How to develop kindness and increase love of others, decrease anger [Archive] - sunniforum.com - a resource for the propagation of authentic Islamic teachings

Omar HH

10-07-2004, 04:39 PM

Assalam Alaikum,

Islam is more than a bunch of rules to get to heaven and avoid hell. I have sensed that when we do something SOLEY for reward, it becomes less rewarding. For example, you make breakfast for your mother in the morning, you can care less about loving her when you do it, you just want good deeds. Or you hug your little sister at night to comfort her, but you could care less about comforting her, you should want good deeds to not goto hell.

Now I am not saying we SHOULDN'T have the hereafter in mind, astaghfirallah. I am just saying that I have noticed this.

I have also noticed that when you taste even .00001% of the sweetness of faith, and you do things to please Allah (SWT) out of kindness and love and for a reward, then things seem to make you more happy and other people more happy.

I think the one thing that stops this is anger, anger totally is the enemy. But most solutions I have read "to stop anger" are just simply "remember you'll be punished for being angry".

Probably Imam Ghazali's Ihya Illum id Deen has things in it about this. I have a translation of it, and have read parts of it.

Does anyone have any Islamic guidance for increasing kindness and loving others? I know that in Sunnipath I read an article about the hadith 'until he loves for others like he loves for himself' and they said it doesn't just mean your brothers in Islam, but all your brothers in humanity (each with a certain degree of love). I'll find it and post it later, insha'Allah.

I know that the psychologist Kohlberg wrote a book called "Moral Reasoning" I learned about it in 2 classes I took. One was on Morality in Christianity, and the other was Philosophy. He said that the very LEAST motivation of moral reasoning was "punishment/reward system" and the most was out of love.

Its a very interesting book, I recommend that most of you read it. It has alot of situations and like very very hard moral problems and it asks what to do, and its very good. I don't really like psychology much, but I loved studying the book.

Insha'Allah some of you will read it.

Jazakallah wa Khayrun.

Omar HH

10-07-2004, 04:43 PM

STAGE 1: PUNISHMENT AND OBEDIENCE:

Avoidance of physical punishment and deference to power. Punishment is an automatic response of physical retaliation. The immediate physical consequences of an action determine its goodness or badness. The atrocities carried out by soldiers during the holocaust who were simply "carrying out orders" under threat of punishment, illustrate that adults as well as children may function at stage one level.
STAGE 2: INSTRUMENTAL EXCHANGE:

Marketplace exchange of favors or blows. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Justice is: "Do unto others as they do unto you." Individual does what is necessary, makes concessions only as necessary to satisfy his own needs. Right action consists of what instrumentally satisfies one's own needs. Vengeance is considered a moral duty. People are valued in terms of their utility.

B. CONVENTIONAL MORALITY: Acceptance of the rules and standards of one's group.
STAGE 3: INTERPERSONAL CONFORMITY:

Right is conformity to the behavioral expectations of one's society or peers. Individual acts to gain approval of others. Good behavior is that which pleases or helps others within the group. "Everybody is doing it." One earns approval by being conventionally "respectable" and "nice." Sin is a breach of the expectations of the social order. Retribution, however, at this stage is collective. Individual vengeance is not allowed. Forgiveness is preferable to revenge. Punishment is mainly for deterrence. Failure to punish is "unfair." "If he can get away with it, why can't I?"
STAGE 4: LAW AND ORDER:

Respect for rules, laws and properly constituted authority. Defense of the given social and institutional order for it's own sake. Responsibility toward the welfare of others in the society. "Justice" normally refers to criminal or forensic justice. Justice demands that the wrongdoer be punished, that he "pay his debt to society," and that law abiders be rewarded. "A good day's pay for a good day's work." Injustice is failing to reward work or punish demerit. Right behavior consists of maintaining the social order for its own sake. Authority figures are seldom questioned. "He must be right. He's the Pope (or the President, or the Judge, or God)." Consistency and precedent must be maintained.
STAGE 4 ½:

Between the conventional stages and the post-conventional Levels 5 and 6, there is a transitional stage. College-age students that have come to see conventional morality as relative and arbitrary, but have not yet discovered universal ethical principles, may drop into a hedonistic ethic of "do your own thing." This was well noted in the hippie culture of the l960's. Disrespect for conventional morality was especially infuriating to the Stage 4 mentality, and indeed was calculated to be so.

C. POSTCONVENTIONAL OR PRINCIPLED MORALITY: Ethical principles
STAGE 5: PRIOR RIGHTS AND SOCIAL CONTRACT:

Moral action in a specific situation is not defined by reference to a checklist of rules, but from logical application of universal, abstract, moral principles. Individuals have natural or inalienable rights and liberties that are prior to society and must be protected by society. Retributive justice repudiated. Justice distributed proportionate to circumstances and need. "Situation ethics." The statement, "Justice demands punishment," which is a self-evident truism to the Stage 4 mind, is just as self-evidently nonsense at Stage 5. Retributive punishment is neither rational nor just, because it does not promote the rights and welfare of the individual. Only legal sanctions that fulfill that purpose are imposed-- protection of future victims, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Individual acts out of mutual obligation and a sense of public good. Right action tends to be defined in terms of general individual rights, and in terms of standards that have been critically examined and agreed upon by the whole society--e.g. the Constitution. The freedom of the individual should be limited by society only when it infringes upon someone else's freedom.
STAGE 6: UNIVERSAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES:

An individual who reaches this stage acts out of universal principles based upon the equality and worth of all human beings. Persons are never means to an end, but are ends in themselves. Having rights means more than individual liberties. It means that every individual is due consideration of his interests in every situation, those interests being of equal importance with ones own. This is the "Golden Rule" model. A list of rules inscribed in stone is no longer necessary.

At this level, God is understood to say what is right because it is right; His sayings are not right, just because it is God who said them. Persons at this level have accepted God's invitation to "come and let us reason together".