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IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE MERCIFUL, THE BENEFICENT

Preface

SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS in life depend on two things: knowledge
and character. In other words, to be successful and happy, one needs
not only to be competent in their profession but also to have noble

character and superior morality. An ancient saying states that aca-
demic education (taʿlīm) and moral training (tazkiyah) are the keys to
happiness and success. If one of these elements is missing, a person
is destined to be unsuccessful and unhappy. Sound knowledge and
good character are like the two wings necessary for a bird to fly.

Today, unfortunately, many people tend to prioritize vocational and

academic education over character-building and moral education.
Even if they feel the urge for ethics, they are often confused about
how to pursue character education as they face the following qu-
estions: Which morality? Whose ethics? And whose values? These
questions inadvertently turn ethics into a perplexing political ques-
tion and a power struggle. Consequently, ethics gets conflated into
politics, and people often get lost in the media smoke surrounding it.

In this book, we provide a concise and clear answer to these questi-

ons: the character and morality that we aim for our youth to develop
is futuwwah, which is ingrained in the cultural genes and collective
memory of humanity worldwide. Futuwwah is referred to as chivalry
in the West, and Tao and Bushido in the East. This global moral

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