The Grave Consequences of Bad Manners

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) guided his Ummah (nation) toward every form of good and explicitly warned against everything evil. Among the most serious matters cautioned against are bad morals, which are detestable and signify an unrighteous demeanor that arises fundamentally from the "unsoundness of the heart". The purity of one's character (Akhlāq) is therefore viewed not as mere social etiquette, but as a critical spiritual condition.  

I. The Structural Pillars of Moral Vice (Ibn al-Qayyim)

The classical scholar Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy upon him) provided a systematic framework, stating that bad manners are "established and constructed upon four pillars: ignorance, injustice, desires and anger". These pillars represent the corruption of the human being's core faculties:

• Ignorance (Jahl): This corruption of the intellectual faculty causes a person to commit profound perceptual errors. It makes one "see beauty in an ugly image and ugliness in a beautiful image," leading to the valuation of "the perfect thing as deficient and the deficient as perfect".
• Injustice (Ẓulm): This is the failure of the executive will, motivating one "to put things in an inappropriate place". Its manifestations are wide-ranging, including emotional misalignment (getting angry when one should be pleased) and practical misdirection. This pillar motivates one to be stingy when charity is due, to retreat when courage is required, and to be arrogant when humility is appropriate.
• Excessive Desires (Shahawāt): The dominance of this appetitive faculty urges a person toward unchecked gratification. It manifests in vices like miserliness, greed, gluttony, unchastity, and lowliness.
• Excessive Anger (Ghaḍab): This corruption of the irascible faculty drives aggression and ego-driven behaviors. It manifests in ostentation, spitefulness, envy, aggression, and foolishness.

When any two of these evil morals mingle, they compound the issue, forming yet "other bad morals".

II. Root Causes: The Dual Nature of the Soul

The origin of these four pillars is traceable to two fundamental pathological states of the soul: excessive weakness and excessive power.

• Excessive Weakness: This leads to internalized, defensive vices such as humiliation, miserliness, meanness, baseness, stinginess, and an unwarranted attachment to minor issues, described as "fanaticism on trivialities".
• Excessive Power: This state results in externalized aggression and arrogance, leading to injustice, anger, stiffness, foulness, and indiscretion.

The human soul can paradoxically embody both extremes simultaneously. A person may be "the haughtiest when he is powerful and the most humiliated when he is subdued". Such an individual is aggressive and tyrannical toward the weak, but gutless when facing the powerful. This inherent tendency toward self-perpetuation means that "bad morals generate more bad morals, and good morals generate more good morals".

III. Moral Mutability: External Causes of Decline (Al-Māwardī)

While bad character can be reformed through adhering to the Sharī‘ah and disciplined self-training, the nature of character is not static. The jurist Al-Māwardī noted that good morals and leniency can deteriorate into rough demeanors and obscenity due to external or "accidental causes" that render gentleness into harshness.

Al-Māwardī identified seven primary external causes for this moral decline:

1. Position of Authority: Attaining a position of presidency or administration may alter one's morals, inciting haughtiness and causing alienation from old friends.
2. Removal from Office: Losing status can develop bad morals, leading to hopelessness and lack of patience owing to extreme sorrow.
3. Acquisition of Wealth: A feeling of sudden richness may change a person's morals, causing them to become haughty.
4. Descent into Poverty: This can also change one's morals, either out of fear of being described as needy or sorrow over lost richness.
5. Overwhelming Concerns: Anxieties and concerns can distract the mind, causing distress and resulting in a loss of endurance. This burden was described as concerns being like poison and sadness like a concealed disease.
6. Physical Diseases: Ailments affect character just as they affect the body, making it difficult for morals to remain moderated and for the person to bear the trials.
7. Aging: The process of growing old weakens the soul's ability to withstand and oppose desires and anger, similar to how it weakens the body's physical strength.

Al-Māwardī also noted that hatred is a specific cause of bad manners, compelling a person to avoid and mistreat the object of their dislike.

IV. The Theological Gravity of Ill-Manners

The classical scholars consistently warned against bad character, viewing it as a spiritual catastrophe:

• Al-Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyāḍ (d. 803 CE) cautioned severely against bad company, advising, “Do not socialize with a person who has bad morals, for he calls to nothing except evil”. He also famously stated, “Accompanying a good-mannered man with no religious practice is better for me than accompanying a worshipper who is bad-mannered”.
• Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 728 CE) described the intrinsic torment, saying, “The ill-mannered person is a self-tormentor”.
• Yaḥyā ibn Mu‘āth (d. 871 CE) emphasized the impact on one’s deeds: “Being bad mannered is an evil deed with which a lot of good deeds would [nevertheless] not be beneficial. Having good manners is a good deed with which a lot of evil deeds would not be harmful”.
• Imam Al-Ghazzālī (d. 1111 CE) viewed bad morals as "deadly poisons, massive destruction" and the "diseases of hearts and illnesses of the inner-selves" that would cause one to miss the everlasting life. He also made the theological link, asserting, “Good manners represent faith and bad manners represent hypocrisy”.

Furthermore, Al-Ghazzālī encouraged self-discipline, noting that socializing should be used for self-reflection: a believer must use the defects seen in others as a mirror to examine and purify his own character from any moral defect.

V. Ramifications and the Call for Self-Purification

Ill-mannered individuals are universally detested and face severe consequences in the Hereafter. The Prophet (peace be upon him) stated: “And the most detested to me and farthest from me in the Hereafter will be those of the worst manners”.

In this world, bad morals cause troubles, grief, distress, and poverty for the person themselves. Abu Ḥāzim Salamah ibn Dinār vividly illustrated this domestic misery, noting that the wretchedness afflicts the ill-mannered person most, followed by his wife and children. His children flee in fear when he enters the house, and even his animals recoil from him.

The path to rectification requires continuous self-monitoring. A Muslim is urged to monitor his heart and treat the moral defect "from the very outset," because when the disease is allowed to deepen, it may lead one to destruction.