Ali Ataie – The Courage of Conviction in the Face of Conflict Rabi’ alAwwal 2021
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AI: Transcript ©
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle,
human flourishing or eudaimonia
is the ultimate result of human beings adhering
to their nature,
their essence.
This involves what he called proper functioning.
If a sword loses its sharpness and can
no longer cut, then it has failed to
function properly.
It is no longer a sword. It has
lost its essence.
For Aristotle, even though human beings are animals,
the proper functions of human beings are not
merely limited to that of animals,
that is to grow and reproduce.
The human being is more than that. The
human being is the rational animal,
zoon logan ekhan,
as well as the social or political animal.
This means that it is natural, healthy,
and essential for human beings to use reason
and to live in peaceful coexistence
with other human beings.
This is their ideal state.
And due to their nature, human beings have
the ability to recognize certain virtues or oratis
that lead to realizing their proper function
or ergon.
One of the most important of these virtues
is called andrea,
or in Latin,
fortitudo.
That is courage.
Shajah in Arabic.
Courage is considered one of the 4 cardinal
virtues.
Cardinal from the Latin, cardo, meaning hinge.
All other virtues hinge upon these 4. All
other virtues are derived from these 4.
These are the umahaatal
Fada'il
or umahaatal Akhlaq
as the proof of Islam, Imam Abu Hamad
al Ghazali,
referred to them in his two major works
on ethics,
mizan al amal and the Ihya al Umideen,
the criterion and the revival.
In addition to courage, the cardinal virtues are
phronesis,
dikaiosune,
and sophrosune,
That is wisdom,
justice, intemperance,
hikma,
adala, and riphah.
With respect to courage, according to Aristotle,
the human being is capable of recognizing
true courage when he sees it.
It appeals to his very nature.
It is attractive to his soul.
It follows then that there must be certain
people who have mastered this virtue.
These are the moral exemplars.
When one finds a moral exemplar, one should
emulate his character
and actions.
1 must habituate his soul until that virtue
is realized,
until it is woven into the very fabric
of his character.
In Islam, there is no greater moral exemplar
than our master, Muhammad
The Quran says,
truly you are of an exalted character, Suratul
Qalam verse
4.
And indeed, in the messenger of God, there's
a beautiful exemplar for you, Surat Al Aqzab,
verse 21.
The prophet said,
I was sent to perfect virtuous character,
Thus, the aim or final cause of a
Muslim in this world is clear.
To live an Islamically eudaiministic
life as it were is to align our
character with the character of the best of
human beings, with khad al bashar. It is
to emulate the prophetic dispositions in order to
attain wilayah
or nearness to Allah
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam said,
None of you truly believe until his desires
are in accordance with what I have brought.
Such is
the key to living a successful and virtuous
life.
But where did the prophet salalahu alaihi wa
sallam himself acquire his virtues?
To answer this question,
we must examine Imam al Ghazali's view on
the origin of virtue.
According to the imam, virtue is acquired in
3 ways. Number 1, through habituation,
a'dah.
Number 2, through learning from one's parents or
religious teacher. Or number 3, by means of
divine bestowal from the bestower,
al Wahhab.
This is in contrast to Aristotle who affirmed
only habituation.
For Ghazali, the prophets of God, al Anbiya,
were divinely granted the gift of virtue.
Simply put, God made them virtuous.
They are those whom God has guided, so
follow their guidance. Surat Al Anam verse 90.
According to Aristotle's teacher, Plato, there are three
elements or faculties of the human psyche or
soul,
the appetitive faculty, the spirited or emotional faculty,
and the rational faculty. We find this division
in the Muslim and Catholic philosophical traditions as
well.
The cardinal virtue of wisdom, hikmah,
is born from the marriage of the rational
faculty, or aqal, with contemplation.
When the rational faculty of a human soul
controls its appetites,
temperance,
iffa, is born.
When the rational faculty is able to subordinate
and control its spirited element,
or more specifically its irascible faculty, that is
its anger, alaqhuwa alghadobiyah, then
and only then is the great fardila, or
virtue of courage attained.
The result of this inner harmony
leads to a 4th virtue,
adala,
or justice.
A person who has acquired these umahaatul fada'il,
as well as their subordinate virtues,
in addition to the so called mystical virtues
or assifatulmunjiyat,
such a person has attained the essence of
khuluq hasan,
good character.
The prophet
he said,
That nothing is weightier in the scale of
a believer on the day of judgment than
good character.
Naturally then, the prophet epitomizes all these virtues
in his khuluq adim.
But let us focus specifically
on the cardinal virtue of courage.
According to Imam al Ghazali,
courage or shajaa
is the moderate state of the irascible faculty.
It is the golden mean between cowardice, jabana,
and recklessness,
tahawur.
Thus,
cowardice and recklessness are viewed as the opposites
of virtue.
They are vices.
The vice of deficiency in the case of
cowardice, and the vice of excess in the
case of recklessness.
In other words, if the irascible faculty fails
to respond sufficiently
to a certain situation where it must act
sufficiently,
then cowardice will manifest in the human soul.
This is blameworthy.
If the irascible soul overreacts to a certain
situation
and fails to be reasonable in its response,
then recklessness will manifest in the human soul.
This is also blameworthy.
Furthermore,
courage is only a virtue when it is
practiced at the right time, in the right
place, and toward the right people.
For
example,
suppose an elderly man happens to see a
younger and larger man harassing a young girl.
There is no doubt that the old man's
irascible faculty
will be activated.
However, he must not allow his anger to
override his intellect.
He should know his limitations
as an elderly man.
Doing nothing would be cowardly,
but confronting the younger and larger man
could lead to severe injury
to himself,
and he would not have helped the girl
in distress.
That is, a direct confrontation may actually make
things worse for her. In this specific situation,
it seems that the courageous thing to do
would be for the elderly man to call
for help. Now suppose that the elderly man,
despite his advanced age, was a master of
the martial arts.
This would change the situation.
Now it seems that a direct and immediate
confrontation
with the younger man
becomes necessary
in order to ensure the safety of the
girl in distress.
It is now the right thing to do.
It is now the courageous thing to do.
Why? Because the old man has decades of
training in the martial arts. He has habituated
his body and mind for just such an
occasion.
It would seem that failure to act immediately
would constitute
cowardice.
According to Imam al Ghazari,
Allah extolled the courage of the prophet Muhammad
and the companions
when he said,
Muhammad is the messenger of God,
and those who are with him are strong
against the unbelievers but merciful among each other.
Suratul Fath verse 29.
According to Muslim exegetes, being strong against unbelievers
here refers to
military bravery.
And the prophet and his companions
were formidable and courageous when they needed to
be
at the proper
time, at the proper place,
and in the proper amount. And Anasin radiAllahu
anhu qala kana nabi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
may God be pleased with him, said, The
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was the most courageous
of people, Sunan
ibn Umayyah.
As a paragon of courage, the prophet also
exemplified
those subordinate virtues
that are considered subdivisions of courage.
According to Imam Al Ghazali, these are najda,
thabat,
mawadda,
noble,
shahama,
karam,
helm, and wakar,
bravery, fortitude,
amiability,
nobility,
manliness,
magnificence,
gentleness, and dignity.
In the blessed Sira of the prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, we read about the famous
Ghazwat Badr,
the first major battle in Islamic history.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala revealed to the prophet,
Permission is given to those who are fought
because they have been wronged, and truly God
is able to help them. Surat Al Hajj
verse
39. Naturally,
the very thought of going into battle is
extremely fear inducing.
No person of sound mind desires conflict or
war. The Quran recognizes this.
Fighting has been prescribed for you while it
is odious to you. But perhaps you hate
a thing that is good for you, and
perhaps you love a thing that is bad
for you.
God knows while you know not. Surah Al
Baqarah
verse 216.
The Quran also says,
Will you not fight a people who broke
their oaths, sought to expel the messenger,
and opened hostilities against you?
Do you fear them? But God is worthier
of being feared by you if you are
believers. Surah Totoba
verse 13.
God is telling the believers that now is
the time to be courageous.
And what is courage other than a disposition
to do the right thing in the face
of fear?
However,
when it comes to the role of fear
and how it relates to the virtue of
courage,
there is a major difference between
Aristotle
and Imam al Ghazali.
For Aristotle, the epitome of courage is manifested
on the battlefield.
To be courageous for Aristotle is to control
one's fear in the face of the most
terrible of all things,
death.
He said, for it is the end and
nothing is thought to be any longer either
good or bad for the dead. Aristotle,
Nicomachean
Ethics. For Imam al Azali, however,
the greatest object of fear is not death.
It is God
and his judgment in the hereafter,
an encounter that every person will experience after
death.
Thus, with respect to the battlefield,
it is true that a man who exceeds
in fear of death is a coward
and has not acted courageously.
But death
is not the end.
Death is not the highest object of fear.
That is God. And fearing God in abundance
is praiseworthy.
There is no vice of excess in the
fear of God.
Thus, as one author said, Ghazali modifies the
philosophic notion of courage that is Aristotelian notion,
and interprets it in terms of man's encounter
with God in the hereafter
rather than his encounter with death on the
battlefield.
Imam Al Ghazali cites
a prophetic tradition
in which the prophet is reported to have
mentioned
2 types of struggles,
or jihad.
While the authenticity of this specific hadith is,
in fact, doubtful,
The meaning of the hadith is absolutely true.
On the one hand, there is the lesser
struggle,
aljihad al askhar,
which is martial and corporate, but only to
be called for by recognized and legitimate state
authorities.
On the other hand, there is the greater
struggle,
al Jihad al Akbar,
which is spiritual and individual,
an internal struggle that every Muslim
must engage.
The latter involves a perennial battle between the
aqal on one side, the rational faculty,
and the emotional and appetitive faculties
on the other. The rational faculty must subdue
the emotions and appetites of the psyche
and take them prisoner, as it were,
but it is not to kill them.
Having emotions and appetites is part of human
nature.
Controlling these elements is exactly what gives rise
to the great virtues.
Interestingly, the word apell comes from a root
which means to hobble,
confine, control,
or place under arrest.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
The quintessential
mujahed
is he who struggles against his lower self
in obedience to God,
Musnad Ahmad. Just before the Battle of Badr,
the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam held a war
council.
God commanded him in the Quran, and
consult them in affairs.
According to Imam al Razi,
the prophet was establishing
consultation or shura
as a precedent for his community.
During the council, the courage of the prophetic
companions
was on full display.
On the authority of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, or
radiAllahu anhu, on the day of Badr, Niqdad
ibn Aswad, or radiAllahu anhu, stood up and
said,
You Rasulullah,
Oh Messenger of God, we're not gonna say
to you what the Israelites said to Moses,
go you and your Lord and fight while
we sit,
but proceed
and we are with you.
Ibn
Mas'ud concluded,
That seemed to delight the Messenger of God
greatly.
Sahih al Bukhari. The companions were not only
courageous on that day, but they were also
filled
with the love of God and his messenger.
In fact, love, or mehabba for God, is
the greatest of the sifat munji'at,
or mystical virtues according to Imam al Ghazali.
It is at the top of a hierarchy
of mystical virtues that begins with toba,
repentance.
So while the cardinal virtues can be known
through reason,
the mystical virtues are known by way of
revelation.
Those who deny revelation are depriving them depriving
themselves
of the munjiat
or qualities of salvation,
while those who deny both reason and revelation
and claim that objective truth, both ethical and
theological, is somehow illusory or unattainable,
invariably end up subjugating themselves
to their emotions
and appetites.
These are the extremists,
the people out of balance.
With respect to love, here again, Imam al
Ghazali disagrees with Aristotle.
The latter maintained that love between God and
man was just not
possible because God and man are not of
the same genus.
The distance between them, the distance between the
divine and the creation, was just too great.
For Ghazali, love of God can and must
be attained in this world. God demonstrated his
love for humanity
by sending his messenger, Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
who is the means of our guidance,
a mercy sent onto all the worlds,
and the great teacher of humanity.
And love for our master, Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi
wasallam,
is a natural extension of our love for
God
Because the former is the Messenger of God.
And Ibni Abbasin,
ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him,
said, the Messenger of God, salallahu alayhi wa
sallam, said, love God for what he nourishes
you from his blessings.
Love me for the love of God,
and love the people of my house for
the love of me.
Sunan attirmidi.
Ibn Hisham reported in his book of Sira
that just before the battle of Badr, when
the companions were forming their lines for battle,
a a certain companion from the Ansar,
Sawad ibn Khazia,
was standing a bit forward.
The prophet gently tapped him on the chest
with the end of his arrow,
asking him to straighten his line up.
Sawad responded by saying, O Messenger of God,
you have hurt me and God sent you
with truth and justice,
so give me my requital.
The prophet handed Sawad his arrow,
uncovered his own chest,
and said, Take it.
At this, Sawad leaned forward
and kissed the blessed chest of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He explained his actions by saying, oh, messenger
of God,
if I should fall today in battle, this
would be the last time I would ever
see you.
So I wanted my skin to touch yours.
The prophet blessed him and supplicated for him.
At Badr, the Muslims were outnumbered 3 to
1. Yet God revealed a promise to his
messenger.
If the Muslims were patient and reverent,
their Lord would support them with 500 angels.
The Quran says,
Indeed, God made you victorious
at Badr
when you were vastly outnumbered.
So be mindful of God. Perhaps you will
be grateful.
Surah 2 Ali Imran verse 123.
According to the Quran,
Satan made the deeds of the idolaters seem
good to them, and he whispered into their
souls.
None among mankind shall overcome you today, and
I am indeed your defender.
However, when the 2 armies faced each other,
Satan turned on his heels and said to
the idolaters,
Inni bari minkum inni ara malataronah
I am free from you. Truly I see
what you cannot see. Truly, I fear God,
and God is severe in retribution.
Suratul Anfal, verse 48. According to Imam al
Razi, Satan saw the stunning sight of the
angelic hosts.
Therefore, he retreated from the battlefield,
deeming it a reckless
endeavor.
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, being the
moral exemplar,
set the precedent for his companions.
Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, said,
I remember the day of Badr when we
were seeking shelter with the messenger of God,
sallallahu alaihi sallam.
And he was the closest of us to
the enemy and the most courageous of the
people
on that day,
Musnan Ahmad. The Muslims won the battle, but
the war continued. The mushrikeen
regrouped,
and a year or so later, marched out
towards Medina
with the intention of invading the city of
the prophet, sallallahu alaihi sallam.
After consulting his companions, the prophet, sallallahu alaihi
sallam, agreed to face the invaders
outside of the city,
near the base of Mount Uhud.
The battle of Uhud also teaches us a
great lesson with respect
to courage. On the day of the battle,
the Muslim left flank was protected by 50
or so archers
led by Abdullah ibn Jubair, radiAllahu anhu,
who are posted on a small hill.
The prophet gave them specific instructions
to remain at their positions on the high
ground,
to stand their ground at all costs until
further instructions were given to them.
The Muslim right flank was protected by Jabal
Uhud itself.
And it would have taken too long for
the enemy to encircle the huge mountain.
Strategically,
the Muslims were in a perfect position
to defend the city of Medina.
However,
when a Muslim victory seemed imminent,
about 40 or so of the archers
deeming the battle to have all but ended
decided to abandon their positions
in order to pursue war spoils.
Noticing this movement
behind enemy lines,
Khaled ibn Walid and Ikrimah led the enemy
cavalry around the archer's hill and came up
behind the Muslim infantry,
slaughtering dozens of companions.
The tide of the battle
had certainly turned.
What does this have to do with courage?
According to Miskawayhi
and Avicenna
as well as Thomas Aquinas,
the virtue of patience
is one of the subordinate virtues of the
cardinal virtue of courage.
The archers who left their positions
did not allow their rational faculties
to control their spirited element.
The latter is responsible for producing desires for
victory
and honor.
It was rational to obey the messenger, the
one who receives messages from the divine
and is the recognized and undisputed moral exemplar.
Rather, they lost their patience
and decided to leave their positions
to hasten their perceived victory.
In addition to this,
patience takes courage. It requires one to suppress
fear,
fear of deprivation,
fear of poverty,
fear of missing out. The
Quran says about the incident,
God did indeed
fulfill his promise to you when you, with
his permission,
were about to annihilate your enemy
until you flinched
and fell to disputing about the order
and disobeyed it after he brought you in
sight of the spoils which you covet.
Among you are some that hanker after this
world and some that desire the hereafter.
Then did he divert you from your foes
in order to test you,
but he forgave you,
for God is full of grace to those
who believe.
Surah 2 Ali Imran, verse 152.
According to the prophetic biographers,
when the tide of the battle had turned
in favor of the idolatrous Meccans,
some of the companions panicked
and fled up Mount Uhud.
Noticing this, the prophet, salallahu alaihi wasallam, called
out to them,
To me, oh, servants of God, I am
the messenger of God. Whoever advances,
for him is paradise.
Concerning these events,
the Quran continues.
Behold, you were climbing up the high ground
without even casting a side glance at anyone,
and the messenger behind you was calling you
back.
There did God give you one distress
after distress,
by way of requital,
to teach you not to grieve for the
spoils that had escaped you and for the
ill that had befallen you, for God is
well aware of all that you do.
Surah 2'ali Imran
verse 153.
According to Imam al Tabari, the first rham
or distress that the companions suffered
was hearing the absolutely devastating rumor
that the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, had been
killed in battle.
The second gham was dealing with the sorrow
of the many casualties
of their brothers in faith,
such as Hamza and Mus'ab,
radiAllahu anhu.
Obviously, the rumor of the prophet's death greatly
encouraged the idolaters.
But when they saw that he was alive
yet injured,
they began an all out assault upon him.
Several companions
surrounded the prophet, peace be upon him, with
no concern for their own personal safety.
Their only concern was to protect the prophet
from the incoming hail of arrows and swords,
Talha, Zubayr,
Ali, Saad, Abu Urbaidah, among others.
This was not in any way reckless on
their part. Remember, courage is the spirit of
faculty held in check by reason, at the
right time, in the right place, and in
the right amount, and toward the right people.
In this specific situation,
having no fear of death and openly putting
oneself in harm's way
was, in fact, rational.
This is so because the Sahaba were fighting
ultimately for the sake of Allah
and his pleasure.
They surmised that sacrificing
themselves
while directly
protecting the physical person of God's beloved
was a reasonable act and thus an act
of courage.
They considered the hereafter,
a hereafter that is everlasting,
a hereafter which included judgment
by the King of the Universe.
This is doctor Ali Atay, faculty member at
Zetuna College. I hope you enjoyed the program
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Salaam
Alaikum