Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Map
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The elements of the duty of forbidding wrong
- 3 How is wrong to be forbidden?
- 4 When is one unable to forbid wrong?
- 5 What about privacy?
- 6 The state as an agent of forbidding wrong
- 7 The state as an agent of wrongdoing
- 8 Is anyone against forbidding wrong?
- 9 What was forbidding wrong like in practice?
- 10 What has changed for the Sunnīs in modern times?
- 11 What has changed for the Imāmīs in modern times?
- 12 Do non-Islamic cultures have similar values?
- 13 Do we have a similar value?
- Index
8 - Is anyone against forbidding wrong?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Map
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The elements of the duty of forbidding wrong
- 3 How is wrong to be forbidden?
- 4 When is one unable to forbid wrong?
- 5 What about privacy?
- 6 The state as an agent of forbidding wrong
- 7 The state as an agent of wrongdoing
- 8 Is anyone against forbidding wrong?
- 9 What was forbidding wrong like in practice?
- 10 What has changed for the Sunnīs in modern times?
- 11 What has changed for the Imāmīs in modern times?
- 12 Do non-Islamic cultures have similar values?
- 13 Do we have a similar value?
- Index
Summary
Ghazzālī's account of forbidding wrong is marked at some points by a degree of enthusiasm. But as we saw, if we turn instead to his discussion of the advantages of the solitary life (ʿuzla), we encounter a quite different tone. One of its advantages, he tells us, is that the solitary is not exposed to situations in which he incurs the duty of forbidding wrong. This duty is an exigent and onerous one. You fall into sin if you ignore it and keep silent; but if you do not, you are likely to end up in the position of someone who tries to prop up a wall that is keeling over – when it falls on you, you wish you had left it alone.
Ghazzālī is not alone in pricking the bubble of enthusiasm. When the Companion ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd (d. 652f.) is confronted with the view that one who does not command right and forbid wrong is damned (halaka), he replies that this is rather the fate of one who fails to approve of right and disapprove of wrong in his heart. A similar mood is encapsulated in a dialogue between the ascetic Bishr al-Ḥāfī and a certain Ṣāliḥ:
Bishr: Ṣāliḥ, is your heart strong enough for you to speak out?
Ṣāliḥ (after a silence): Bishr, do you command right and forbid wrong?
Bishr: No.
Ṣāliḥ: And why not?
Bishr: If I'd known you would ask that, I wouldn't have answered you.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Forbidding Wrong in IslamAn Introduction, pp. 83 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003