It is possible that a mathematician has no faith in any of...

It is possible that a mathematician has no faith in any of his mathematical achievements while at the same time he knows and teaches them well. It is possible that a person is a professor of Greek philosophy but he does not believe in any of its schools, and after teaching them, behaves as if he is not acquainted with this philosophy at all. However, this point is not true about ethics. Ethics is a way of living and a way of viewing oneself and others.

A scholar of ethics cannot, as with a pair of spectacles, remove or change it anytime he likes. In the words of Max Weber,[321] “Moralities are not chariots that can be stopped any time we want for getting in or getting off.”[322] Ethics makes man committed to himself and urges him to assess and construct himself according to these principles. It is here that the issues of reminding [ tadhakkur ], purification [ tazkiyyah ], and watchfulness [ murāqibah ] come up.

Moral maladies, the form of moral reasoning and expression are peculiar to themselves, and cannot be gauged by the theoretical sciences. It is due to this that the Imām does not express these principles ‘systematically’ and ‘orderly’. Instead he mainly regards them as assumed and expresses their outcomes. The goal in teaching ethics does not lie in learning some principles and appending them to an individual’s body of knowledge.

The goal is to let man take a look at himself again, reconstruct his existential palace, and evaluate it. If our outlook on ethics is of this type, we will no longer be in pursuit of increasing the volume of our information on ethics. Instead, we will strive to increase the volume of challenge and action, and in the parlance of ethics, self-purification. Treading the path of ethics does not require extensive and vast information.

It needs high ambition, firm resolution and formidable will: Dear friend! Try to be a man of strong will power and resolution, so that you may not go from this world as a person without resolution, and hence rise on the Day of Resurrection as a brainless-being, not in the form of human being.[323] Hence, the topic is not about teaching; it pertains to training, the manner of upbringing and living.

Now let us see what type of person is the one who has come to believe in the principles of ethics and lets them flow in his veins.