Document Type : .
Authors
1 Member of Academic Board, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Tehran
2 Ma Student, Faculty of Theology and Islamic studies, University of Tehran
Abstract
The chief enemy to human happiness and righteousness is the egoistical soul and its desires. The soul gathers disgraceful behaviors; however, if a human being strives to fight desires, he can find his true self and enter a higher spiritual station. Hence, the fight against the soul and shying away from lustful desires are necessary conditions for growing a human ethic. At the same time, the diversity with which desires manifest themselves in human beings makes the fight difficult. Desires are in contradistinction with practical reason. The desires of the soul forbid the stirring of practical reason. The soul’s desires also impede upon theoretical reason in such ways that human beings can sometimes perceive, mistakenly, the false as true and hence be driven towards infidelity. In the logic of the Quran, all sins have their source in the soul and its desires and the source of all shameful attributes is infidelity. Listening to one’s desire is a form of associationism with the lord. Hence, scholars of ethics say that a seeker must first empty oneself from his ugly behaviors in order to receive praiseful attributes which are then eventually transformed into virtues.
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