The Idea of Happiness in the Qur’an
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Happiness in Qur’anic ethics
The desire for happiness is a natural desire, and both the Greek and Islamic philosophers agree that happiness is the final end, but they differ as to what this end is and how it should be achieved. A key question that philosophers pose is whether virtues are sufficient for happiness, or whether they require external goods such as health, wealth, and friends for the fulfillment of happiness. We know from experience that a passionate attachment to external goods such as wealth and material possessions can be harmful to human life. However, we cannot also dismiss the idea that these external goods are necessary to contribute to our well-being and to the nurturing of virtue.
It should, furthermore, be borne in mind that the ethical philosophy of the Qur’an is not purely intellectual, but that it is bound up with a diagnosis of human suffering and an intuitive conception of human flourishing. Islamic ethicists, therefore, in their attempt to grapple with human suffering, try to articulate a mode of living in the world. They do not simply philosophize about ethics for the sake of academic pleasure. They propose a theory of immoderate desire that they believe to be the root cause of human ailments, whether physical, psychological, or spiritual in nature. Contemporary moral philosophy has much to learn from Islamic philosophical wisdom if it wishes to move beyond the academy and take its place in the daily life of human beings. In reading the works of the eleventh-century Islamic ethicists such as al-Isfahani and al-Ghazali, one finds that their philosophical-literary style engages the reader’s entire soul in a way that an abstract and impersonal ethical prose treatise does not.
About The Author
