Quranic Wisdom

A Sense of Accountability assassination. Any society that ignores this heinous practice is callous and inhuman. A Sense of Accountability O ne of the important teachings of Islam is the concept of accountability. According to the Quran, life is a very serious business, for which reason everyone ought to be imbued with a total sense of accountability. In the chapter Al-Isra’ (The Night Journey) of the Quran, this concept is gone into in detail: Give full measure, when you measure, and weigh with accurate scales. That is fair, and better in the end. Do not follow what you do not know; for the ear and the eye and the heart shall all be called to account. (17:35-36) Everything we say is inevitably based on information that we gather from outside. Basically, there are three sources: what we hear, what we see, and what we think. These three senses give us what may be called data, but in each case there is the possibility of misunderstanding or miscalculation, so we have to be very careful to be precise in all of our utterances. The expressions in the above verse concerning weights and measures are used symbolically. Here, measuring or weighing means intellectual measuring or intellectual weighing. We should be very accurate when we speak about anyone or about any issue. Our behaviour must be as precise as a scientific scale. Right thinking and precise speaking are moral requirements: neglect of these matters can have very serious consequences. Since everything is known to God Almighty, everyone will be punished or rewarded according to how he speaks and behaves.