"From a Quranic perspective, only those deeds that are accompanied by belief in God, His prophets, His revelations, and His angels can truly be called good or righteous. Thus the phrase perform righteous deeds, which occurs over fifty times in the Quran, is always accompanied by some mention of belief in God."
Seyyed Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1491 (footnote)
Nasr is commenting on the passage, "Have the disbelievers been requited for that which they used to do?" (83:36) Obviously, this is a concept that I think is important because one of my blog posts is a listing of all fifty plus times (or pretty close) in the Quran where righteous deeds was paired with belief. I was drawn to it, and pretty clearly became quite fixated on it (you just need to look at my scribbled upon Study Quran to see all the times I tagged it), and it became central to my understanding of faith and especially my practice of it. Now, in this case we're looking at this from a different angle. Nasr opines, " . . . only those deeds that are accompanied by belief in God . . . can truly be called good or righteous." So, a deed cannot be good or righteous divorced from God? It reminds me of a discussion/argument we recently had in class where the students kicked back, a bit overly simplistically but also I think correctly, against a somewhat similar point that Nasr made in the Heart of Islam. Their points was, and I thought a valid one, that would be bullshit to say that atheists can't live a moral life. I kicked back (and, well, I'm a professor so it's my job to constantly tweak them) with the notion that was Nasr talking about religion or was he talking about God, and I then proposed that couldn't be equally true that all religions are oppressive but that God means freedom; at which point they regretted ever bringing up the subject. To me, I guess, this comes back to one of those essential questions: why do we do the things we do? Hopefully this will not turn into a discussion of that Kohlberg morality scale, but it's hard to not see how it relates. Do you do the "right" thing because you're afraid of going to hell (which sounds suspiciously like stage 1 in Kohlberg) or because you want to go to heaven (which sounds an awful lot like stage 2); congratulations, you'll love second grade (actually, that's even younger, but you get my point). In a related vein, what does God want from us? We're told in the Quran that God created us to worship Him, although I've also seen it translated as to know Him, which I like better. Does God really care if we pray? I'd say yes, but not for the seemingly obvious reason. As I've said before, I don't think God is so lonely or vain that He needs our adulation. Rather, I think prayer is important because it's a moment of quite self-reflection where we stop and think about the bigger issues, and that includes, obviously, our relationship with the divine. Clearly, the fact that I'm writing this in the middle of Ramadan impacts my current thought on the issue, but I don't think it was that different six weeks ago or will be any different six weeks from now. Does God really care if we fast? Again, yes and no wold be my answer. Does God feel better (again, the danger of anthropomorphizing God) that we're hungry and tired and grouchy now? No. Does God care that the fasting is part of a month-long devotion to studying the Quran and being a better person? In that case I would say yes. I am wont to opine that if you want to worship God then go be a better person; focus on treating everyone you interact with, even tangentially, with kindness and compassion. To me that is so much more important than getting in all five prayers or fasting for sixteen hours a day for a month. The praying and the fasting should play a role in getting you to the place where you naturally, without the threat of hell or the promise of heaven, treat all the other inhabitants of the planet with love and compassion. So, cycling back to the original point, by this definition of worshiping God, this is why you always see belief and righteous deeds together, because it would be a selfless deed.
Seyyed Nasr, Study Quran, p. 1491 (footnote)
Nasr is commenting on the passage, "Have the disbelievers been requited for that which they used to do?" (83:36) Obviously, this is a concept that I think is important because one of my blog posts is a listing of all fifty plus times (or pretty close) in the Quran where righteous deeds was paired with belief. I was drawn to it, and pretty clearly became quite fixated on it (you just need to look at my scribbled upon Study Quran to see all the times I tagged it), and it became central to my understanding of faith and especially my practice of it. Now, in this case we're looking at this from a different angle. Nasr opines, " . . . only those deeds that are accompanied by belief in God . . . can truly be called good or righteous." So, a deed cannot be good or righteous divorced from God? It reminds me of a discussion/argument we recently had in class where the students kicked back, a bit overly simplistically but also I think correctly, against a somewhat similar point that Nasr made in the Heart of Islam. Their points was, and I thought a valid one, that would be bullshit to say that atheists can't live a moral life. I kicked back (and, well, I'm a professor so it's my job to constantly tweak them) with the notion that was Nasr talking about religion or was he talking about God, and I then proposed that couldn't be equally true that all religions are oppressive but that God means freedom; at which point they regretted ever bringing up the subject. To me, I guess, this comes back to one of those essential questions: why do we do the things we do? Hopefully this will not turn into a discussion of that Kohlberg morality scale, but it's hard to not see how it relates. Do you do the "right" thing because you're afraid of going to hell (which sounds suspiciously like stage 1 in Kohlberg) or because you want to go to heaven (which sounds an awful lot like stage 2); congratulations, you'll love second grade (actually, that's even younger, but you get my point). In a related vein, what does God want from us? We're told in the Quran that God created us to worship Him, although I've also seen it translated as to know Him, which I like better. Does God really care if we pray? I'd say yes, but not for the seemingly obvious reason. As I've said before, I don't think God is so lonely or vain that He needs our adulation. Rather, I think prayer is important because it's a moment of quite self-reflection where we stop and think about the bigger issues, and that includes, obviously, our relationship with the divine. Clearly, the fact that I'm writing this in the middle of Ramadan impacts my current thought on the issue, but I don't think it was that different six weeks ago or will be any different six weeks from now. Does God really care if we fast? Again, yes and no wold be my answer. Does God feel better (again, the danger of anthropomorphizing God) that we're hungry and tired and grouchy now? No. Does God care that the fasting is part of a month-long devotion to studying the Quran and being a better person? In that case I would say yes. I am wont to opine that if you want to worship God then go be a better person; focus on treating everyone you interact with, even tangentially, with kindness and compassion. To me that is so much more important than getting in all five prayers or fasting for sixteen hours a day for a month. The praying and the fasting should play a role in getting you to the place where you naturally, without the threat of hell or the promise of heaven, treat all the other inhabitants of the planet with love and compassion. So, cycling back to the original point, by this definition of worshiping God, this is why you always see belief and righteous deeds together, because it would be a selfless deed.
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