The Social Costs of Pornography: A Collection of Papers by

Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Witherspoon Institute
Published: 2010-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

DESIRE AND THE TAINTED SOUL: ISLAMIC INSIGHTS INTO LUST , CHASTITY, AND LOVE

Hamza Yusuf

What is desire? In Plato’s dialogue, Philebus, Socrates provides one answer, stating that hunger, thirst, and such appetites fall under the realm of desire. “When one becomes empty then, apparently he desires the opposite of what he is experiencing; being emptied, he longs to be filled.” Desire is an attempt at filling an emptiness within us. The desire may be profound, such as a desire to know why we are here. It also may be less than profound, such as the desire to own objects that preoccupy and entertain us so that we do not have to confront that void.

The thirteenth-century poet, jurist, and theologian Rumi begins his Mathnawi by describing the sounds of the reed flute as mournful because they are cut off from the source. He explains that being severed from his source, man enters a mournful state, and his hollowness and emptiness sets him to find his heart’s desire. The English word “desire” hints at this celestial meaning of humanity’s need to reconnect with its source. “Desire” is derived from the Latin word, meaning “to long for, wish for,” but it originally meant “to await what the heavens would bring.” “We are stardust / We are golden / And we’ve got to get ourselves / Back to the garden,” sings Joni Mitchell. This essential desire to get ourselves back to the Garden of Eden is a sacred perspective of desire.

However, the world dazzles. Its myriad forms entice men and women who are seduced by its resplendent ornaments, and their pursuits and desires fragment. Some seek power, some wealth, some love, and some set their sights no higher than seeking physical pleasure. Each of these pursuits, however, is rooted in our desire for the ephemeral, which can become insatiable and destructive.

Can desires be considered right or wrong? From a modern perspective, few desires are categorized as wrong per se. In our individualistic Western societies, people are encouraged to pursue their “heart’s desire,” as long as they do not exploit or hurt others. Both rational ethics and religious ethics, however, distinguish quite clearly between right and wrong desires, and posit that wrong desires may result in damaging and destructive pursuits that shatter one’s psychological well-being and wreak havoc on human relationships.

In wrong desire, what is desired is a partial good, yet it is desired excessively as a sole good, or it is a means to a good, but it is taken as an end in itself, or it is only an illusory good. This last reason is most pernicious and particularly pronounced in carnal desire. Shakespeare describes the state of one under the influence of illusive destructive desire in Sonnet 129:

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