بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
وصلى الله على نبينا محمد
وعلى اهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المظلومين
Allah Most High says:
وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا ﴿٧﴾ فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا ﴿٨﴾
And the soul and (He) Who fashioned it. Then He
inspired it (to distinguish) its wickedness and its righteousness
(Sura 91:7-8)
The plain meaning of this Qur’anic passage is that Allah Most High has
created the soul and inspired within it its conscience through which it is able
to make a basic distinction between good and evil. Hence this is the true and
orthodox Islamic philosophy regarding the human condition, i.e., that the human
is granted by his Maker an innate knowledge of good and evil.
But the wayward Ghulam Ahmad Parwez, who re-interpreted the Qur’an to be in
accordance with his modernist, materialist and naturalist thoughts, not only
denied the orthodox Islamic conception of the human condition derived from this
Ayah (91:8), he had the audacity to grossly distort its meaning. According to
Parwez:
نیکی اور بدی کی تمیز انسان کے اندر ہنیں
“The view
that the power to discrimate between right and wrong is inherent in man finds
no support in the Qur’an. The verse (91:8) which is very often quoted in this
connection has been misunderstood. It does not refer to any such discriminating
quality of ‘human nature’. For if man possessed the capability of judging good
from the bad, and thus distinguishing between the right and wrong without the
help of Divine guidance, the institution of nubuwwah would lose its
significance. Why then should God have raised Anbiya from among men and
entrusted to them the task of directing His people on the right path? Again, if
the power to distinguish between right and wrong were inherent in the nature of
man the whole of mankind, from its beginning to this day, would have been
following one and the same moral code; but, as already stated, there are no
universally accepted moral standards. Each group has its own ethical code, and
what is more, this code has also changed with the passage of time. The verse
cited above does not, therefore, mean that ‘human nature’ - or man’s conscience - is qualified to know of
its own right from wrong, or has within it the power to discriminate between Khair
and sharr. The words in the verse referred to above, (i.e. 91:8) on
the contrary are the statement of a fact, the fact of man’s potentialities for
becoming good or bad, as he decides for himself. Since the human personality
(or self) is given in an undeveloped form, there are, the verse says, equal
possibilities of his attaining the highest good, or wasting himself in wrong
doing. The correct translation of the verse is: ‘Human self has been endowed
with the capability of both integrating itself or corrupting it.’” (Islam
Kia Hey? p.42):
The objections and arguments put forward by G. A. Parwez are, quite
frankly, obnoxious. Firstly, he argues that the standard translation of the Ayah
(91:8), which is based on the plain meaning of the Arabic text, is incorrect. Yet
Parwez’s alternative translation is based entirely on his preconceived
materialist and naturalist notions. He has simply forced a meaning on to the
Verse which is plainly not present. He apparently wasn’t bothered with such
blatant intellectual dishonesty. Nor has Parwez articulated any linguistic
argument in support of why he thinks the standard translation and understanding
of the Ayah is incorrect and that his alternative translation is truly faithful
to the text. If anything, Parwez’s justification for revising the translation
of the Ayah is a textbook case of gross circular reasoning.
Parwez’s first rational argument against the orthodox
conception based on this Ayah is that if the human soul has been inspired by
Allah with a capacity to discriminate between good and evil then the entire
institution of Nubuwwa (prophethood) is redundant. It is acknowledged
that Allah raises up Prophets and Apostles for the purpose of guiding the
people to the right path, but this does not negate the idea that the human soul
has an innate sense of right and wrong. Prophets and Apostles are sent to
remind people that they must follow their instinctive goodness and shun all
forms of wickedness. Furthermore, Prophets and Apostles may bring a detailed
divine law based on a divinely revealed Scripture, which contains a detailed
ethical code, or to revive the neglected and distorted detailed moral laws of
their preceding law-bearing Apostle. The human soul is only inspired to have a
very basic ability to discriminate between right and wrong. For example, every
human soul must necessarily know that murder is wrong, while expending effort
to save a life is good. Orthodox Islam teaches that it is from the human fitra
or “innate disposition” to believe in and worship the One God. The Prophet
Muhammad صلوات الله وسلامه عليه said:
مَا مِنْ مَوْلُودٍ إِلاَّ يُولَدُ عَلَى الْفِطْرَةِ، فَأَبَوَاهُ
يُهَوِّدَانِهِ أَوْ يُنَصِّرَانِهِ أَوْ يُمَجِّسَانِهِ
“No child is born except upon the Fitra (innate disposition to worship
Allah alone). Then his parents make him into a Jew, or make him into a Christian
or make him into a Magian.”
(Bukhari
& Muslim)
Apart from guiding their people to the right path, the function of Prophets
and Apostles is to teach their people the proper way to worship their Lord and
Maker, knowledge which is not part of the inspiration Allah gives to each human
soul regarding basic morality.
Parwez’s second, though perhaps equally absurd, objection is that if the
human soul has been inspired as to what is right and wrong, why are there such
differing ethical codes and moral standards among the different human
civilizations, and why do those ethics and morals evolve and change over time?
Although not reflected in the English translation (Islam: A Challenge to
Religion) of Parwez’s book, Islam Kia Hey? written in Urdu, the
latter contains such a ridiculous example which is perhaps why it was not
included in the English translation:
انسانی بچّہ جس قسم کے ماحول میں پرورش اور تربیت پاتا ہے اسی قسم کے خیالات و
معتقدات لے کر پروان چڑھتا ہے۔ جینی بچّے کے نزدیک گوشت نہایت قابل نفرت شے ہے لیکن
مسلمان بچّہ گوشت مزے لے لے کر کھاتا ہے۔
“The human
child’s thoughts and beliefs depend on the environment in which he is brought
up and raised in. Jain children are extremely contemptuous of meat, but a Muslim
child delightfully devours meat.”
As has already preceded, the Prophet Muhammad صلوات الله وسلامه
عليه explained
that while every child is born with an innate disposition to discriminate
between right and wrong, that disposition is corrupted by his parents, and by
extention, the broader environment and society in which he is raised. However,
the absurd example of eating or refraining from meat has nothing to do with
basic human morality. It is more a matter of taste informed by one’s culture
and household custom. The inspired morality of the human soul informs him about
very basic matters of conduct, such as that murder, aggressive violence, theft,
rape and false testimony are wrong. These are in fact universally recognized
morals common to literally every human civilization and society.
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