Islam and sexual chastity

Question

Its hard to condone with a liberal whose views on freedom and equality contradict morality, esp. Chasity. If I make a point that the body is the soil for the tree of the mind and to keep itself pure, renunciation from lust and greed is necessary, they make a contention that no one size fits all and not everyone is a ardent purifier of self.

The problem with a liberal is he is a zealous enunciator of freedom of thought and action, thus he will not take side of any one of disparaging factions, so its harder to convince him the universal benefit of Islamic philosophy and morality.

One point that aggravates the situation and one that most of my Islamic brothers like to make is zaid leads to unwanted pregnancies and plethora of bastards who corrupt themselves belonging nowhere and the society, though true for medieval times, with the easy availability of contraceptives, this argument does not hold true anymore. Besides the "bastard problem" is not something that cannot be fixed by therapy, liberals exhort. Thus the assertion on chastity and its implications if not followed is weak.

With all this in mind, how can I make my argument strongly rooted in Islamic philosophy in a rational manner concurring to a liberal?

Answer 1

All praises is indeed due to Allah SWT blessing and salutations upon Muhammad (PBUH) and all his companions, his family members and his entire household.

1. Morality is subjective. Of course you will never prove a man which not believe in one God that it is bad.

2. In fact all prophets (peace be upon all of them) when they came firstly they spread message of tawheed. And only then they said: don't murder, don't lie, don't drink alcohol and so on.

   Narrated Ibn Abbas: When the Prophet sent Muadh to Yemen, he said to him, "You are going to a nation from the people of the Scripture, so let the first thing to which you will invite them, be the Tauhid of Allah. If they learn that, tell them that Allah has enjoined on them, five prayers to be offered in one day and one night. And if they pray, tell them that Allah has enjoined on them Zakat of their properties and it is to be taken from the rich among them and given to the poor. And if they agree to that, then take from them Zakat but avoid the best property of the people." (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 93)

Why? Because you must have the same foundation. As soon as you established foundation you can go further. If you did not, your work will be useless. Of course you can give them logical arguments but usually it is practically impossible because of subjectivity of morality. Our morality comes from Quran and Sunnah, their morality comes from their thoughts or society they are living in.

Mathematically speaking you have different sets of axioms. So from your set of axioms you can derive that something is bad and from his axioms you can derive that the same thing is good at the same time. So until you don't have the same set of axioms there can be 2 opposite but at the same time right opinions.