Quoting the Qur’anic verse, “Whosoever gains wisdom, verily he gains great good.

Quoting the Qur’anic verse, “Whosoever gains wisdom, verily he gains great good.” Dawwani holds that mature wisdom (kikmat-i balighah) is the royal road to this exalted position. By mature wisdom, being a happy blend of theory and practice is essentially different from the Socratic dictum: Knowledge is virtue. The Greeks were interested in ascertaining the speculative principles of morals; the practical aspect of ethics was quite alien to their temperament.

Mature wisdom can be acquired through intellectual insight as well as through mystic intuition. Both the philosopher and the mystic reach the same goal through different ways. What the former “knows,” the latter “sees,” there being complete harmony between the findings of the two. Influenced by the Qur’anic doctrine of moderation[^4] no less than the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean, Dawwani holds that the mean constitutes the good in all matters.

But it is determined not by “reason” and “prudence,” as held by Aristotle, but by the divine Law. Reason can at best determine the form of morality, the content whereof must come from the divine Code. Since the path of moderation is difficult to tread, Dawwani has identified it with the bridge over hell (pul sirat) – a bridge which is narrower than a hair and sharper than a sword.

Moral struggle pre-supposes that all dispositions (khulq) , whether innate or acquired, are capable of modification and change. Constant instruction and discipline and punishment, as evidenced by experience, can change the wicked into the virtuous. By these means the evil is greatly reduced, if not completely eradicated.

And since a person does not know beforehand that a particular evil disposition would resist all attempts to modify and change it, it is in consonance with the dictates of both reason and religion that he should exert his utmost for its modification. To Plato, virtue was the moderation of human nature as a whole. Aristotle assigned to each virtue the place moderation would give it. Be he could go no further than this.