What is the meaning of good (khayr) and evil (sharr), and beautiful (hasan) and ugly (qabīḥ) in Islamic Sharia, and what is the difference between them?
Goodness is what sound human nature desires. It is of two types: absolute, such as the well-being of this world and the Hereafter, and restricted, such as wealth and offspring. Goodness is also used to denote superiority, and its opposite is evil, which rational people detest. As for beauty (al-ḥasan), it is everything delightful and desirable. It can be intellectual beauty, sensory beauty, or emotional beauty, and in the Qur'an, it often signifies approval from the perspective of insight. Ugliness is what souls naturally repel. The Usulis (jurists and legal theorists) defined good as that which Allah has not forbidden, and ugly as that which He has forbidden. There was a difference of opinion regarding whether good and evil are determined by divine law (shar'i) or by reason ('aqli); the Sunnis hold that they are determined by divine law.
Summary from Ftawy's records · added here
Reviewed by El Fatwa's sharia committee.
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