booke

550glossary of terms and conceptsTERMINARABICTRANS-LITERATIONENGLISH TRANSLATIONالتقوىal-taqw§ Piety This refers to the act of doing what is permittedand abstaining from what is prohibited, as stated inthe umm al-kit§b; it refers to human behaviour andnot to human knowledge about objective existence;there are 1) individual piety (rituals), 2) social piety(ethics, al-isl§m), and 3) public (legal) piety (legislatingwithin the limits of Allah); interference inmatters of individual piety should be prohibited.الأعرافوالأخلاقالامر بالمعروفوالنهي عنالمنكرمتاع الحياةالدنياal- a#r§fwa’l-akhl§qal-amr bi’lma#råfwa’l-nahy#an al-munkarmat§# al-Èay§hal-duny§Customs and ethicsCustoms are changeable and variable as they differfrom one social and cultural milieu to the next;ethics are the common ground of human interactionand intermundane communication and havetherefore a more comprehensive, universal character.Hence, they are directly and precisely revealedby God, while customs are, because of theirchangeable nature, only loosely mentioned.The prescription of what is right and the proscription ofwhat is wrongThis refers to the duty of human beings to (politelyand in a civilized manner) urge people to do whatis generally accepted as right and to (equallypolitely) urge them to refrain from what is generallyregarded as wrong in a given society. These thingscannot be implemented by force and coercion.The delights of this worldThese include things that human beings canlegitimately use as enjoyable products of society’shuman economy; they cannot be fixed once and forall because they are subject to changes (in humaneconomy and in what humans wish to enjoy). Thequr"§n has defined six fundamental human wishesand called them the ‘delights of this world’.النساءal-nis§" Women or those who come later The term al-nis§" carries two meanings: a) thepartners of men, i.e., women (in this case it is theplural of imra"a); and b) those who or that whichcome later (in this case it is the plural of nasÊ’). Inthe latter meaning it may refer to what is mostrecent of the delights of this world (i.e., the latestfashion); a desire for this is only natural for allhuman beings.