The Abolished Creed

In the accounts of the great forebears one reads that in past ages chastity was counted among the four cardinal virtues. Of it they said: chastity means purity of conduct. The word 'chaste' was applied to anyone who kept the eye from looking at what is forbidden, the ear from hearing slander, the hand from seizing the property of others, the tongue from foul speech, and the self from all that is unworthy. Such a person was held in honor. As the poet said: Whoever, like the cypress, stands pure in conduct, walks straight, and keeps his hands off what is not his, holds his head high above all people. This is exactly what is meant. They say a wise man heard his son speak ill of someone and told him: 'My son, would you be content that your tongue carry what you would not want to see on the body of another?' A man was complaining about someone else, listing his faults to the Commander of the Faithful, Hasan son of Ali. Ali said to his son: 'My son, keep your ear clean of him, for he has looked at the vilest thing in his own vessel and now wants to empty it into yours.' When they hung Mansur al-Hallaj on the gallows, he said: 'In my childhood I was passing along a street and heard a woman's voice from a rooftop. I looked up to gaze at her. Now I count looking down from the gallows as the atonement for that upward glance.'