Faith and Morality The Islamic View

Abstract

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 station
in life where usual relations with the world, including those with other
people, are perceived as being so lowly and mundane that they become irrelevant.
This is, to say the least, not the essential Qur’anic standpoint.
The Qur'an , as well as a number of sayings of the Prophet, does not envisage
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 (Qur'an 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 performance
of the corresponding moral actions. In the Qur’an, the word amanu
(they held on to faith [in God]) is almost invariably followed by ‘amilu al
salihat (they performed good 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 ...