HUMAN VALUES IN ISLAM

HUMAN VALUES IN ISLAM Guidance of God G OD, who created the human being and put him on the earth, endowed him with inborn, or innate knowledge and values. These innate values form a natural moral sense, which makes a person recognise what is good and beautiful such as telling the truth, keeping promises and being grateful. This same moral sense also makes a person recognise what is bad and morally ugly such as telling lies, deceit and arrogance. The natural moral sense is one way in which the Creator has provided for the guidance of human beings. He has granted human beings a conscience, which registers right and wrong and a mind which has the ability to reason. He has made the whole universe a natural book full of signs that lead a thinking person to the existence of God, His power and His bounty. However to make matters clearer and to give man a more detailed knowledge of God, He showed him a well specified way of relating to Him. This was done through prophets. Prophets were persons specially chosen by God to bring to the people practical guidance on how to stay on the right path. The last of the prophets was the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. The Quran was revealed to him as sure and clear guidance for all. Muhammad’s explanations of the revealed verses and his life itself offered further and more detailed clarification of how we are supposed to act in a way that is pleasing to God. As God abhors all that is not beautiful and untrue, His guidance served to develop in the believers a very sound system of human values based on the inborn human understanding of what is good and what is evil, given to man by God at the time of creation. "I was sent to perfect the best in moral characteristics", said the Prophet describing his mission. While this points to the fact that the message he brought was not a new one, it also shows that the main purpose of the message was to make man live according to the highest moral standard which he is capable of. This saying of the Prophet may be linked to many verses in the Quran such as: By the soul and how He formed it, then inspired it to understand what was right and wrong for The inherent moral sense in a human being allows him to recognise what is true and good from what is false and evil.