GOD’S COMMAND

God’s Command ~ 29 ~ should go hand in hand with justice. In human dealings, generosity and compassion, going beyond the call of legality, should be brought into play. Man should have the courage to be willing to receive less than the share due to him and to give others more than their share. His third duty is to respect the rights of relatives. That is to say that a man should be as sensitive to his relatives’ needs as he is to his own. No man of resources should think that his wealth is to be spent only on himself and his immediate family. To his list of responsibilities he should add the paying of dues to relatives. Three vices prohibited in this verse are indecency, wickedness and oppression. Indecency means flouting the dictates of one’ s conscience in order to indulge in known moral evils. Wickedness (munkar), the very opposite of virtue (ma’ruf), consists of those practices disapproved of in every society as failing to measure up to moral standards. Oppression — the tyrannising and coercion of others, is a serious deviation from the path ordained by God.