Faith & Culture: Islam and chastity

Chastity as a moral virtue holds a very high place in the code of Islamic laws that govern relation between sexes. 

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Excerpts
Source & Credit: AlIslam.org | Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
By Nasir Mahmood Malik | Los Angeles

Islam is based on the laws of nature. Allah created our universe and provided Islam as guidance for us to properly and optimally benefit from His creation without getting hurt. Islam provides us a system of norms and values, a code of conduct, to a healthy, productive and peaceful life in this world and earn the forgiveness, mercy and pleasure of Allah along the way.

In our secular and ‘emancipated’ society, people seem to have difficulty in seeing the significance and relevance of various Islamic norms and values, like chastity and modesty. To this society, Islamic mores seem antiquated and impractical. This is partly due to a lack of understanding of specific Islamic teachings, but mostly it is due to the lack of proper comprehension of the overall objective and the philosophy of Islamic teachings.


We live in a promiscuous society where we need to continually remind ourselves about the pivotal role chastity plays in our daily lives and how at risk we are if we are not diligent in guarding our chastity. We routinely hear and observe how dangerous it is to drink and drive. Yet, when people are warned about the dangers of drinking, they just laugh it off thinking that they can handle it or that nothing bad can happen to them. One of the ways to get their attention is to show them the mangled bodies and vehicles after fatal accidents.

Similarly, it is ironic that, living in this society, people routinely see the inevitable devastating consequences of unchaste behavior, yet most of them do not take chastity seriously.

Let me share with you one NBC report about the effects of careless behavior. Sex is a biological necessity and a controllable urge. However, according to this report, for many, the urge for sex is an addiction. A growing number of medical experts say that compulsive sexual behavior is a real disorder that an estimated 16 million Americans, both men and women, or about 5% of the US population, are fighting.

According to this report, such addicts do not get that way in one day. They begin on this path with easy access to risky material like ‘soft porn’ in magazines, movies, and internet, etc. Unrestrained, they develop the natural urge to act out what they see and thus the visuals progressively become practical experiences. Over time, those experiences become addictions. These people lose their peace of mind, their jobs, their families, and their dignity. They suffer from diseases, shame and guilt. They become frightened and many even become suicidal.

Even if we consider such an addiction as an anomaly, we commonly observe how unchaste behavior results in life altering consequences like unwanted pregnancies, infanticide in the form of abortion or abandoned babies, premature marriages of the unwilling and the unprepared, broken families, shortened careers, shattered dreams, personal shame, embarrassment for the family and the friends and so on. All this is happening around us to the religious as well as the secular, to the rich and the poor, to the ordinary and the powerful, and to the simple and the elite, alike.

No wonder Islam puts a high emphasis and special premium on chastity. Islam wants to protect us from any such nightmares by admonishing us not even to have unchaste thoughts.

In general, the objective of Islamic teachings is to guide and enable mankind to lead a purposeful life; the ultimate purpose being to recognize, serve and worship our Creator. Allah says in the Holy Qur’an:

“I have not created the Jinn and the men but that they worship Me.” (Al Qur’an, 51:57)

To accomplish this purpose, Islam teaches us a set of dos and don’ts and our obligations to Allah and Mankind. Both of these obligations arise out of Love. A cursory reflection on the manifestations of Allah’s Grace and Mercy evokes a natural Love of Allah. This Love is called Taqwa. This Love naturally evolves into the Love of His Creation, Mankind, because when one truly loves someone, one begins to love everything about that person. Our success lies in winning the pleasure of Allah through the adequate discharge of these obligations. However, the proper discharge of both these obligations requires piety of mind and purity of nature, that is, chaste mind and chaste behavior.

We commonly observe that when people meet their beloved, they prepare themselves physically – they wash up, don good clothes, wear aromatic fragrance and put on a smile. In short, they do everything they can to accentuate their physical appearance and attraction. Similarly, to fulfill our obligations to Allah and Mankind, we need to enhance not only our physical but moral and spiritual attraction, in part by nurturing chaste mind and chaste behavior.

The philosophy of Islamic teachings is continuous improvement of our character, through self--‐restraint and discipline. Allah has endowed us with wonderful faculties. However, it is the proper use of these faculties, in the right measure and at the right time, that improves us. For example, sexual urges are natural and by themselves are neither good nor bad, but proper response to these urges is meritorious and separates us from animals. The Promised Messiah, may peace be upon him, has succinctly explained that Islam wants us to progressively move from our natural state, to the moral state, and ultimately to the spiritual state. It is this progression wherein lie our success, peace of mind and the ultimate mercy and pleasure of Allah. [.. more]

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