At the same time...

At the same time, it is necessary to conceptualize beyond any simplistic determination in terms of good and bad. The Islamic approach takes into consideration the overall need for promoting a salubrious growth of human personality as an a priori requirement, based on deductive logic. The premises recognized in Islam include the factual position that every constituent part of the human body has a specific purpose or function.

The biological purposes and functions are sustained by a person's will o nurture the same, even beyond the instinctive motivations. Accordingly, human volition, intellectual capabilities and similar other aspects of spiritual nature must be enhanced, too. We could well imagine a situation where no traditional evolution of morality is allowed. This would mean that the inborn human potentialities are either harmoniously cultivated or prevented from such development.

In any case, it stands to reason that human faculty to discern things and to comprehend the natural order of things, would have induced the necessary process of harmonization. A hundred years ago, scholars and social scientists recognized the need for a psychosomatically balanced development of human personality. Societies of the time lacked a correct overall human perspective. There was a markedly deficient realization of the moral traditions.

Negative tendencies affected all-round human development. In fact, there has never been any doubt about promoting an all round growth of human personality. This is implicit in the very word training,, which has always been used to indicate human development. Any correct and effective approach to training of human beings must aim at overcoming tendencies leading to disturbances of personality and morbid conditions of disorder and indiscipline, affecting the body, the mind and the spirit.

A naturally harmonious and spiritually balanced human growth should include the training of the sex instinct in particular. In the above context, Islam offers the most appropriate guidance. This position is intended to be clarified and established in the discussion that follows. At the outset, we must stipulate that any preconceived or ill conceived notion concerning Islamic ethics must be avoided.

For instance, some people appear to harbour the notion that Islamic morality inhibits, rather than promotes, any free growth of human faculties.