Spirit of Islam, September-october 2023

There are two types of character, the ordinary and the extraordinary. An ordinary character is based on the principle: ‘Do as you have been done by.” This might be termed a “Knee-jerk character.” Since it offers only reflex responses to treatment by others. People of such a character break with those who break with them, wrong those who wrong them, and harm those who harm them. However, those who are of a high character are reconciliatory, even re-establishing relations with those who break with them. They are compassionate, even to those who seek to harm them. They are forbearing, even towards those who wrong them. Adopting a high code of ethics means practising what one preaches; treating the weak with the same courtesy and deference as one shows to the strong; setting the same standards for oneself as one sets for others; never budging from one’s principles; maintaining a high moral bearing, even when others stoop to the depths of degradation. From this point of view, the Prophet of Islam stood at the highest pinnacle of human ethics, never abandoning the lofty standards that he preached. o