Fazlur Rahman

The idea behind verses about the sealing of hearts appears to be the psychological law that if a person once does a good or an evil deed, his chances of repeating that kind of action increase and of doing its opposite proportionately decrease. With constant repetition of an evil or of a good action, it becomes almost impossible for a person to do the opposite, or even to think of it, so much so that while men's hearts become "sealed" and their eyes "blinded" if they do evil, their doing good produces such a state of mind that the devil himself can have no sway over it. Nevertheless, actions which create a psychological habit, however strong their influence may be, must not be construed as absolute determinants, for there is no "point of no return" for human behavior: genuine repentance (tauba) can turn an apparently wholly evil man into a paragon of virtue; on the other hand, although this is much more rare, an apparent paragon of virtue (even a prophet!) can turn into a near devil enmeshed in carnal pleasures .

Nature exists for man to exploit for his own ends, while the end of man himself is nothing else but to serve God, to be grateful to Him, and to worship Him alone.

To hold that the Qur___ believes in an absolute determinism of human behavior, denying free choice on man's part, is not only to deny almost the entire content of theQu r___, but to undercut its very basis: the Qur___ by its own claim is an invitation to man to come to the right path (hudan lil-n_s).

The removal of God from human consciousness means the removal of meaning and purpose from human life.

This struggle between good and evil, fresh and stale, new and decrepit,between the vigor of moral youth and the dotage of senility, is of positive benefit, for it keeps the perennial moral values alive

This idea (Taqwa)can be effectively conveyed by the term "conscience," if the object of conscience transcends it. This is why it is proper to say that "conscience" is truly as central to Islam as love is to Christianity when one speaks of the human response to the ultimate reality__hich, therefore, is conceived in Islam as merciful justice rather than fatherhood. Taqw_, then, in the context of our argument, means to be squarely anchored within the moral tensions, the "limits of God," and not to "transgress" or violate the balance of those tensions or limits. Human conduct then becomes endowed with that quality which renders it "service to God [__b_da].

Taqw_ means to protect oneself against the harmful or evil consequences of one's conduct. If, then, by "fear of God" one means fear of the consequences of one's actions__hether in this world or the next (fear of punishment of the Last Day)__ne is absolutely right. In other words, it is the fear that comes from an acute sense of responsibility, here and in the hereafter, and not the fear of a wolf or of an uncanny tyrant, for the God of the Qur___ has unbounded mercy__lthough He also wields dire punishment, both in this world and in the hereafter.

The essence of all human rights is the equality of the entire human race, which the Qur___ assumed, affirmed, and confirmed. It obliterated all distinctions among men except goodness and virtue (taqw_)

For the Qur___, it is neither strange nor out of tune nor blameworthy for a prophetthat he is not always consistent as a human. It is nevertheless as a human that hebecomes an example for mankind, for his average level of conduct is still so high that it is a worthy model for mankind.

_ top up position down_ bottom__he corruption of religious leaders, who were expected to be the source of spiritual force and regeneration, is the last step in the decay of a community.

This unstable character of man, this going from one extreme to the other, arising as it does out of his narrow vision and petty mind, reveals certain basic moral tensions within which human conduct must function if it is to be stable and fruitful. These contradictory extremes are, therefore, not so much a "problem" to be resolved by theological thought as tensions to be "lived with" if man is to be truly "religious," i.e., a servant of God. Thus, utter powerlessness and "being the measure for all things," hopelessness and pride, determinism and "freedom," absolute knowledge and pure ignorance__n sum, an utterly "negative self-feeling" and a "feeling of omnipotence"__re extremes that constitute natural tensions for proper human conduct. It is the "God-given" framework for human action. Since its primary aim isto maximize moral energy, the Qur_____hich claims to be "guidance formankind"__egards it as absolutely essential that man not violate the balance of opposing tensions. The most interesting and the most important fact of moral life is that violating this balance in any direction produces a "Satanic condition" which in its moral effects is exactly the same: moral nihilism. Whether one is proud or hopeless, self-righteous or self-negating, in either case the result is deformity and eventual destruction of the moral human personality.

the Qur___ appears to be interested in three types knowledge for man. One is the knowledge of nature which has been made subservient to man, i.e., the physical sciences. The second crucial type is the knowledge of history (and geography): the Qur___ persistently asks man to "travel on the earth" and see for himself what happened to bygone civilizations and why they rose and fell. The third is the knowledge of man himself.

Empirical" knowledge itself is of little benefit unless it awakens the inner perception of man as to his own situation, his potentialities, his risks, and his destiny

Philologists assure us that żulm in Arabic originally meant "to put something out of its proper place," so that all wrong of any kind is injustice, i.e., an injustice against the agent himself) is, therefore, a very common term in the Qur___, with its clear idea that all injustice is basically reflexive.

Nor can one take an unfair attitude even towards enemies: "Let the enmity of a people[towards you] not determine you upon an unjust course; be fair, it is closer to taqw_. Quran

The Qur___ does not appear to endorse the kind of doctrine of a radical mind-body dualism found in Greek philosophy, Christianity, or Hinduism; indeed, there is hardly a passage in the Qur'_n that says that man is composed of two separate, let alone disparate, substances, the body and the soul.

It must be constantly remembered that the Qu r___ is not just descriptive but is primarily prescriptive. Both the content of its message and the power of the form in which it is conveyed are designed not so much to "inform" men in any ordinary sense of the word as to change their character. The psychological impact and the moral import of its statements, therefore, have a primaryrole. Phrases like "God has sealed their hearts, blinded their eyes, deafened them to truth_ in the Qur___ do have a descriptive meaning in terms of the psychological processes described earlier; but even more primarily in such contexts, they have a definite psychological intention: to change the ways of men in the right direction.

The simple truth is that nowhere in human history is there another manwho combined so uniquely and effectively in his person both the idealist and realist factors as did Muħammad (Peace be upon him)