In the light of the teachings of the Qur’an discuss the moral and ethical norms that Muslims are expected to uphold in their social affairs

Prior to start the answer of my question, I would like to explain what we mean by morals and ethics. To define ethics would be relatively simple. According to dictionary â€Å"ethics† may be defined as a set of principles of right conduct or a system of moral values. But moral is something within our self i. e. something innate. According to Abul ‘Ala Al-Mawdudi â€Å"Man has been blessed with an innate sense of morality, which has served to guide him through the age, enabling him to distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil. Now, the problem is that the degree according to which a person thinks a certain act as good or bad varies from person to person. Therefore to ease us from this problem, God through Quran told us certain moral & ethical norms which we are supposed to follow. This can be explained through certain principles: First of all, we need to see that according to Quran, who is a good Muslim? The answer to this question is given beautifully in Quran when Allah tells us the description of a righteous and religiously committed Muslim. According to this verse, a good Muslim is who, ho obeys all the regulations mentioned in Quran and whose focus in life is love of Allah. And after that the focus is love of humanity. He is the person who believes on Day of Judgment and therefore is afraid of that. We can be a good person if we do good deeds e. g. giving charity to poor and needy people, looking after the orphans, offer prayers and give zakat. Finally his individual faith must remain firm and unshaken in all circumstances. 1. ATTITUDE TOWARDS PARENTS: After Allah & the Prophet the Quran tells us to give maximum respect to our parents. In Quran its written at 17 : 23-24 â€Å"Your Sustainer has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life-time, do not say to them a word of contempt nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor and, out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility and say: My Sustainer! Bestow on them your mercy, even as they cherished me in childhood. † From this we can see the amount of respect given to our parents. In Quran we have been told that we should not say a word of contempt to our parents and should always give them respect. This is because when we were small and were unable to look after our self, they were the one who looked after us. Therefore when its our turn to look after them we should not feel bad rather should try to keep them as happy as we can because one should never forget that if today we are young, tomorrow we will be old and if we won't look after our parents, our children won't look after us because our children will learn from us. Thus when we will be kind to our parents, our children would be kind to us. 2. GOODNESS TO NEIGHBOUR AND GUESTS. The importance of neighbors is emphasized a lot in Quran. Its importance can be well understood by the statement by the prophet that â€Å"He is not a believer who eats his fill while his neighbor beside him is hungry†. Islam is so caring about the rights of neighbors that even it doesn't requires that we should only be good to our neighbors provided that he is a Muslim. Our neighbors can belong to any religion A Muslim must treat his neighbor and guests kindly whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims. 3. ATTITUDE TOWARDS WIVES AND CHILDREN We should never ever forget that Islam was the first religion which gave women equal rights as men. Before Islam wives were miss treated and new born female babies were killed. But Islam condemned this. In Quran at (2:22) its written that †And they (the women) have rights similar to those (men have) over them in a just manner†. Islam also gives lot of importance to children especially if they are orphans. We can find numerous times in Quran the importance it gives to children. In Quran at (4:127) its written that â€Å"You should deal justly with orphans†. 4. ATTITUDE TOWARDS FELLOW MUSLIMS: Islam is a religion which tells us about brotherhood. It's a religion which emphasizes a lot on helping each other in difficult times. According to Islam, all Muslims are brothers and sisters. There is a special term used in Arabic as †UKHUWWAH ISLAAMIYAH† meaning Islamic brotherhood. In Quran Allah tells us (49:10) â€Å"The Believers are but a single Brotherhood: So make peace and reconciliation between your two (contending) brothers; and fear Allah, that ye may receive Mercy. † Islam tells us to live in peace and harmony. The Prophet (p. b. u. h) said:† A man does not accuse another of being a transgressor nor does he accuse him of being a †KAAFIR†. But it (the epithet) comes back to him, if his companion is not such. ‘ In Quran (25:63) â€Å"And the servants of the Beneficent Allah are they who walk on the earth in humbleness, and when the ignorant address them, they say: Peace. † 5. ISLAM†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ A POLITE & PEACEFUL RELIGION: Throughout Quran we find teachings of Peace, teachings about doing well to others and to talk politely with others. According to Abul ‘Ala Al-Mawdudi in his work on â€Å"The Moral System Of Islam† â€Å"People who are polite, sincere, upright, dependable, who are prompt in discharging their obligations to others, who live in peace and allow others to do likewise have always formed the core of any healthy society. And this is what Islam teaches us. Allah in Quran has told us that â€Å"And the servants of the beneficent are they who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, PEACE! And they who pass the night prostrating themselves before their lord and standing. † (25:63&64) 6. PATIENCE IN ISLAM: Over the course of time, Allah sent many Prophets to mankind to guide and instruct them in their daily as well as religious matters. All the Prophets guided us. But among all the Prophets, the Prophet who had most patience was Hazrat Muhammad (p. b. u. h). Since our Prophet was a symbol of patience, therefore we the Muslims are supposed to show patience in our daily lives as well. Allah through Quran tells us † O you believe, seek assistance through patience and prayer, surely Allah is with the patient† . In another place in Quran, Allah talking about His blessings and His mercy says â€Å"And none are made to receive it but those who are patient and none are made to receive it but those who have a mighty good fortune. † 7. FORGIVENESS IN ISLAM: Throughout Quran, we have been given instructions for forgiveness. If we forgive our fellow human being, Allah will forgive us. Allah in Quran tells us that â€Å"Praised are they who restrain their anger and pardon the faults of others; and god loves those who do good to others. † (3;133). If we start forgiving each other there will be many disputes which will end and most of us would be able to live a peaceful life. PART II (a): These days we are living in a strange world, where nations are in conflict with each other, a world where strong dominates the week. If we look around us, we will see that everywhere there is anarchy. It is very unfortunate of us that most of moral & ethical norms which are told to us by our religion are missing from our society. We have lost patience, we have forgotten the meanings of forgiveness, we are least concerned about the rights of fellow society members, we are unjust in our daily dealings, there is no one to look after the orphans and our minds have transformed into totally profit oriented and self centered minds. We are Muslims. The name of religion which we practice is â€Å"ISLAM† meaning â€Å"PEACE†, but unfortunately this is one thing which is in a serious lack in our society , rather if I say that this is one thing which is lacked in almost every society of the world, I don't think that I would be wrong in saying that. The times through which we are passing are disturbed and distressing and in order to live in a perfect society, we need peace. â€Å"PEACE† is basically a very broad term and if I start writing on that then this would require many pages. But while I will talk about Peace, I will concentrate more on a sub category i. e. Relations with other people living in our society. Let's start from our homes and discuss peace. In past years, families especially in our part of world used to live together in peace and harmony. But with time our traditions and culture has changed. Now people don't prefer living in joint families. And if in some circumstances the Parents of married people live with them, mostly they are not respected. Parents are considered as a burden. Although in western societies, the concept of old homes is not a new one but in our society even now, this is not considered good. But there are many parents in our society, who would prefer living in Old homes than with their children because they are not at-all respected in there homes. They are treated like an extra family member and sometimes are even treated worse than the servants. This practice is totally against the very basic teachings of Islam. Then in order to get a closer look at PEACE in our society we put a glance at peace inside our society i. e. relations with other society members. Many people living in metropolitan cities even don't know the names of their neighbors while our religion tells us that those people are not true believers who eat by them self while their neighbors sleep hungry. But on the other hand, due to various economic pressures every person wants to get better and better than other. And in this pursuit they many time do certain acts which are not at all good for the society as a whole. And it is due to these practices that the gap between the rich and poor is widening at a drastic rate. The rich people are becoming richer while the poor people are getting poorer. The jealously among the poor for rich is increasing. If we look around us, we will see many children who don't even get bread two times a day while on the other hand we have people whose dogs eat better than many poor people. There are people who are sending their children abroad to get higher education by paying hudge amounts while we have children who when learn to walk are sent to workshops to earn money to support their families. And due to this we find the daily newspapers filled with news of terror, people getting robbed, women are unsafe alone at their home, people prefer not to go outside during nights, and the economic depressions are increasing day by day. Even at times we get to hear news like brother killing his brother just for the sake of money or land. To implement peace properly, we need justice. But if we look around us, we will find that hardly in our society. Justice for any ordinary person is simply out of reach. While on the other hand our religions talks about justice available at the door step of every citizen. These days' people buy justice. Our society has been divided unfortunately in different casts. Many people are so cast oriented that according to them Justice and other rights are only for their own people (casts). This all injustice has caused a serious lack of peace and harmony amongst us. Quran always talks about merit but we see that there are many well educated people who are unemployed because of the fact that they don't have references to get the jobs. They have got degrees, they deserve but the less deserving candidate gets the job because he has got reference of a strong and well known person. So peace is something missing from our society and when I talk about peace I mean peace in general while concentrating more on relations with other fellows of our society. P. S: While I am writing this I don't mean that every person living in our society has forgotten the true meanings of Islam but while I talk, I talk about the majority and unfortunately the majority has forgotten the true meanings of Islam. PART II (b): Identify and discuss three solutions (in order of priority) that we, as a society, can work on to overcome this problem. For each of these three solutions, clearly sketch out a plan that could be used to eradicate the problem. In order to overcome the problem of peace we can act on the following three steps. They are: Minimun wage level and opportunities of jobs for every person. * An efficient system of taxation and its re-allocation: If we look around, we will find out that most of the lack in peace is caused due to the hudge gap between the poor and the rich. What we need is such a system other than the â€Å"zakat† that should make sure that the gap between the rich and the poor is reduced. What our society needs is basically an efficient system of taxation and very well system of its re-allocation. The system should be such that the Government gets enough amount to spend on the over all growth of society as well as maintaining a decent living standard for every person of our society. There are many people in our society who can't afford to eat even two times in a day. With an efficient system of taxation the Government should make sure that every liable person who is supposed to pay tax, pays tax and can't do tax stealing. This can be a progressive tax system in which the rich people pay more while the poor pay less. In this way the hudge gap between the poor and the rich will be reduced and this reduction will cause a reduction in jealously amongst poor for rich. Then with an efficient system of tax re-allocation the Government should make sure that those people who can't find jobs are given enough amounts on monthly basis for the time they are unemployed that they can at least feed themselves and their children. Then with the proper re-allocation of tax amount the Government can open Orphan homes in which it should be the responsibility of the government to look after orphans as they are also a part of our society. Normally what the Governments of our society do is that they spend the tax revenue on their own perquisites e. g. increasing the pays of member of parliaments, buying new cars, making foreign trips and sponsoring the Government officials and their families to get the medical treatment from abroad. On such type of expenses the Government pays a hudge amount. Our society is not a society which can afford this all stuff. What our Governments need is to spend on the reconstruction and growth of our society and economy. Only by doing so we can create a peaceful society. This is because of the fact that when people will see that the Government is doing for their betterment they will feel good for the society as a whole and would try to contribute to the society positively. By doing so, people will feel better about each other. When the economic depression on people will reduce their daily lives will be better and society as a whole will improve. Most people in our society have adopted an attitude of indifference to the practical problems of life so what we need is that we should realize those people that they are a part of the society and the society is a home for us and we cant adopt the attitude of indifference towards our home. So when we can't do that for our home then why to adopt that for our society. Therefore we should try to solve the problems that our society faces everyday and should not give impression to Government that whatever it does, we are indifferent. Rather we should give the impression that whatever the Government does has a direct impact on us. * Proper enforcement of Justice Justice is no doubt a very important foundation of every successful society. Societies have become successful on the basis of a good system of justice and the availability of justice to every citizen without the fact that the person who seeks justice is poor or rich. Islam gives a lot of importance to Justice. Justice is not just restricted to courts. Rather along with courts justice should also be utilized while giving jobs and in Police Stations. Unfortunately a parasite which is destroying our society is a new trend that job is only given to people with strong references. Due to this practice the deserving people for jobs are not given the jobs while the people who don't deserve the job are given the jobs. Due to this people who don't have any references get a feeling that since the society has done injustice with them therefore they need to take revenge from the society and in that pursuit they often walk on the path of crime which is a serious threat to peace. This fact can be seen from the various newspaper news that when the robbers and thieves have been caught they were very well educated people rather some were even gold-medalist in their respective fields. So if only we can control the justice at the time of giving jobs, we can see a major change in the over all peace of the society. And this can be done by properly enforcing the merit procedure. Then comes â€Å"justice in Police Stations†. Unfortunately Police Stations in our society are considered as nightmares for respectable and ordinary people. In many circumstances Police officials have been caught working with thieves and robbers. In our society, Police is used as a weapon of people with money against the poor people. Usually Police even don't write the complaints of poor people against people who have got strong positions in our society. In order to correct this, the government needs to start a very strong accountability process in Police department, so that whenever a Police official even thinks of doing some wrong work, he should reject that idea due to the fear of accountability. Then we need to give Police jobs to well educated people not people with strong references who don't even deserve the job. Then while giving the job as police officer, we should see the past record of the person that whether the person has any criminal record or not. Then we need to increase the number of Police officials so that police can work more efficiently towards maintaining the peace and law & order in the society. Then another problem which we face while giving justice to people is that we have a very limited amount of courts and judges. The trials even go for generations. Hence if we increase the number of judges and courts, the process of trial will also increase its speed and the criminals moving freely in our society (on bails of months & months) can be caught. * POVERTY CONTROL AND MINIMUM WAGE: A famous Greek philosopher once said that â€Å"poverty is the root of all evils†. It is poverty which makes ordinary poor people to do evil works. Unfortunately the poverty level of our country is horrifying. If we look around us we will find people extremely poor who don't have any thing to eat, people who want to do work but are unable to do anything because of lack of opportunities. And there are many people who are working but the wage they get is so low that it is extremely difficult for them to support their family with that wage. It is due to this that we often see news like a man killing his family and himself due to extreme poverty. If we can control the poverty in our society, we will be able to create a lot of peace in our society. Therefore to do that what we need is that Government should establish a minimum wage level for labor class so that they could enjoy at least a normal living standard. This method has been adopted by many developed societies & communities e. . American Society etc. The Labor and the Social Welfare Departments should make sure that the labor class can at least get a decent standard of living. Then the Government can start different poverty control programs whose aim should be to provide the unemployed people with different opportunities so that they could contribute for the society as a whole. In many western societies, the Gove rnments have started Poverty Control Programs which give small loans to people who want to start their own business. With the help of that the people get self employed and are no more burdens on the society. They with the help of loans establish their businesses and earn sufficient amount to have a decent standard of living. Then the Government can also open different technical institutes from where the students can get some technical education and can work on their own. Therefore if the Government controls the poverty level then the young generation will have no excuse to opt the way of crime in order to survive. And when the young generation will stop opting the way of crime then all in all our society will be one of the most peaceful societies in the world. A society, whose idea has been told to us in Quran.