CATEGORIES OF ACTIONS AND VALUES
According to Islamic Law, the Lawgiver, that is, God, has made a demand upon human beings in five categories:wajib
orfard
(obligatory),mandub
(recommended),haram
(forbidden),makruh
(abominable), andmubah
or halal (permissible). Each of these categories possesses nuances and subdivisions into which we cannot go here. Just to cite one example,wajib
orfard
can involve the individual (‘ayni
) or the collectivity (kafa’i
). The daily prayers arewajib ‘ayni
, incumbent upon each and every individual, while building orphanages and hospitals is obligatory upon the community as a whole (wajibkafa’i
) and not on a particular person.
Obligatory injunctions include the “pillars of Islam,” or the rites to which we shall turn later, and taking good care of one’s health to the extent possible. They also include supporting one’s family, feeding the hungry, and paying the dowry of one’s wife. Recommended(mandub)
acts are not required, but are pleasing in the eyes of God and bring reward in the Hereafter. Such acts are called acts of rectitude and bring with them reward from God(thawab)
.
They include acts of nonobligatory charity, for example, building a school or mosque, performing extra prayers, and following the example of the Prophet in personal matters recommended but not required by theShari‘ah
.
The category of the forbidden (haram
) includes all acts the commission of which is punishable and the omission of which is rewarded. This includes all the “Thou shalt not” injunctions in the Ten Commandments such as murder, adultery, and theft as well as others such as the eating of pork, the drinking of blood, use of alcoholic beverages, usury, gambling, marrying two sisters at the same time, and looking at the private parts of others (excluding one’s spouse). This category covers a wide range from moral and ethical issues to practical dietary matters.
Something is abominable(makruh)
if omitting it is better than performing it, and this category is the opposite of what is recommended(mandub)
. The person who commits an act that ismakruh
cannot be punished by law, but the person who avoids themakruh
gains merit with God.
Something such as divorce, which is permitted but considered to be “the most abominable of permitted things” in the sight of God, ismakruh
. Another example is the wearing of gold and silk by men. There are alsomakruh
acts in the economic field, such as making an offer to buy something for which another person has already made an offer.
Finally, the permissible, ormubah
, pertains to any act a person has the equal option of performing or not performing.
The most obvious case is that of consumption of food that the Quran andSunnah
consider to be permissible to Muslims. Also, a sinful act committed under necessity can become permissible andmubah
An example of this would be eating a carcass of a dead animal when one is dying of hunger and has no other means of nourishment. In general any act that does not belong to one of the other four categories is permissible, provided it does not cause harm.
Since many Muslims now live in the West, the term halal has practically entered into everyday English vocabulary.
This fact necessitates elucidating somewhat further how the category of halal pertains to dietary regulations, although of course this category is far from limited to these matters.
Like Judaism and Hinduism and in contrast to Christianity, Islam has dietary regulations that have a religious basis and are a means of sanctifying everyday life. Islamic dietary laws are not as complicated as those of Hinduism and Judaism, but they share some elements with the latter. Like Jews, Muslims refrain from eating products of the swine, whether flesh or grease derived from the flesh. And also like Jews, they eat only certain animals, such as cows, sheep, birds, and so on, but on condition that they have been killed ritually and in the Name of God. For Christians the sacrifice of Christ removed the necessity of the ritual slaughter of animals in order that their meat might be consumed, but not for Jews and Muslims. What is called kosher meat in Judaism corresponds closely to halal meat in Islam. Muslims also refrain from the use of any alcoholic beverages, not because they are chaotic in their very substance like the flesh of swine (the swine is envisaged by both Judaism and Islam from the point of view of ritual purity for human beings and in light of what it consumes as an animal), but because, as the Quran says, its harmful effects outweigh its positive ones. The Quran speaks of the pure wine the virtuous shall taste in Paradise, and wine as a symbol of realized knowledge of God combined with love for Him plays a central role in Sufi poetry.
Some in the West have claimed that the Shari‘ite division of acts into five categories destroys the spontaneity of religious life and reduces it to a mechanical exercise without grace. Nothing could be further from the truth for either Islam or other religions with similar views of Sacred Law, such as Hinduism and Judaism. The Shari‘ite categories are so many signposts along the road of life, but men and women still have to travel on this road and in every step there is the tension between the good and the evil tendencies of the soul, between what Simone Weil called gravity and grace. The drama of human existence and the tremendous responsibility that having free will entails for the human being are not in any way diminished by any Sacred Law, but are enacted and lived in each religious universe according to the principles and norms dominating that universe.
But the drama within the soul is nevertheless there for all religious beings whether they are Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Confucians, or followers of one of the primal religions. TheShari‘ah
for Muslims neither destroys that drama nor removes human responsibility before God and one’s own conscience. Rather, it provides the framework for the religious life of the individual and the community and sanctifies daily life.
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Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
