Now I shall give an outline of the major vices.
Personal vices. They directly affect the individual concerned.
Vices that affect not only the person concerned but other persons as well.
National or group vices. They are vices considered in the context of the condition or quality of a group or nation.
Vices relating to God.
Comparatively speaking, virtues too are of four kinds:
Personal virtues which affect the person concerned.
Virtues which also influence others besides the person concerned.
National group virtues.
Virtues which relate to God.
To take up vices first, in the same order:
Personal Vices: I will list some of the more obvious vices. Others are not so obvious and may be identified only through divine help. The idea is that if we become conscious of these major vices, we shall be better able to guard against them. These vices are as follows:
Arrogance: It means feeling haughty and big inside. Without letting others know, you may secretly feel big. This vice obstructs inner cleanliness.
Meanness: To be a tramp; to loiter about like vagrants or associate with vagabonds and to adopt such immoral professions as do little credit to the human person. This too is a vice of heart. In such cases, no progress is possible unless the peculiar attitude changes.
Haste: To act and choose without forethought. Here, too, ultimately it is the person who is harmed.
Suspicion: Secretly to impute evil motives to others and to suspect their bona fides without even communicating to them the secret doubts and fears.
Illicit love: Even if it is secret and undivulged.
Malice: To harbour designs against others even when such designs do not find practical expression.
Cowardice: Secret or public timidity.
Jealousy: To think of depriving others for self-gain.
Impatience: Feeling fidgety or upset over reverses and failing to do what is supposed to be done.
Lack of ambition: Not to aspire for big goals but to rest content with minor roles. This vice could cause great harm, particularly in case of leaders and Heads of State; it could work havoc for lack of ambition on their part also kills ambition at lower levels of the nation. How beautifully has the Promised Messiah — on him be peace — put this point in the following verse:
O Ahmad my beloved; I swear by the beauty of thy countenance, that we have stepped forward only because you are ahead of us.
In other words, the spiritual elevation and progress of the Holy Prophet Muhammad — on whom be peace — alone paved the way for our progress. Hence lack of ambition is a vice in the common man, more so in the leaders of men.
Sycophancy: A wheedling, fawning attempt to flatter. The servants of the rich suffer from this vice most.
Ungratefulness: To have scant regard for kindness shown by others.
Lack of steadfastness: Lack of perseverance; to start doing a task and leaving it unfinished.
Laziness: When a person is indolent and ceases to function.
Negligence.
Disbelief.
Lack of courage to affirm the truth.
Over-delicacy: To be too fastidious and finicky, out of place or to an extent that inhibits the power to act.
Ignorance: Not to try to learn and acquire knowledge.
Avarice.
Ostentation: Doing things to show off.
Ill-will.
To be easily discouraged: This is a peculiar vice of the rich. The slightest difficulty would make them lose heart and give up.
Regard for evil: Not to dislike evil is also an evil.
Use of intoxicants: Taking intoxicants of all kinds like alcohol, opium, cannabis, snuff, tea, coffee, tobacco, etc.True, some of these are articles which are used as food, for instance tea. But taking tea becomes a vice if it becomes a habit which cannot be given up without injury to health. You might have to go for propagation of the faith into the rural interior where tea is not available. Will you carry a samavar and tea things with you and make your own arrangements? Will it not be a bother, causing untold complications? Islam requires every Muslim to be a volunteer who should be able to set forth on short notice. Therefore, habits which hinder dispatch are discouraged. The story of the proud Pathan who had run short of snuff would illustrate the point. I saw him, begging a shaggy Kashmiri for a pinch. I observed the proud Pathan had humbled himself to the poor Kashmiri because of his need of snuff! Smokers who come to Qadian are deprived of a number of benefits. In the early days, one of our relatives who was a sworn enemy of the Promised Messiah, used to mislead new visitors. He would make seating arrangements in the compound and invitingly place hookas or smoking pipes, for free use. Visitors attracted by the pipes would drift towards him, whom he tried to lead astray to his heart’s content. He would emphasize that he was a close relative of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and was fully cognizant of the true position. Had there been any truth to his claim, I would certainly have accepted him as the Promised Messiah, he would say. Thus many were deceived. Once an Ahmadi visited Qadian and went to this gentleman to have a smoke. The gentleman availed himself of this opportunity to malign the Promised Messiah to his heart’s content. But the visitor kept silent. Provoked, the old man started abusing the Promised Messiah with renewed zeal. This too failed to elicit any rejoinder. At this, he lost his temper and challengingly said to the visitor: Why, what are you thinking? Why don’t you speak? The visitor replied: I am thinking that the dirty habit of smoking has been responsible for my coming to a man like you. Had I been not a smoker, I would not have come here and suffered the ignominy of hearing the Promised Messiah being reviled.
Let me tell you, as I have told you a number of times before, that smoking is a foul habit. Other intoxicants are equally harmful. They should be given up once and for all. Certain intoxicants breed the habit of lying. I will not name people who are addicts to spare them embarrassment. But the fact remains that intoxicants damage nerves. Therefore, do not become addicted to any. Thank God, I have an innate antipathy towards such things. In my infancy, I was given opium during an illness for about six months. Mother tells me that once I missed a dose and there was not the slightest reaction, whereupon the Promised Messiah — peace be on him — observed:
Do not administer to him any more that which God has delivered him from.
Even now I can discard taking things which I use daily, without suffering any adverse effects. Occasionally, I stop taking tea despite the fact that in our family tea is served as part of breakfast. I do this to avoid making it a habit. As a matter of fact, we should not form any such habits-intoxicants or no intoxicants.
Arrogance: Looking down upon others.
Enmity: Even if it is never made public and lies hidden in the heart, it is a vice.
To distrust others: It prevents one from delegating a task to others.
Greed: This too is a vice of the heart.
To grieve too much: Too much grief damages the faculty of application.
Excessive joy.
To be a busybody: To meddle in things with which one is in no wise concerned.
Loquacity: Glib talk. An over-talkative person is a mindless person and would answer questions without much thought.
To be callous and hard-hearted: Absence of compassion too is a vice.
Sadism.
Extravagance.
Suicide.
Purposeless lies: Lying is a major vice. But some people are given to telling purposeless lies. This too is bad.
The evils that are related to others are of two kinds:
Those which have to do with human beings.
Those which concern animals other than human beings.
At this stage Hazrat was asked how to give up smoking. Hazrat replied: Smoking is more difficult to give up than opium eating. I had a friend who was an old addict. He wanted to give up opium eating but his physician warned him he would die if he gave it up. But he did, in fact, give up this bad habit. For a few days, he had to suffer but he soon recovered and was restored to good health. I shall take up this question later on in the course of my address. Without disturbing the general pattern of it, I will only say at this stage only that you can give up smoking by giving it up.
The vices relating to human beings are the following:
Rudeness: Not to respect those who ought to be respected.
Exaggerated expression of love.
Faithlessness: To invoke your friend’s assistance when you need it, but to deny assistance to friends when they need it most.
Fatuity or Silliness: Being short-tempered; exhibiting uncivilised behaviour; to be trigger-happy; to hurl bogus threats under minor provocations. The case of the two Hindu Banyas — shopkeepers — will illustrate the point. They were quarreling. One was cursing. In reply, the other would challenge his opponent to curse him again. He would say: I will break your skull if you curse again. Now the joke was that he could easily have tried to smash the other fellow’s head the first time he was abused. He did not have to wait to be cursed twice. The other fellow too was equally shallow. Every time he was challenged, he would say: I shall curse you a hundred times. But he did not dare actually repeat the curse. Each time he was told: If you curse me again, I shall break your head. At the time, I was a child of eight and was an interested spectator of this strange sight. I waited for long to see if the first Baniya would repeat the curse and earn a broken skull, but nothing happened. Soon each retired to his shop. Suddenly the verbal battle was again joined. One of them again abused the other who in turn gave the same old repeat performance. He came out of his shop and shouted: I shall break your skull if you abuse me again. The altercation continued for a long time but nothing happened. This is vacant, witless puerility. It also shows cowardice. Similarly to be overaggressive is also a sign of fatuity. It is also a form of inner weakness to start shouting and grumbling at the slightest provocation.
At this stage, Hazoor interrupted his address and said: Asking questions during the course of an address is not desirable. But since the subject under discussion is of great importance, I feel I should try to answer some questions which friends have thought fit to address me. One is: Which professions according to me are mean? The answer might land us into unnecessary controversy which I would rather like to avoid. Nor would I like to decline answering the question. I would, therefore, simply say that to my mind professions which obstruct progress may be called mean. Another question that has been asked is: What is the difference between tamaa (greed) and hirs (avarice), the two vices I mentioned earlier. Briefly, tamaa means to expect the other person to give you something which you covet. Hirs is hankering after something regardless of the source from which it might be procured.
One question is: Can the Wasiyyat (bequest) of a smoker (bequeathing at least 10% of his or her income and property to Islam) be formally accepted? It is a very complicated question and I do not want to give a perfunctory answer during my address. I would deal with this question later.
Using abusive language: Abusive language is another habit which is universally considered bad, unlike the Punjabi custom of inviting a child to use such language and then gloating over it when it complies, as if cursing were a virtue. I have witnessed such performances myself.
Laanat, or placing a curse on a person.
Bud-doa: To pray against someone. Placing a curse on a person is different from praying against him. The former implies a spiritual condition and the latter a physical condition. To pray for someone’s death is Bud-doa, and to place a curse or Laanat on someone is to invoke divine wrath upon him which means that he or she may perish spiritually. There is, however, an exception to this rule that is when a curse is invoked by a prophet. In such a case the curse ceases to be a curse but amounts to a statement of fact that the heart of the person concerned has been corrupted.
Dishonesty or breach of trust: For instance money placed in trust is either not returned or returned only in part.
Divulgence of secrets: It is a vice to divulge other peoples’ secrets. But there are exceptions to the rule — for instance, saving the person concerned from harm. If X intends to murder Y, the vice shall consist not in disclosing but in hiding this secret. Similarly, secret attempts to conspire, damage or otherwise to bring an established Government into disrepute must be reported to the proper authorities.
Backbiting.
Discourtesy: Not to meet people with a smiling countenance; it injures the feelings of the other person and breaks ties of love.
Undue partiality: It consists in siding unduly with one of contending parties with whom one happens to be friendly.
Fraud.
Miserliness.
Oppression.
Ingratitude: To disown a favour done to one.
To be dirty and unclean.
Negligence.
Quarrelsomeness.
Mischief-making: It is a well-known vice and needs no explanation.
Creating disturbance: By shouting in public places or creating noise by irrelevant talk in an assembly or otherwise causing distraction to those who are attending to their work. I have found Europeans to be very careful in this regard.
Causing deliberate harm and pain.
High-handedness.
Robbery.
Murder.
Theft.I was already expecting questions on this. One friend has obliged by asking that sometimes it is customary to steal as a mark of friendship for instance — in certain villages, it is an established practice to steal off one another. The answer to the question is that despite social sanction, it still remains a vice.
Physical fights.
Undue self-praise.
Libel.
Slander.
Faultfinding: It differs from slander, which is to talk about someone’s faults or vices before people with intent to humiliate him. Faultfinding on the other hand, consists in reporting slanderous talk to its object, thus causing trouble between the parties concerned.
Casting aspersions or spreading calumnies.
To belittle with a view to humiliate someone before others.
To call a person names: Giving uncomplimentary or derogatory epithets as is common in our country.
Satire: Pungent jokes which disgrace and humiliate other persons.
Making faces: A vice common among women and the young.
Conspiring to harm others.
Sadism.
Violent anger: that is to say overt or expressed anger.
Vindictiveness: To exceed the limit in revenge.
Offering bribes.
Taking bribes.
Usury: To lend money on interest.
These are some of the major vices which have to do with other human beings.
Now I shall mention vices which relate to beings other than human.
To use things which emit obnoxious and nasty odours. The Holy Prophet — peace be on him — has warned that eating food which is ill-smelling or obnoxious repels the angels. They are shy of visiting a person who is ill-smelling.
Keeping pet dogs without purpose: The Holy Prophet — on whom be peace — has said that angels do not enter homes where dogs are kept.
Vices relating to lower animals:
To beat animals unnecessarily.
To overwork animals: This vice is peculiar to the farmer. He continues to exact work out of an animal but when it becomes too old and weak to function, he sells it to the butcher. I do not mean it should not be slaughtered. What I mean is that it is wrong to over-work and weaken an animal to make it unfit for work.
To underfeed animals: It is not the farmer but others who are usually guilty in this regard. A farmer would rather feed his animals even at the cost of remaining unfed himself. Supposing there is famine. The farmers do not say there is no food for them; they say there is no fodder for the animals.
Not to provide proper medical treatment for sick animals.
Torturing an animal: For instance, branding. The Holy Prophet once saw a donkey which had been branded on the face. He admonished: Do not brand an animal on the face for it is a very sensitive spot. If it has to be branded, let it be branded elsewhere — on the leg, etc.
Not to protect animals against the inclemencies of the weather.
Not to pay due regard to the sexual requirements of lower animals: Animals have passions like humans. Arrangements should be made for their satisfaction or they should be desexualized.
To torture animals: Either in front of their young, for instance, to slaughter or starve them; or torture their young before their eyes.