Every Age has Its Morals
The morals Imam Ali referred to, therefore, are those that change and are reflected in daily relations and manners, and every new horizon. We find that in the past man had limited horizons. People's values were limited to their lives and to working in order to reach particular, limited ends. But life has expanded, and with it knowledge. Changed also are the ways of instruction and the benefits. Thus, the Imam wanted to say, You must be aware that temporal values change with time, to prepare the future for your children, that you may mold them for the ethics of that future time and that they will not be out of tune with their time and place. The Imam did not mean the methods people invented, no matter how little they are in keeping with the limits imposed by God (Exalted). For there are types of clothing which are not harmonious with decency. This changed value may thus clash with an immutable precept. There is no way, for example, for us to agree on women's fashions in public, since even where they direr from the changing issues in actuality, they clash with established morals.
The Imam's position had to do with ethics that change, being the result of the normal course of life which brings difference and development-on the condition that temporal values do not clash with immutable, established morals.
The Desired Balance in the Life of the Youth
During the stage of youth, there is an inclination either towards frivolity, game playing, and horseplay, or to drowning in spirituality and worship. How do we balance these two extremes?
Every stage of life needs proper balancing through a personal process of harmonizing bodily needs with ideals. The person who drowns himself in the one or the other may either be a believer overcome by faith, which draws him to spiritual immersion; else his base instincts may pervade over him and pulls him to sport and frivolity
Therefore, one must contemplate his affiliations, and those involved in the field of education must work towards directing the youth to reach a level of balance in the material and spiritual dimensions. If we wish to deal with the spiritual dimension in someone's personality, we must stress a spirituality which does not distance itself from the physical aspect in the existential outlook of the person. This is because the physical dimension has in its core some aspects of spirituality. By the same token, the spirit cannot manifest itself without some external form, which makes the balance between the physical and the spiritual, something dictated by both dimensions.
Life is Body and Spirit
Those who immerse themselves completely in the physical dimension can achieve material satisfaction in themselves only by opening up to some form of spirituality. We find, therefore, that when someone wants to eat, he chooses a place where the atmosphere is pleasing both mentally and spiritually; he goes to the green plains, beside running water, or the mountains. And there are those who try to have a musical atmosphere or some such agreeable milieu. The ambiance which a person tries to create around him when tending to his physical needs reflects a spiritual condition. His material needs then do not satisfy his spiritual yearning, nor appease his hunger; rather he must add to them some extra-material essence, which we may consider as spiritual.
From this perspective, then, a person cannot be without some spiritual dimension in his physical being. Nor can he be without some physical dimension in his spiritual being. When he wishes to pray to God he uses his mind, his tongue, his hands, and his entire body because his spiritual condition must be manifested in reified form. Whoever wishes to be spiritual must be physical, and whoever wishes to be physical must accept the spiritual.
How to Achieve Proper Balance
In its innermost depths, life contains a spiritual capacity. And spirituality has at its core a physical capacity, which makes the possibility of balance easy for a counselor, since he can use life-experience as a means to explain the balance between higher and lower issues.
By this last reference, I mean that which pertain to God and the hereafter, on the one hand, and to worldly life, on the other. This is what we note in the Quranic instruction: "Our Lord, Give us the good of this life and the good of the hereafter!" (al-Baqarah, 2:201). Elsewhere the Quran states: "Seek that which God has provided for you in the abode of the hereafter, and do not forget your share in this world" (al-Qasas, 28:77). This is also reflected in a hadith: "He who gives up his [earthly] world for the [otherworldly] abode is not one of us, and he who surrenders his [otherworldly] abode for his [earthly] world is not one of us."
We can relate to the issue from both an ideational perspective and the cultural admonition to cultivate a proper balance between the spiritual and the physical, to permit the person to deal with his instincts and impulses within the parameters of the permissible (halal). He can likewise deal with his spirituality within the parameters of reality.
Special Aspects of Girl's Education
In the majority of cases, parents find great difficulty in rearing their daughters; what are the special aspects of this nurturing?
We need to understand that a girl is as much a human being as a male or a son, and it is essential that we nurture her humanness in a way which does not oppress her spirit, and which does not make her feel that her conduct is always suspect, or that she must always defend her behavior every moment or in every situation-as if she were besieged by others' observations.
Traditionally, nurturing has rested on the principle that the girl represents either [collective] vice or [collective] virtue, and that she is to be protected from the males, and that we must put her in a closed box to which only the father and the brother have the key. Whenever someone commits lewd acts, Islam views that as an individual flaw; when the girl commits a lewd act, it is her own blemish. The family does partake of this fault. When a boy commits a lewd act, it is the boy who is blemished, not the family-for the breach is his alone, not the family's.
We must, therefore, raise the girl to know that she is a person with her own wants and desires in life, and there is a path for her which God has designed, one that unfolds as she observes the limits of her spirit, body, mind, and conduct-exactly the same way we must raise the boy.
The Problem of Repression
The problem of discriminating between boy and girl represents a dilemma for the girl. She suffers from the repression of her humanness, by assuming responsibility for the family's collective virtue in a manner which is not expected of the boy. Doubtful and accusing glances surround her whenever she goes out, in her relations or her habit in ways to which the boy is not subjected.
This kind of rearing is incorrect. Virtue is an Islamic requirement equally of the male and the female. Individually, chastity is equally required from the boy and the girl. Maybe the weakness of the female, compared with the strength of the male, presents us with the problem of strengthening the girl in her wants. This precludes favoring the requests of others before hers, that she may strengthen her personality and morals, and become better able to withstand enticements and perversities.
The Successful Wife and Righteous Mother
We have to educate the girl how to be a successful wife and righteous mother, just as we must raise the boy to be a successful husband and righteous father. This is because God (Exalted) did not differentiate between male and female in righteous deeds, just as He did not differentiate unrighteous deeds. He made the penalty the same for a male thief as for a female thief, the male and the female fornicator. In fact, He made All Muslims, men and women, equal; believing men and believing women; upright men and upright women; and such other classifications as are denoted in Surat al Ahzab.
From this, we understand that God did not tax the woman in her morality any more than He did the man. He did not warn the woman more than He did the man. If then we want our education to follow the proper method, we must follow the guidelines of the Shariah, and the concepts established by Islam which treat men and women equally.
Machismo is not Manhood
Machismo and Toughness, in the life of the youths, is associated with virility, self-assertion, flexing of muscle, and competing with their peers. . How can we correct this situation in the prime of their youth?
In order to change a warped situation, we must first change the concept of the issues which suggests corruption, and from there change the course of the situation in another direction where no negative can result.
When we speak of the machismo of manhood, which a youth may use to assert his masculinity and strength, we find that through naive and impetuous actions he may commit aggression. Examples are showing off his muscles in front of others, attacking those who are weaker than him, committing crimes that yield some small reward and give him certain pleasure. All these actions are typical of adolescents.
In this regard, then, it is possible to suggest to youths that manhood is not connected to aggression, criminal activity, or showing off. These personal traits are likely to depend on personal strength. They are associated with "manhood" in a context that gives the term a meaning that is far from functional, just as physical strength is associated with manhood. This is because it is not important that a man should be physically strong or weak where strength is taken in its apparent meaning i.e., whatever appears in terms of shapes and colors. The important thing is that physical strength be integrated with the spiritual strength, political strength, and a society which enriches the meaning of manhood, putting it on a higher level.
Upbringing focused on a line of reasoning for youths, with respect to their perceptions of strength, may fill the void for whoever is seeking to fill it, and prevent distortion in the opposite direction, beyond the religious suggestions that may assist the Muslim youth to overcome any aggressive feeling he may have. We must, therefore, suggest to the Muslim youth that the physical strength he uses against the weak is actually a condition of weakness in self-will, before Satan; that it may lead to vulnerability in his hereafter, when he will face the punishment of God on the Day of Judgment.
This is understood from some verses of the Quran which show that patience is one of the best attributes, as in "Be patient in what afflicts you; truly that is the most steadfast of affairs" (Luqman, 31:17). This, too, can be understood from the saying of the Holy Prophet: "The strong is not identified through wrestling; the strong is he who controls himself when he is angry."
From the Shariah viewpoint, when exactly does Islam permit one to emigrate to a non-Islamic or Western country?
Islam does not, as a matter of principle, prevent any person from traveling to any country in the world. As a matter of fact, it may sometimes be obligatory for one to leave the country if staying there subjects one to the tyrants who hold authority over people there, in such a way that it leads to corruption in thought and practice, causing one to be their organ and an oppressor of the people. In this case, it is not permitted for the person to remain in the country. This is what God means when He says: "As for those whom the angels cause to die while they wrong themselves, the [the angels] shall say: What was their situation? They said: We were oppressed in the land. The [angels] said: Was the earth not wide enough for you to emigrate [elsewhere] in it? The abode of those is hellfire. What a horrible ending! Except those who are weak and oppressed from the men, women and children, who have not in their power the means and are not shown a way [to escape]. For them there is hope that God will forgive for God is Clement, the Forgiving. (al-Nisa, 4:97-99)
We see in these two verses that staying in the lands of the non-believers which oppress the mind and the body is forbidden, except for those who have no means or cannot find a way to travel from that land to another place. In the light of this, emigration is not something on which Islam has adopted a negative sense. On the contrary, Islama may take a positive view of it. These are the words of God: "Whoever emigrates in the way of God finds haven in the earth, plentiful and spacious" (al-Nisa, 4:100).
This means that when a person is living under harsh circumstances which dictate that he become corrupted in his country, or go to another, then it is normal in such a situation to flee from his country with his religion-but he must not flee with his religion to fall into a situation that is worse.
