Customs
It is from the providence of God to mankind that He fixed deeply an imprint in its nature for the cultivation of morals and socio-economic development. If he had left it to the nature of people, no one would have done an action until his moral character, his experiments and knowledge had guided him to it. If a man had not imitated any other person, one after the other, he would not have been guided to the achievement of moral character and the world would have been behind their establishment, and majority of the people would have been reduced to animal life. God did not leave human beings in that shape, but made their minds like mirrors, with the forms of some of them imprinted in the others. This is how a person rushes to do the action according to those forms even though their secrecy has not been unravelled before him by his very little knowledge. If you were to go deep in your investigation, you will find that even animals follow the principle of custom. For example, you see a pigeon doing certain action, and then the other pigeon follows it and knows instinctively that the other form imprinted in its heart is what it had seen in the other form of that state which has eager the desire for that action.
After examination of this principle occasioned by the nature of man, it becomes necessary that there may be an external support as well which may urge man to hold fast to the custom, it may be an action of a great, wise person whom the powerful as well as the learned had also obeyed provided there was a general beneficial emergency in it and provided the people had experienced worsening of conditions when they abandoned it or had suffered a punishment from the unseen whenever it was given up by them. Every country has a certain form of custom visible in their speech, dress and also during the times of their misfortunes. Every city has its own custom to follow and every tribe has a particular kind of custom, nay even a portion of the tribe has a particular custom to go by.
The custom, even though pure and good in the root of nature because of its being a watcher over good characters and good socio-economic developments, sometimes changes, as if accidentally, into an evil. There are reasons as for such thing happening, and they are as follows:
- The corruption of the custom due to its opposition to good character and good socio-economic developments. Such a corruption may take place through making fornication and sodomy permissible, and allowing women to adopt fashions of men, and allowing men to adopt fashions of women.
- That which corrupts the Divine relationship because of its having taken place on submission into luxurious living and because of deviation from the remembrance God.
The best custom is one which helps growth of morality and socio- economic development and which is wide and not constricted
