Islamic Ethics, IIUM,UIAM

1. Human Behavior:
Interaction of Nature and
Nurture
Dr. Fatimah Abdullah
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA
KULIYYAH OF ISLAMIC REVEALED KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN SCIENCES

2. Introduction
Secular
humanistic
outlook
Islam
• Immoral behavior as being
predetermined by psychological or
biological factors e.g. behaviorism,
homosexuality due to genes.
• Man is responsible for deciding his
own code of behaviour.
• Faith and education as crucial
channels for changing human
character and behaviour and
moulding a balanced personality.
• Code of behaviour from Allah.

3. Modern controversy of heredity versus environment:
Is it science or philosophy?
SECULAR VIEW
• Debate of nature vs. nurture
1. Modern research using new techniques but based on secular humanism
• Watson’s argument:“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and
my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take
one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might
select…doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-
man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies,
abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors” (Watson1924, p. 104).
• Man is fully at the mercy of his environment.
• Negates the existence of any unchanging religious or moral values or
any permanent qualities in human nature.

4. 2. Hereditarianism: man is an animal propelled by his biology to adapt
himself to new situations.
• supported in discoveries in etiology of inherited disorders e.g.
association of an extra chromosome 21 with Down's syndrome,
metabolic disorder with phenylketonuria (PKU).
• Two methods used to achieve this ‘biologistic’ end:
I. Reductionism:
⁻ explains the world of human individuals and societies in
terms of the smaller units which make them e.g. nature of
man and his actions should be understood in terms of the
biochemical properties of the cells, and ultimately genes,
that make him.
⁻ Some psychiatrists: “Behind any twisted idea there is a
twisted molecule in the brain.”
⁻ Hence we keep reading in journals and popular media about
the discovery of a gene or for happiness or criminality
II. Biological determinism.

5. 3. Genetics has been used to justify racial prejudice against blacks and
disadvantaged people.
– H.J. Eyscenk, the famous British psychologist quotes a similarly
prejudiced colleague, Jensen (Colman, 1987):
“The myth of racial equality, while more acceptable in principle to any
liberal and well-meaning person than its opposite, is still a myth:
there is no scientific evidence to support it. Indeed, as Jensen has
pointed out, the a priori probability of such a belief is small. ‘...Nearly
every anatomical, physiological, and biochemical system investigated
shows racial differences. Why should the brain be an exception?’”
• THUS:
– People released from the moral responsibility for what religious and
global values have always considered as bad
– moral decisions is responsibility of the people in the here and now
and not that of a wise God who rewards and punishes in the
Hereafter.
– freedom to clone oneself, rent a uterus or kill or assist in killing any
person whose life is depressed by an inherited or acquired etc.

6. ISLAMIC VIEW
1. Influence of heredity
• Islamic sciences: no conflict between nature and nurture.
• Genetics is not the sole factor in molding one’s character traits,
both nature and nurture are the creation of God.
• The Prophet (PBUH) explained the role of genetics in determining
physicality when he replied to a question about how the growing
newborn at times looks like the mother and other times like the father.
• Another Hadith (authenticated by Bukhari, Hadith No. 4893): a man was
disturbed and suspicious that his wife had given birth to a black child
although both he and his wife were fair in colour.
• Other ahadith confirmed genetic transmission of character or inner
disposition. MizÉn al-Ñamal, 100, 111, Prophet (s.a.w) said: Choose the
place for your sperm since the hereditary (al-‘irq) inclines to its
descendents (nazzÉ’).
• Hadith about Almunthir Alashja’ (authenticated by Abu Dawud)
explained how heredity can even influence the psychological personality
traits that scholars often attribute solely to environmental influences.

7. 2. Influence of Environment
• A strong influencing environment can overcome a hereditary
predisposition.
• For example, in a famous Hadith on inherited predisposition of a
child (authenticated by Bukhari, Hadith No. 1296) the Prophet asserts
that environment can take the major role in influencing human
behaviour and beliefs.
• Of interest to note that some modern scientists like Dr. Herbert
Benson refer to a similar inherited predisposition.
“Perhaps this tendency of humans to worship and believe was rooted
in our physiology, written in our genes, and encoded in our very
makeup. Perhaps it is what distinguishes us from other life forms, this
innate desire to believe and to practice our beliefs. Perhaps
instinctively, human beings had always known that worshipping a
higher power was good for them. … The notion that humans might be
wired for God seemed to me to be so beyond the realm of traditional
scientific study that, as exhilarated as I was about the possibility of its
being true, I was also immediately fearful “ (1996).

8. 3. The interaction between Nature and Nurture
• Both nature and nurture play major role in shaping one’s character traits.
• Al-GhazÉlÊ and Miskawayh: the role of nurture, including the environmental
and educational factors are vital in character formation.
• Al-GhazÉlÊ:
– Did not deny the role of genetics.
– Stressed on the concept of virtues, through studying man’s disposition.
– Highlighted that human character is not destined but changeable.
– If character could not be changed then the whole message of the
teaching of Islam and its preaching would be futile (al-GhazzÉlÊ, 1987).
• Islam emphasizes on the influence of learning and environment more than
heredity.
emotional temperaments are partly
innate and partly inherited from early
life, they are not fixed attributes.
they are simply learned habits
that can directly be unlearnt and
treated by conditioning.
Modern conception of human character

9. 4. Influence of spiritual dimension
Personality:
qualities that
make up
human
character.
• West: The notion
of a person being
charismatic, a
celebrity or socially
attractive
• But universal laws
(notions of khalÊfah,
freedom and
responsibility, faculty
of reason and fitrah)
are the dimensions
that contribute to
the development of
personality.
• Muslim scholars :
When the soul is
united with the
body, the spiritual
subtlety assumes
different names
according to its
activities in the
body, namely the
qalb, the rËÍ, the
Ñaql and the nafs.

10. • Al-Ghazzali : Traditional Interaction Theory, Concept of Balance(Wasï)
of The Faculties of the Soul or Theory of Means
– Personality is the integration of spiritual and bodily forces.
– Body is the home of soul and the soul is greater than the body.
– Every act produces an effect on the soul if it is done deliberately and
repeatedly.
– All perception, emotion, motivation and consequently behaviour
depend on the qalb . Qualitative efforts done at the spiritual level
affects behaviour.
– Spiritual levels: al-nafs al-ammarah, al-nafs al- lawwamah and al-nafs
muÏma’inah.
– “When dissociation occurs between the nafs and the qalb, it results in
destructive behavior with all is barbaric and inhuman practices, i.e.
man leads the life of an animal, without a moral basis.”
– Degree of relationship between nafs and qalb depends on the religious
enlightenment.

11. • Islamic theory of the spiritual levels of the human being :
– Great differences between Freudian and the Islamic theory.
– At the level of the nafs al-lawwÉmah and nafs al-muÏma´innah, a
person has direct relationship with his Creator; God is the highest goal
to the true Muslims.
– The status of human being depends on the cultivation of the qalb. The
Prophet (PBUH) said:
“within man there is fleshly fragment and when it is corrupted the body
is corrupt, and when it is sound the body is sound.”
– The qalb is the means to salvation, al-MuÍÉsibÊ
“from the heart, therefore, proceed both sins and righteousness, and
according to its purity and impurity, so will man attain to salvation or
perdition.”
– Treatment is ‘psycho-synthesis’: “mediation of dhikr, tasbÊÍand the Îalat
for mental stability and for curing the mentally ill.”
– Man’s psycho-spiritual development and his quest for self-actualization
requires training in stages (84;19) through self-purification (tazkiyat al-
nafs).

12. Fitrah
• Though learning and experience influence the development of noble
behaviour, spiritually has deep roots in the very nature of being human.
• God has ingrained a Covenant in the hearts of man in the form of fiÏrah.
• He has also sent His Messengers to admonish people and show them the
right path of submission.
• Evidence for fitrah to know God and worship Him but that man chooses
disbelief and ingratitude to God because of external factors:
(Of this We remind you) lest you say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Truly,
we are unaware of this”, or lest you say,” Truly it was our forefathers in
times gone by who began to ascribe divinity to other beings besides
God, and we were only their offspring. Will You then destroy us for the
doing of those inventors of falsehoods?” (al-A‘rÉf (7): 172-173)
“Am I not your Lord?” God asked the congregated souls of all human
beings and they all chorused: “Yes indeed, You are our Lord” (al-A‘rÉf (7):
172). God then warned them to shun evil environments which may
cause them to forget this oath and succumb to ingratitude and disbelieve
(al-FurqÉn (25): 43; al-A‘rÉf (7): 176; al-Kahf (18): 28; al-QaÎaÎ (28): 50).

13. • FiÏrah : God-given innate state or inclination to believe in God and to
worship Him.
• It is the natural constitution with which a child is created in his mother's
but it could also mean the truth of the shahÉdah, which expresses
tawÍÊd.
• Ability to know the One God and to discern between right and wrong.
• Distinct from the human faculty of reason and intellect.
• Ibn Taymiyyah:
– Also asserts that every child is born in the state of fiÏrah.
– FiÏrah is not only a latent potential, which should be awakened from
without but also the source of awakening itself, within the
individual.
• Islam is also called dÊn al-fiÏrah
• FiÏrah is in fact, sunnat Allah;the creation of AllÉh (khalq-AllÉh) and al-
DÊn al-Qayyim (the ever-true, incorruptible religion)
• Fitrah affirms that man has an originally good nature

14. • Man’s spiritual or mental nature is structured in a way, which makes it
necessary for its well being that man believes in God and be moral
• Naquib Al-Attas: “Submission to it brings harmony, for it means
realization of what is inherent in one’s true nature; opposition to it
brings discord, for it means realization of what is extraneous to one’s
true nature.”
• Divergence from the dÊn al-fiÏrah is the natural result of man as
individual as well as socio-moral agent in not realizing his freedom in
the real sense.
• This separation is not because of inherent evil but due to elements of
intellect and freedom of choice.
• Al-GhazzÉlÊ: heart (qalb) comes from the word qallaba, which means
to turn something around or change its rotary movement.
• ×adÊth states that the heart of the believer (mu’min) is held between
two fingers of God al-RaÍmÉn; He turns it around as He wishes.
• It is a moral duty upon man to have good character through learning
and habituation to reach the ultimate goal: happiness.

15. Conclusion
• Genetics is not the sole factor in molding one’s character traits.
• Human character is not destined
• The emotional and biological impulses of man are not inherently evil,
but are readily susceptible to evil influences.
• They need to be controlled and directed to the right path:
Discipline Self-purification/
refinement
Fulfillment of
moral and
religious duties
Harnessed
desires