(iv)
On Virtues
and Means
There
is a difference between the fadilah, the virtue itself, and the wasilah, the
means through which one attains this virtue. People may not be able to attain the
fadaa’il independently, so the prophets taught the wasaa’il too, though the
latter was not the main objective.
For
example, fairness and justice is the fadilah. How you achieve this is the
wasilah. The wasilah is not in itself virtuous. It could be that in a
particular situation, the most fair system is a democratic one, allowing the
members or relevant people to vote; if 52% (1) vote for a particular option,
then we take that option. But it is not that system in itself that is virtuous.
If the system can be manipulated and cheated, then it does not result in
fairness, irrespective of whether it is democratic. (2) What matters is whether
the government is fair in its dealing with the citizens, whether it is
democratically elected or a monarchy or some other system. (3) Islam is interested in the virtue itself,
not the means.
Fadilah can only come from the human
mind, heart and action. It cannot be externally imposed. (4) At every point, it
requires a human to think and make a judgement. If you make an effort to be
fair to your family and treat them with kindness, even if you make a mistake,
this is a virtue. However, if you leave that process to or a machine, or a
random selection process, then it is not a fadilah. Virtue comes from your intention and decision. If there is no human
judgement involved, it can never be a fadilah. Otherwise, even democracy is
just a game, playing with numbers.
Obtaining
the fadilah is not a game, or a superficial consideration. It may be said, “You
need to treat people equally,” but that is not completely correct. You need to
treat people fairly. Sometimes completely equal treatment helps achieve this,
but sometimes it doesn’t. For example, men and women can never truly be equal.
Women experience pregnancy and childbirth; in employment, they cannot be
treated the same. They must be treated fairly, with kindness and respect
according to their role. (5) Equality can help you attain fairness, but it is
not in itself actual fairness. Understand
the difference between the virtue and the means. One of the greatest confusions
in modern times is the lack of distinction between, or inversion of, the means
and the ends. (6) Food is supposed to be for energy, as a means; now food
has become the end in itself. In fact, we are at the stage beyond that when
food itself is harmful.
Similarly,
when you follow a madhhab, it is not a virtue in itself. Following someone’s
opinion is not a virtue. The virtue lies in how you carry out the act of
worship. The madhaahib are simply means, or roads to the masjid. The virtue lies in praying in the masjid,
not in which road you take to get there.
Toenotes
(1) Yes
ok, he said 51% but I couldn’t resist. And actually, Brexit fits really well in
this, considering all the poor gullible idiots who really believed they’d get
£350m for the NHS.
(2) Chomsky: "The public relations industry, which essentially runs the elections, is
applying certain principles to undermine democracy which are the same as the
principles that applies to undermine markets. The last thing that business
wants is markets in the sense of economic theory. Take a course in economics,
they tell you a market is based on informed consumers making rational choices.
Anyone who’s ever looked at a TV ad knows that’s not true. In fact, if we had a
market system an ad, say, for General Motors would be a brief statement of the
characteristics of the products for next year. That’s not what you see. You see
some movie actress or a football hero or somebody driving a car up a mountain
or something like that. And that’s true of all advertising. The goal is to
undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational
choices and the business world spends huge efforts on that. The same is true
when the same industry, the PR industry, turns to undermining democracy. It
wants to construct elections in which uninformed voters will make irrational
choices. It’s pretty reasonable and it’s so evident you can hardly miss it."
And if you could then, you certainly can’t after this political year!
(3) This
is quite profound. It sounds very simple, and perhaps its simplicity makes me
feel I’m not quite sure whether I fully agree with it. Though it certainly
makes sense, it seems too simple a solution, perhaps even slightly glib, to do
justice to a hugely complex area. Also, interestingly, I thought about how in
the current climate this sounds radical, blasphemous
even, to question democracy, and it is worrying that it should be like this. It
reminds me of how passively affected we are by our environments, how your
ability to think critically, and indeed what that means to you, is shaped
almost entirely by forces beyond your control. What we consider to be freedom
of speech, or in fact thought, occurs within a limited spectrum that is defined
for us. S, I think you will like this by Talal Asad (Muhammad Asad’s son): http://escholarship.org/uc/item/84q9c6ft#page-6
(it’s a bit heavy but some really interesting points. Also, I learnt for the first time the difference between blasphemy and heresy).
(4) But what of externally imposed
structures to safeguard the fadilah – is this the role of the wasilah,
functioning in an auxiliary manner? I wonder
though, if there is a danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. It
is difficult to deny that we focus disproportionately on the means, but the
means could also push one, so to speak, into the fadilah? Conversely, would
Goodhart’s law apply here, where the process of making a surrogate measure the
target in some way results in its losing the information which qualified it to
do so initially? Think clothing and piety etc.
(5) There is much that could be said here, and much
of that depends on how exactly one defines equality, which is not synonymous
with simply sameness. However, I don’t want to be the archetypal annoying
feminist taking offence at everything. I’m waiting to read his book on
feminism!
(6) This is such an interesting topic. I don’t want
to write extensively on this (though of course I can, because it’s a toenote,
and it’s mine), but this resonates
with me on so many levels in so many facets of my life, including those where I
myself am guilty of being obsessed by process. (I actually quite liked the idea
of having some kind of algorithm to dish out different intensities of kindness
to people depending on various factors such as strength of blood relationship,
kindness owed, how nice they are, how much I like speaking to them, how
acceptable their hugs are, how infrequently they say patronising things to me
etc. It would certainly make my life easier not to have to navigate such issues,
destined inevitably as I am to fail :() Anyway, the most glaring example for me
was the absolute mindlessness of NHS bureaucracy which is so preoccupied with
the means that nobody even remembers what the aim was, *dark thoughts of the
CQC*; we’re so busy trying to prove what we’re doing that all we end up doing
is trying to prove what we’re doing and not actually doing it. Sounds a bit
like studying kitab ul-salah in fiqh…
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