Islam As it Is

Islamic Character ~ 132 ~ those he dislikes. He reserves his praise for those who agree with him, but roundly condemns those who disagree. These are the different aspects of a degraded character. God and His Prophet have commanded believing Muslims to ennoble their characters by first suppressing all such baseness in themselves. NOBILITY OF CHARACTER The Prophet Mohammed himself was of a very fine character, and he made it his mission to exhort others to cultivate in themselves all that was noble and altruistic. In his Muwatta, Imam Malik records the Prophet as saying: “I have been sent to perfect excellence of character. “ In other versions of this statement, the words “righteousness of character” and “graciousness of character” are used. What is meant by this ‘graciousness of character’, which the Prophet was sent to inculcate? As the Prophet himself made clear in another statement, it consists of three virtues: