True Charter of Freedom.
This is the " Charter of Freedom" which only the true religion has conferred upon mankind. The creature of Allah should be the slave of Allah alone and owe service to none else, nay, not even as a servant of the Holy Prophet (pbuh). This charter freed man from offering worship to all others, save One God; and it terminated the divinity of man over man once and for all. Simultaneously, the greatest blessing conferred by this mandate upon mankind is the Supremacy of the Law, the Law which no monarch, dictator, democratic parliament or assembly of believers in Islam is empowered to tamper with for the purpose of altering it. This law bestows on man permanent values of Good and Evil, and no one has the power to transmute these values with a view to changing Good into Evil or vice versa.
The third message which the Holy Prophet (pbuh) preached to the servants of God was: " You are all answerable to God. You have been given unchartered freedom to act as you deem fit and to forage whatever pasture you like without being answerable to anyone. Rather you shall be held accountable before your Creator for each act, each word, in fact, for the whole course of your life wherein you have been given limited autonomy. You will be raised after death and presented in the court of your Lord for reckoning." When human conscience is permeated with such a stupendous moral force, it will be as if every human being were being guarded by a sentinel who challenges every evil thought that enters one's mind and hinders all action that may arise from an evil thought. Irrespective of the existence or non-existence of a vigilant police force and a retributive government in the external world, a censor will always preside over the human soul, and fear of seizure will deter a person from transgressing the Will of God even in privacy, in darkness or in a deserted wasteland. No greater means than this can be devised for the moral degeneration of man and for the forging of a stable human character. All other means which purport to reform the moral aspects of human character do not go beyond the dicta that is in this world " Good begets good and Evil begets Evil " and " Honesty is the Best Policy." Carried to the logical conclusion it clearly implies that if evil and dishonesty be found profitable for policy reasons, these should be freely practiced without compunction. It is in consequence of this philosophy of life that the same person who behaves well in his private life turns to being faithless, deceptive, rapacious, callous and ruthless in the conduct of his public life-nay, even in their private life, such people are good only in certain respects and very wicked in many other ways. You will find that, on the one hand, these people are fair and courteous in their business dealings, while on the other hand they are the worst drunkards, fornicators and gamblers, being the most depraved and wicked of people. Their motto is that a man's public life and his private life are two different spheres, distinct from each other. To one who accosts them on some faults in their private life, they offer a tailor-made answer, " Mind your own business." Contrary to this, there is the belief in Eternity which enjoins that evil remains evil in all circumstances, regardless of whether it proves profitable or disadvantageous in the world. The dichotomy between public and private spheres cannot exist in the life of a person who has a sense of accountability to God. This person does not adopt honesty just because it is the best policy, but because the person has cultivated honesty in his soul and nothing could be more distant from his thoughts than the practice of dishonesty. His belief teaches him that dishonesty must debase him to a level inferior to that of animals. As the Holy Qur'an observes: "We created Man in the finest form and then We turned him upside down and degraded him to a position lower than the lowest." In this way, by the kindly favor of the Holy Prophet's (pbuh) guidance, man has not only obtained an immutable law embodying permanent moral values, but also an unshakable foundation on which to build individual and national moral character. Man, therefore, does not require the agency of a government, a police force or a court of law to deter him from crimes and keep him on the right path.
The third message which the Holy Prophet (pbuh) preached to the servants of God was: " You are all answerable to God. You have been given unchartered freedom to act as you deem fit and to forage whatever pasture you like without being answerable to anyone. Rather you shall be held accountable before your Creator for each act, each word, in fact, for the whole course of your life wherein you have been given limited autonomy. You will be raised after death and presented in the court of your Lord for reckoning." When human conscience is permeated with such a stupendous moral force, it will be as if every human being were being guarded by a sentinel who challenges every evil thought that enters one's mind and hinders all action that may arise from an evil thought. Irrespective of the existence or non-existence of a vigilant police force and a retributive government in the external world, a censor will always preside over the human soul, and fear of seizure will deter a person from transgressing the Will of God even in privacy, in darkness or in a deserted wasteland. No greater means than this can be devised for the moral degeneration of man and for the forging of a stable human character. All other means which purport to reform the moral aspects of human character do not go beyond the dicta that is in this world " Good begets good and Evil begets Evil " and " Honesty is the Best Policy." Carried to the logical conclusion it clearly implies that if evil and dishonesty be found profitable for policy reasons, these should be freely practiced without compunction. It is in consequence of this philosophy of life that the same person who behaves well in his private life turns to being faithless, deceptive, rapacious, callous and ruthless in the conduct of his public life-nay, even in their private life, such people are good only in certain respects and very wicked in many other ways. You will find that, on the one hand, these people are fair and courteous in their business dealings, while on the other hand they are the worst drunkards, fornicators and gamblers, being the most depraved and wicked of people. Their motto is that a man's public life and his private life are two different spheres, distinct from each other. To one who accosts them on some faults in their private life, they offer a tailor-made answer, " Mind your own business." Contrary to this, there is the belief in Eternity which enjoins that evil remains evil in all circumstances, regardless of whether it proves profitable or disadvantageous in the world. The dichotomy between public and private spheres cannot exist in the life of a person who has a sense of accountability to God. This person does not adopt honesty just because it is the best policy, but because the person has cultivated honesty in his soul and nothing could be more distant from his thoughts than the practice of dishonesty. His belief teaches him that dishonesty must debase him to a level inferior to that of animals. As the Holy Qur'an observes: "We created Man in the finest form and then We turned him upside down and degraded him to a position lower than the lowest." In this way, by the kindly favor of the Holy Prophet's (pbuh) guidance, man has not only obtained an immutable law embodying permanent moral values, but also an unshakable foundation on which to build individual and national moral character. Man, therefore, does not require the agency of a government, a police force or a court of law to deter him from crimes and keep him on the right path.
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