Justice2006:
Once people know all these, then they can move further and see whether the view/definition of the sublime morality that you have in your mind is in fact/indeed the sublime morality. And during the debate all will be on the same page whenever you mention/use these terms (i.e morality, a sublime morality and the sublime morality) Otherwise:
you may have a specific standard of measuring a morality and others may have something else and the end result would be like the five different descriptions of those five blind people who were asked to describe what an elephant look-like when they were given a chance to touch only a certain part of an elephant. And from their end results you would never be able to construct/visualise a true rendering of an elephant.
I was actually making a comment about the claim in ayat 68:4 when I used the phrase ‘sublime morality’, and the oft-repeated Muslim claim that Muhammad possessed ‘sublime morality’.
I gather you’re going to say the Islamic sense of morality is different from that of other people’s, thus we have to define even an unremarkable word like morality in order to achieve common ground to begin discussion.
Why don’t we use this definition of morality from Stanford?
The term “morality” can be used either
- descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
a. some other group, such as a religion, or
b. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
- normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
I’ll make it easy for you: I’ll let you pick the particular definition.
You see… it doesn’t matter whether you choose a definition of morality specific to Muslims, or one that is applicable to all rational persons. We draw our own conclusions as to your morality based on ours. You might well and truly argue that a 53 year old man having sex with a 9 year old child is PERFECTLY MORAL AND ACCEPTABLE to Muslim societies. In other words, according to Muslim Morality it is perfectly acceptable for a middle-aged to old man to have sex with a child. I would heartily accept that and congratulate you on your perspicaciousness. In fact, I hope you’ll be able to achieve this.
So, to be fair to you. I will allow you to chose any definition of morality you please. You could even pick 68:4 as a starting point and tell us what the ‘sublime morality’ there means.
وانك لعلى خلق عظيم
Wa-innaka laAAala khuluqin AAatheemin
Literal And that you are on (E) great nature/character.
Yusuf Ali And thou (standest) on an exalted standard of character.
Pickthal And lo! thou art of a tremendous nature.
Arberry surely thou art upon a mighty morality.
Shakir And most surely you conform (yourself) to sublime morality.
Sarwar You have attained a high moral standard.
Khalifa You are blessed with a great moral character.
Hilali/Khan And verily, you (O Muhammad SAW) are on an exalted standard of character.
Malik You are of the highest noble character.[4]
QXP For, verily, you are of the noblest moral character!
Maulana Ali And surely thou hast sublime morals.
Free Minds And you are of a high moral character.
Now that the preamble is completed, can we begin?
Hasta luego,
Cid.
