Research Quarterly in Islamic Ethics
Year:2014 | Volume:6 | Issue:22|Papers Count:10

Nowadays, because of their innovative and scholarly nature, the scientific-research articles are taken into account as the best and sometimes the only judging criterion of their authors and scientific community. Therefore, all those who work in the academic fields and are working as A.M. and doctorate students or teachers are required to test their proficiency and to show that they are qualified in scientific issues and writing. However, the authors of these articles usually do not have the necessary knowledge and skill and they do not know how to organize their ideas in a scholarly and academic format. This paper makes an attempt to show the compensation practices of these shortcomings, to point out to the nature of the scientific-research papers in the area of ethics, and to reveal the dominating rationale behind it. Having this viewpoint, the author begins with a statement about writing that is like a persuasion process; he believes that academic writing is an attempt in persuading expert addressees and consequently, the writer needs to accept and apply some specific rules. As for the next step, the form and material of the scientific-research papers in the field of ethics will be analyzed, the basic parts of these kinds of papers will be explained one by one and some common errors of such papers will be enumerated and followed by explaining scholarly paper writing methods. Accordingly, the author has analyzed all the principal components of academic papers and has mentioned the writing procedure of each one. In fact, some guideline principles for writing these kinds of papers have been proposed and while the paper has puts emphasis on the significance of the content, it also has pointed out to the structural delicacies.

Although various indicators of Islamic lifestyle have been explicated in various verses and hadiths, the lack of scrutinizing and fathoming of Islamic Intellectuals in this regard and also the lack of compatibility with today’s lifestyle has made the factors of Islamic lifestyle to be faded away in the contemporary society. Reflecting and contemplating on the Islamic verses and hadiths (a religious approach) as well as on business concepts (a technical approach) this study deals with identification of the factors of Islamic lifestyle in business field. At the level of purpose, the paper is applicable and at the level of data collection, qualitative. The research achievements include identification of 44 factors which should be observed in Islamic business and 28 factors which should be avoided. These factors are classified in three groups of religious features, ethical features and entrepreneurial ones.

This paper intends to analyze the principles of kindred relationships cultivating and its pivotal role in creating correlation and strengthening interactions and links between the members of relative and social network. The study has an analytico-descriptive method. To collect the required data to achieve the research purposes, the related Hadith texts have been collected by taking notes from the resources and have been analyzed qualitatively. The results of the study have been explained in two parts of principles and their role in Islamic lifestyle. In the first part, characteristics such as munificence, inclination toward spirituality and virtue of friendship, affection, altruism, intimacy, peace-seeking, positive thinking, desire for beneficence, self-esteem and esteeming the others, desire for happiness, forgiveness, social responsibility, and desire for ownership have been introduced and in the second part, the psychologico-emotional, socio-psychological, religious-spiritual and economic consequences of the mentioned characteristics have been explicated.

Professional ethics assigns some duties to the organization of religion propagation from which approaches to innovative fields could be mentioned. This study investigates “religious propagation” and claims that nowadays, without entering the innovative scientific fields, religious propagation would not meet success. Emergence of organization of religion propagation to the modern sciences such as management, sociology, and psychology is an inevitable matter. Having an explanatory approach in this study, at first, the responsibility factor in the organization of religion propagation has been analyzed and the result shows that religion propagation is not merely a messaging fact but it underlies the comprehensive acceptance of the propagating contents from the responsibilities of the aforementioned organization. Then, one of the most significant requirements of professional ethics in religion propagation organization has been analyzed and this result has been achieved that religion propagation organization is bound to updating and modernizing its qualitative and quantitative methods, and also it should not be unaware of compatibility with time, place and addressee.

A philosophical rule which is of prime importance in transcendent wisdom is the rule expressed as “basit ul-haqiqah koll ul-ashya wa laysat bi shayin minha, the simple truth is all things and, at the same time, it is none of them”. Although the philosophical rule is essentially for adducing the unity of God, it has other applications which could be obtained through enumerating its latent features. Among these features is the proof of “life” feature in all levels of the existence and its application to the environmental field. As it is known that existence is a single transmissible reality which flows into all creatures in gradation, its essential and actual attributes such as knowledge, will, power and life are flown in all of the creatures. Therefore, all of the creatures not only enjoy the grace of the existence but also they enjoy its characteristics which are nothing but its mere inherence. In other words, all of the creatures, even inanimate objects, also have life, knowledge, will and power. Accordingly, whole of the existence, from the highest rank to the lowest levels, are alive and of life. The paper intends to explain the rule along with introducing the proposed environmental theories and then, to criticize each one of the theories in the mentioned rule. The result of this criticism is introducing the Molla Sadra’s original theory in the field of environmental ethics.

The serious challenge that contemporary human is encountered with has been brought about by the lack of applying ethical and behavioral necessities in his life rather than by the weakness of the rules or lack of technology. One of the mentioned important necessities is the factor of speech perseverance which has a particular conceptual and meaningful weight that is the adducing of the right speech and constant management of this righteousness-directed fact that has made today’s human facing a lot of individual challenges. Challenges such as spiritual and psychological disorders, disputes and severances within the families, social disorganizations, and also destruction of the relationships due to lapses of the speech and the lack of speech perseverance would be created. And in addition to spiritual damages and adverse consequences, human has been deprived of the joy of life and inner tranquility of these challenges. Describing the features of speech perseverance in light of Alavi words proposes an experienced treatment for elimination of ethical challenges especially in the area of speech that a part of it has been undertaken by this paper.

Fakhr Razi has spelled out some features and various divisions for happiness. Occasionally, he uses this word rather than the words such as pleasure and perfection. He believes that concepts such as happiness, perfection, pleasure, etc. may not be defined palpably because they are basically improvisational, and unessential. Since pleasure and perfection have an intense relationship with happiness, utilizing the above concepts could be useful. As it is known by him, happiness has levels and degrees and it has also been treated with skepticism. It has some divisions including: spiritual, physical, and external ones. He sees the mundane happiness in the perfection of theoretical and practical powers of the human soul while achieving supreme mystical state of Divine obedience and the greatest degree of happiness, from his viewpoint, is visiting God in hereafter life which leads to the hereafter and eternal salvation. For him, the greatest degree of happiness will be achieved in hereafter life.

From Quran’s perspective, the universe and human system has been interpreted as “the best”. However, in Quranic teachings we are encountered with some concepts such as human “impatience”. Impatience means to be greedy and anxious. “Impatience” is the fact that human shows restlessness when he becomes poor, and when being in a state of wealth, he denies it from others. Regarding blaming or praising impatience, different viewpoints have been presented.Two major viewpoints are held in this regard. One of them adopts impatience as natural and naturally considers that human is characterized by disparaged traits. On the contrary, scholars such as Allameh Tabatabai among others, believe that “impatience” is a good trait and the adversity of human free will is the cause of its destruction. Meanwhile, some others such as Qazi Baqilani (Quoted by Fakhr-e Razi) distinguish sensual mode of impatience from its due actions and considers that blames are action-oriented rather than sensual-oriented form of impatience. There are four authorizations for the second viewpoint: 1. Stipulation of 108th Hekmat of Nahj al-Balagha to the heart and antithetical modes which demands its own specific interpretation. 2. Imam Sajjad’s statement in Monajat Shakin and its analysis. 3. Analysis of the totality of vices by Imam Khomeini and its explication. 4. Feyz Kashani’s viewpoint, and the author’s free inference confirmation.

This study intends to analyze scientific and ethical perfection from the viewpoint of Tusi. In analyzing perfectionism, we begin with analysis of the concept of perfection. Dimensions of human perfection (scientific and ethical ones), stating the degrees of human perfection and practical procedure and process of human perfection from Tusi’s viewpoint are other issues discussed in this paper. Dimensions of human perfection in accordance with human soul forces (theoretical and practical forces), Tusi’s interpretations from the function of these forces are different in his works. According to him, with regard to various functions of the forces, scientific and practical perfection will also be various. Scientific perfection is knowledge-based while constitutional facts (insights) and ethical perfection are from particular cases of knowledge and practical effects. In fact, Tusi’s ethical theory extends beyond the soul’s health and it is indicative of high-level ideals, i.e. soul’s perfection. As an ideal of ethics, perfection has degrees which could be shown by horizontal hierarchy of perfection. Tusi believes that regarding the stages of perfection in philosophical works the focus is on nonessential forces of soul and in mystical works, the attention is directed towards manners of soul and its horizontal existence shields. The process of perfection has two scientific and ethical dimensions and Tusi has proposed a practical procedure for perfection and has not merely theorized.

In an innovative categorization, Allameh Tabatabai has divided ethical schools into four major including those of: predecessor prophets, Quran, Greek philosophers, and relativism (the followers of evolution theory). The two former schools are known as elements of religious ethics and the latter ones as secular by Allameh Tabatabai. According to his division and evaluation of the ethical schools, the relation of religious and secular ethics is the same as the relation of deficiency and perfection, and the touchstone of the public and private is considered as absolute. The distinction between the two mentioned approaches lies in benefiting or lack of benefiting wisdom in recognition of concepts, touchstones, discovery, justification and assurance of the ethical values from divine teachings. This issue itself reveals differences between the theoretical and practical aspects of ethics. In religious ethics, true faith to the origin and resurrection as well as practical commitment to religious orders will ensure and prosper the ethical values. And the source of ethical weaknesses existed in religious societies especially Muslims’ ones is due to the lack of attention towards the principles and the lack of practical commitment to the noble teachings of Islam.