Universal Islamic Ethical

Values

Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and

Humanities, Riphah International University Islamabad, Pakistan
Email : life.living@riphah.edu.pk
Contact # +92- 320-7863888
Objectives of the Lecture

 Unity (Tawhid)
 Equity, Justice, Fairness (‘Adl)
Evolution of Ethical Values in the East
and the West Ethical Norms
and values

Social Habits
and Behavior

Local Customs
and Traditions
The Islamic Paradigm

Divine Guidance
or Wahi

Universal Values

Ethical social change

Universal Values

 The Quranic sociology does not accept local, tribal, regional or territorial
origin of ethical values.

 Ethical values in Islam are Universal, Absolute and Divine; they are not
Relative, Particular, Temporal, Intuitive, Mystical or Personal.
Ethics in the Islamic Context

 Ethics, in the Islamic context, means principled human action,

motivated and guided by the Divine Guidance (hidayah, wahi)
and the model behavior of the Final Prophet (pbuh).

 Human actions are not supposed to be meaningless (‘abath),

but based on good (ma’ruf), virtue (birr), and permissible
(halal) therefore essentially ethical. If otherwise, such actions
will fall in the category of negative and bad (munkar), sinful
(sa’iyah), undesirable (makruh) and prohibited (haram).
Primary Islamic Universal Ethical Values

Unity in Life
(tawhid)

Equity, Justice, Fairness (‘adl)

Protection and Promotion of Life (nafs)

Protection of Reason (‘aql)

Preservation of Religio-Cultural Freedom (din)

Protection and Dignity of Gene (nasl)

Protection of Property (mal)
1. Tawhid in Universe
 Unity in life & universe which functions under certain laws.
 Who set those laws, universe has a uniformity & unity.
 Tawhid is not confined to human unity and behavior, but it also envelops the unity
in Cosmos.

 “Had there been any gods in the heavens and the earth apart from Allah, the order
of both the heaven and the earth would have gone to ruins…” (al-Anbia 21:22)
It demands that if the universe has uniformity and
human life has a uniformity then a society should
also have uniformity.
Society shouldn’t have different ideologies which
take people a part rather one ideology which bring
them together.
Tawhid as an ideology should reflect in their
behaviour and actions believing in one God.
As a professional the purpose of adopting my
profession is only earning money not else then I am
not Tawhidic person.
Tawhid’s application is not only in Masjid, but this is
a principle which inspires the ethical behaviour and
human conduct.
 1.1 Tawhid in Personal Life

“Say: Do you serve, instead of Allah, that which has no power either to harm or benefit
you whereas Allah alone is All Hearing, All Knowing”
(al-Ma‘idah 5:76)

“Do not call upon any apart from Allah, upon those who have no power to benefit or
hurt you…”
(Yunus 10:106)