other animals with any hope of making it human to the
extent of that limb.

Likewise, we cannot form a correct opinion about the utility, efficiency and
beauty of the hand, he eyes or the nose of a human being separately, without
judging its place and function within the living body. The same can be said in
regard to the scheme of life envisaged by the Shariah.
Islam signifies the entire scheme of life and not any isolated part or parts
thereof. Consequently, neither can it be appropriate to view the different
parts of the Shariah in isolation from one another and without regard to the
whole, nor will it be of any use to take any part and bracket it with any other
"ism". The Shariah can function smoothly and can demonstrate its efficacy only if
 the entire system of life is practiced in accordance with it and not
otherwise.

THE MORAL SYSTEM OF ISLAM

The Moral sense is inborn in man and through the ages it has served as the
common man's standard of moral behavior, approving certain qualities and
disapproving others. While this instinctive faculty may vary from person to person,
human conscience** has given a more or less uniform verdict in favor of certain
moral qualities as being good and declared certain others as bad.
On the side of moral virtues, justice, courage, bravery and truthfulness have
always elicited praise and history does not record any period worth the name
in which falsehood, injustice, dishonesty, and breach of trust may have been
upheld;
fellow-feeling, compassion, fidelity and magnanimity have always been valued
while selfishness, cruelty, miserliness and bigotry have never received the
approval of the human society; men have always appreciated perseverance,
determination and courage and have never approved of impatience fickle mindedness,
cowardice and imbecility. Dignity, restraint, politeness, and amiability have
throughout the ages been counted among virtues, whereas snobbery, misbehavior
and rudeness have never found recognition as good moral qualities. Persons
having a sense of responsibility and devotion to duty have always won the highest
regard of men; never have people who are incompetent, slothful and lacking in
sense of duty been looked upon with approval.
Similarly, in respect of the standard of good and bad in the collective
behavior of society as a whole, the verdict has always been almost unanimous. Only
that society has been looked upon as worthy of honor and respect which
possesses the virtues of organization, discipline, mutual affection and fellow
feeling and has established a social order based on justice, freedom and equality of
men . As opposed to this, disorganized, indiscipline, anarchy, disunity,
injustice and social imbalance have always been considered as manifestations of
decay and disintegration in a society. Robbery, murder, larceny, adultery, fraud
and graft have always been condemned. Slandering, scandal mongering and
blackmailing have never been considered as wholesome social activities. Contrary to
this, service and care of the aged, help of one's kith and kin, regard for
neighbors, loyalty to friends, assistance of the weak, the destitute and the
orphans, and nursing the sick are qualities which have always been highly valued
ever since the dawn of civilization.

Virtuous, polite, mild and sincere persons have always been welcomed.
Individuals who are upright, honest, sincere, outspoken and dependable, whose needs
conform to their words, who are content with their own rightful possession, who
are prompt in the discharge of their obligations to others, who live in peace
and let others live in peace and from whom nothing but good can be expected,
having always formed the core of any healthy human society.
This shows that human moral standard are in fact universal and have been well
known to mankind throughout the ages.*Good and evil are not myths to be
hunted out. They are well known realities and are equally well-understood by all.
The sense of good and evil is inherent in the very nature of man. Hence, in the
terminology of the Qur'an virtue is called "Ma'roof" (something to be
announced)  and evil is designated as "Munkar" (something to be denounced); that is
to say virtue is known to be desirable for every one and evil is not known to
commend itself in any way. This fact is mentioned by th e Qur'an when it says:
 "And (Allah gave to the Soul) its enlightenment as to its wrong and its
right;..." (Qur'an, 91:8)

To be continue....................

Jabou N.Joh,

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