As the 'war on ideas' intensifies at a global level it is surprising to hear people today calling to bring about a change in the ummah by inviting towards morals (akhlaaq), suggesting that if we were all to become ''good Muslims'' with good morals, then all the problems and calamities of the Muslim world would somehow disappear. So let us scrutinize this claim closely to see if adopting Islamic morals can indeed lead to a revival in society that can bring about societal and political change? We are told that by adopting the qualities and morals of the Sahabah, then the whole deen will become manifest in our lives and Allah (swt) will give us His victory and our problems will cease to exist. 
Let us examine this idea by presenting a simple example: if we look around us we find people suffering from various illnesses and diseases, in need of urgent medical care. Faced with this problem, would it be sufficient for people to call the public to adopt the personal qualities, manners and etiquettes of the doctors in order to bring about a medical revolution? If every single person in society put on a white lab coat, with a name tag, a neck-tie and stethoscope, and if these people all started treating people with gentle compassion, speaking softly and reassuringly, making eye contact with a smile on their face – would these actions bring about any change in the medical situation in society? Surely not, even though these qualities are indeed the attributes of a doctor; but alone, these attributes are of no value, unless they are based on a sound intellectual base of medical knowledge. So to achieve the desired change one must go through the painstaking process of getting accepted into Medical school, then studying and working laboriously in order to pass each examination in each subject and proceed from year to year. Only then will one be in a position to implement his medical knowledge and only then will the etiquettes and qualities of a doctor have any consequence. Lab coats don't make good doctors, rather medical training does.

Similarly, morals do not make a person great in the eyes of Allah (swt), but rather Islam does, as even a non-Muslim can have the most noble morals, but he/she would still be a kaafir. So akhlaaq, morals, etiquettes and qualities have no influence on the individual or society unless they are built on a firm foundation of imaan. This belief in Allah (swt) shapes the individual's viewpoint in life when one embraces the aqeedah or creed of Islam, bearing witness that ''there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah''. This aqeedah then propels the individual to mould his entire life around this kalimah, disregarding any authority and any deity other than Allah (swt), striving to implement the deen of Allah. This implementation should not be done selectively by choosing those aspects of Islam that seem easier than others such as akhlaaq, but rather by combining the aqeedah with the ibadaat, the mu'amalaat as well as the akhlaaq, in order to produce an Islamic personality capable of working towards bringing about change, not hypothetical change, but a real change.
Calling for akhlaaq alone as a method for solving societal problems does not come from Islam, but rather this is the method of the Christian Missionaries. If we look at the method of the Prophet (saas) in achieving change amongst the pagan Arabs in the time of jahiliyyah, we find that there was never a call for morals or akhlaq as a vehicle for change. 

Had the Prophet (saas) chosen to initiate a movement of moral reform, calling for the purification of society and instilling virtuous qualities, he would have found many supporters from within Quraysh and from the Christians and Jews; indeed such as reformist movement would have gained popularity and would not have attracted the antagonism, brutality and opposition of the Mekkan society. The Prophet (saas) knew this very well, but his instructions from Allah (swt) was to call the people to turn away from the worship of all false gods and all false authorities, and to devote themselves completely to the worship of Allah (swt) alone. There is no single piece of evidence to suggest the Prophet (saas) ever used morals as a vehicle for achieving change. So, calling for akhlaaq alone as a method for solving societal problems does not come from Islam, and if we open the books of seerah and fiqh (jurisprudence) we will not find a special section on akhlaaq, nor will we find any books of fiqh that concentrate on this subject. It is only this century of declined thought that we start to hear this call to solve our problems by polishing our morals.

So what are morals, and what role do they play in society? Quite simply, morals are the rules of Allah (swt) that regulate an individual's relationship with himself. The context for this is that Islam is a complete system of life, with divine rules regulating every aspect of life, from man's relationship with Allah (aqeedah and ibadaat), man's relationship with society (mu'amalaat), and man's relationship with himself (akhlaaq). So to concentrate on one of these areas and disregard the other two relationships, is separating the individual from society and hence is the secularisation of Isam. 

Morals, by their very nature, are entirely individualistic, and have absolutely no impact on any sphere of life apart from yourself, and hence it is naïve to entertain the idea that by polishing my morals somehow society will transform and the problems of the ummah will vaporise. So while it is true that honesty, modesty and lowering the gaze are all ahkam or divine rulings from Allah (swt), and as such they must be implemented, by thinking that having the quality of honesty and modesty, or by lowering the gaze and being generous to the guest, this will somehow impact society and rescue people from the systems of taghut which are making their lives miserable, one is not only misreading the reality of the problem, but one is also distorting the deen of Islam, by obscuring the real solutions, disengaging people from society, but also diverting the efforts of the Muslims into futile fantasy and self-delusion. After all, it is not our morals that make you great, it is Islam.

It should not be understood from this that morals and akhlaaq are not an important and essential part of the Islamic character; on the contrary, the Prophet (saas) says

Fear Allah in all situations, and follow a bad deed with a good deed so as to erase it, and deal with people with the best of morals (akhlaaq) (Tirmithi and Ahmed)

Rather than marginalise the importance of Islamic morals, we must understand their correct context; generosity and honesty are obligations given to us by Allah (wwt), just as eating halaal food and covering the awrah are obligations from Allah (swt); neither is more important than the other, and on their own neither will lead to any change. Remember the example of the doctor: abiding by the hospital dress code is essential, but on it's own it achieves nothing.

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