The Good Or The Moral Element (12)

Because divorce in Islam cannot be considered an absolutely permitted or an indifferent act. The Prophet had affirmed: “Among the things tolerated, the act which God mostly detests is the rupture of marriage”.

Thus, the Qur’an explains the messages of the Prophets and justifies them by joining together and synthesizing their works. We believe that we find in this unity of the variety and in this manner of admitting in the bosom of the moral law several degrees more or less meritorious, one of the very important factors by which the Islamic doctrine had been able to spread to a considerable part of humanity. It has also sheltered, under one orthodoxy, so various ideas, tendencies and characters that neither an abstract and intransigent rigorism nor an excessively inert tolerance could satisfy.

By indicating this conciliatory method of the Qur’an, we have broached at the same time the subject which forms the purport of its teaching.

However, the Qur’an does not stop here.

If its first aim is to safeguard and to consolidate the moral inheritance bequeathed by the previous Revelation, there is another mission no less precious, which the Qur’an also should fulfil. It is, as the Prophet said, to complete, to achieve, to crown the divine edifice which the Prophets before him had little by little erected. The Prophet says: “I've been sent for completing, crowning and putting the finishing touches on the divine building which the Prophets had elevated little by little before me.

"إنما بعثت لأتمم مكارم الأخلاق"، "مثلى ومثل الأنبياء كرجل بنى بيتاً"  

The Qur’an itself confirms this fact when it says: “Verily this Qur’an guides that which is most just and right”. (XVII, 9). What is new and progressive in the moral teaching of the Qur’an?

At the level of the individual moral, we find a new rule and a new principle in the Qur’an.

The rule is the prohibition of alcoholism and the destruction of its sources by the suppression of any use of intoxicating drink,

“O you who believe! Intoxicants (all kinds of alcoholic drinks) and gambling, and Al-Ansab, and Al-Azlâm (arrows for seeking luck or decision) are an abomination of Shaitan's (Satan) handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful. * Shaitan (Satan) wants only to excite enmity and hatred between you with intoxicants (alcoholic drinks) and gambling and hinder you from the remembrance of Allâh and from As-Salât (the prayer). So will you not then abstain?” (V, 90-1).