Al-Insan or The Man

By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam 3 March 2023 ---------------------------------------------- We Are Biologically Equipped With The Emotions Of Happiness, Sadness, Pleasure, Pain, Shame, Disgust, Ecstasy, Anger, Anxiety And Fear Which Form Our "Nafs" And This Is Our Moral Equipment Along With The Capacity To Learn Right From Wrong. ---------------------------------------------- The verses that describe Al-Insan say he is, greedy, niggardly, impatient, ungrateful, contentious, acquisitive, envious, jealous, fearful, and suspicious. These can otherwise be understood as instincts for self-preservation. Our instinct is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. There is no verse that describes Al-Insan's virtues which means, we are not born with any virtue. In the case of animals, their virtuous part or their pro-social behaviour is also an instinct that they are born with. We are born without it. There is absolutely no doubt about human exceptionalism in terms of our intellectual and cognitive abilities. Now imagine being born without the virtues animals are born with and with vastly superior intellectual and cognitive abilities, and with all the negative traits necessary for self-preservation that we are born with, how potentially dangerous Insan is to everyone else including his own kind. The characteristics we are born with are all negative. However, we are also biologically equipped with the emotions of happiness, sadness, pleasure, pain, shame, disgust, ecstasy, anger, anxiety and fear which form our "Nafs" and this is our moral equipment along with the capacity to learn right from wrong. So, when we act according to what we have learnt is right, we feel good, otherwise, we feel bad, guilty, disgusted with ourselves, anxious and fearful of the consequences here in this world or in the Hereafter. Allah has taught us right from wrong through His revelations. Human behaviour is largely programmable and can be programmed to distinguish right from wrong. (96:1) Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created- (2) Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: (3) Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,- (4) He Who taught (the use of) the pen,- (5) Taught man that which he knew not. (6) Day, but man doth transgress all bounds, (7) In that he looketh upon himself as self-sufficient. (8) Verily, to thy Lord is the return (of all). Allah’s religion or the moral way of living is what Allah has taught man that he knew not nor could he have ever known without Allah’s revelations. This is the inimitable part of every scripture. Insan has to learn every virtue and control his negative self. By the moral choices we make, we can rise to be among the noblest or sink to be among the lowest meaning lower than the beasts. We have the capacity for both the highest good and also the greatest evil. The virtues are therefore not what we are born with. Virtue is learned behaviour and without acquiring the virtues, we are worse than animals. (103:1) By (the Token of) Time (through the ages), (2) Verily Man is in loss, (3) Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy. Why Couldn’t Man Have Learned To Be Moral On His Own? Given the instincts described above, every moral and ethical principle is counterintuitive and we would never discover, much less adopt any moral principle on our own. It is man alone who has a need for Allah’s guidance without which, our exceptional intellectual capacity would have made us worse than beasts in aggressive behaviour and our species would have self-destructed. Just look at the irreligious and the religious hypocrites and you can see that their base instinct prevails and the only thing that keeps them within limits is the fear of the law of the land and economic and or social loss due to loss of reputation. They are otherwise amoral and shameless. How To Raise Morally Upright Children? Chomsky’s most powerful single idea is that there is a universal capacity for language but it is expressed in different ways in different cultures. Every baby can learn all the world’s languages but what neurologists call synaptic pruning in the early years reduces that child’s capacity to the languages around her. A songbird which does not hear other songbirds singing at the crucial stage of its development can never sing. That account of language can work for morality too – indeed the two are closely related, depending as they both do on human interaction. Up to the age of 3 years, a child accepts all that it is taught without filtering. Beyond the age of 3 years, a child begins to filter new messages through what she has already learnt. So, instil good values and beliefs before they cross 3 years of age. After that, they may filter out any good teachings that you try to give them with the bad that they may have learned from their environment and interactions with other kids who have not been brought up well. We should teach them empathy and the virtues of truth, fairness and justice and keeping promises. Teach them about God and His omniscience, and accountability in the Hereafter. Teach them the virtues of modesty and covering themselves up decently and experience shame otherwise. This takes care of everything and lays a strong unshakable foundation for a good moral character that will stay with the child all her/his life. There is no morality outside religion and a belief in accountability in the Hereafter. Outside of religion, there is only hypocrisy and lip service at which the irreligious excel. With a strong moral foundation laid early in life, the child will filter out all evil influences on their own from the values they have learnt early. A person who has learnt to empathise early in life will never wilfully hurt another sentient life form. Insaniyat Vs Haiwaniyat (Humanness Vs Beastliness) If we take Insaniyat to be what we are born with, then Insaniyat is worse than Haiwaniyat because the beasts are born with the instinct for pro-social behaviour while we are not. We have to learn every virtue. The Quran does not refer to the “humanitarian values” as Insaniyat because these are not what characterises the bare Insan. We need to learn to behave morally. The misuse of words such as Insaniyat to mean “humanitarian values” hide the truth that a human is not born with humanitarian values and these need to be learnt early in life. So, what about Ghalib saying: Bas-Ki Dushvār Hai Har Kaam Kā Āsāñ Honā Aadmī Ko Bhī Muyassar Nahīñ Insāñ Honā Enjoy the poetry but never mistakes words spoken beautifully as wisdom. ----- A frequent contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Naseer Ahmed is an Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and is an independent IT consultant after having served in both the Public and Private sector in responsible positions for over three decades. He has spent years studying Quran in-depth and made seminal contributions to its interpretation. URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-spiritualism/insan-man-biologically-emotion-moral-immoral/d/129233 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism