Contemporary Islamic Studies - Volume 2011, Issue 1

That ethics is a derivative of Divine Being itself, there is no doubt among Jews, Christians, or Muslims. But in Islam, morality is the right thing to do because it exists in the nature of God Himself! In the following brief essay, we will examine the origins and perimeters of Islamic ethics as explicated in the thought of Jamal Badawi and Majid Fakery. Though Badawi does not bother to make the distinction between “ethics” and “morals” which I have made here, namely, that “ethics” is a code of behavior and “morals” are the behavior itself. He does point out, however, that “morals can either be classified as secular or religious”. Whereas secular morality tries to establish an ethical system that is independent of both God and faith, religious morality, on the other hand, is fundamentally based on two things. First, it is the belief in God as the Creator of the universe, and second, it is the belief in life after death.

Popular treatment of ailments and illnesses based on the Qur’ān and the Sunna of the Prophet Muḥammad continue to be practised in the Muslim world owing to their religious inspiration. It is not uncommon to find shops dedicated to selling different types of honey because the Qur’ān specifies that “in it is healing for mankind” [1], or for customers to purchase black seed oil on the basis of the ḥadīth that “it is a cure for everything but death” [2,3]. The belief of being possessed by a jinn, often as a result of black magic still prevails, especially for those whose ailments conventional medicine has fallen short of curing. Healers who recite the Qur’ān are often consulted to remove the jinn and annul any spells that may have been cast. In the context of the Qur’ānic and prophetic remedies that exist, taking into consideration the growing interest in complementary medicine, ḥijāma too has gained its fair share of attention as a credible religiously-rooted form of therapy for a wide range of diseases.