Character

Those people who have no character is acknowledged universally, at home and abroad, in business and government circles and in every sphere of social activities. Lack of character produces social imbalance and leads ultimately to national decline and disintegration. The signs of a weak character are commonly believed to be bribery, corruption and exploitation but they do not bring out the true significance of the word. For my readers definitions given by Western writers on morality and character;

1. Morality is character. Character is that which is engraved. (Soren Kierkegarard)

2. Character is the manifestation of Truth and Truth is the conformation of Appearance to Reality.(Professor Whitehead)

3. Each person should responsible in his acts and behind these actions it is their thoughts and emotions. Having a control on them which is necessary in order to assure not only harmony in his own personality but also social a harmony. (Alexander Loveday)

It's a famous saying that “Sacrifice wealth to save life and sacrifice life to save honour”. The first half of the proverb is clear. Wealth and life have their respective values and if only one of them can be saved then wealth should be sacrificed to save life. Preservation of self is an urge which every living being follows instinctively. How hard does a tiny little ant struggle against obstacles endangering its life! Man is no exception. If he sacrifices wealth for life, he follows a natural instinct and not any moral value. Doing the opposite would be devoid of sense. Harming oneself is lunacy. Thus it is clear that ife and honour have both a value but that if there is a tie between them and only one can be saved, then it is honour which should be preferred, then one who sacrifices life for safeguarding honour is universally applauded as a man of character, the other one who sacrifices honour to save life is unreservedly condemned.

Since human values vary with different societies should character mean harmonizing oneself to the values which a society might practice for the time being? In days gone by Spartans viewed theft a virtue and held the smartest thief in the high test esteem; today theft is a crime and a thief a criminal. With us conception of a virgin is a disgrace for the family, in the West sexual intercourse between willing couples is neither an evil nor a criminal offense: even homosexuality between willing parties is condoned there. Is there then no universal standard of character? People inhabiting different countries might follow different ways of life but, according to the True Islam (Muslim Religion) human values are the same anywhere and unchangeable too. It is not given, however to human intellect to determine such values. Human intellect is
essentially individualistic in character. It can seek preservation of the particular self to which it belongs either individually or collectively. Rational thought fully endorses Quranic concept (True Islam) of character. The famous writer Hastings Rashdall says; It is one absolute standard of values which is the same for all rational beings and depicting what Morality stands for.

Permanent values pertain to human as distinct from animal level of life. The Quranic term (True Islam) for the animal level of life is a level of life in which man’s vision is restricted to immediate gains. Satisfaction of physical urges is accompanied by pleasure which the Holy Quran would not discard. However if it’s a tie occur between physical urge and a human value. Then the one who sacrifices the latter for the former is not a man of character; if he does the opposite then the action would be acclaimed as laudable character.
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