On Integrity and Covenants

Is there a place for the idea of integrity in Islam?

In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Ever since I was young and first heard about the Day of Alastu, I have been intrigued by it. In Islamic mythology, there was a Day before our birth when every soul was gathered and told to affirm God’s Lordship over them. They replied: Yes, we bear witness to this truth. We are told that the purpose of this is so that man cannot later say that he was unaware (Qur’an 22:172): 

“[Prophet], when your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were not aware of this.”

Fast-forward to birth: once a child is born, it is expected to remember and heed this primordial covenant with God over the course of its life. To this end, God has given us various signs and stories that we are meant to contemplate over and to take us out of our heedlessness (Qur’an 7:174): 

“In this way We explain the messages [signs], so that they may turn [to the right path].”

So we can say that a Muslim is someone who upholds her primordial covenant with God. She affirms throughout her life— as she did in some primordial sense— that God is her Lord. 

But what is the specific moral quality that corresponds to this type of lived affirmation of upholding the covenant? 

In this essay, I want to argue that to maintain one’s covenant with God corresponds to the moral quality of integrity and that — although the Holy Qur’an does not specifically mention this quality — it is taken to be a crucial aspect to being a Muslim. I will argue that integrity consists of fulfilling one's pledges despite challenges, and that other, more commonsensical features of integrity are grounded in the notion of upholding a pledge.

My method to do this will be quite complicated. I will try to defend two theses:

1. Integrity consists of upholding one's pledge in the face of difficulty and this explains seven commonsensical features of integrity, especially the fact that one can only have integrity if her commitments are moral

2. The pledge that forms the basis of our ethical natures was made on the Day of Alastu, and it explains (i) the deep tie integrity has to our being (ii) the ethical basis of our being

1. Integrity as upholding a pledge

What does it mean to be a person of integrity? 

The term integrity comes from the Latin word integrare, meaning “to make whole.” Other unity words relate to soundness, wholeness, and completeness (think of the term integer) and figuratively relate to purity, correctness, and blamelessness. How do these meanings relate to our understanding of integrity as a moral quality?

Let’s consider some instances of integrity from our common use. Often we say a politician has (or lacks) integrity. When we say that, we seem to mean that she keeps her promises, stands up against opponents, is consistent and resolute, and makes good promises. Crucially, however, she is not stubborn; she does not keep convictions in the face of better evidence. 

Greg Scherkoske identifies seven similar features of integrity (from the book, Integrity, Honesty, and Truth-seeking, edited by Christian Miller):

1. Stick-to-itiveness: sticking to one’s convictions, especially in the face of disagreement
   
2. Integrity-within-reason: being responsive to reasons; distinct from fanaticism, dogmaticism
   
3. Range: integrity is exhibited in many domains, not just moral
   
4. Coherence: consistency and integration among a person’s convictions
   
5. Resoluteness: strength of acting on convictions
   
6. Moral sanity: integrity is about moral principles
   
7. Judgment: we seek judgment from people of integrity

We have to come up with a theory of integrity that can explain these disparate features.

What makes integrity distinct?

First, what makes integrity different from other virtues, or indeed from morality itself? A good way of deciding on distinctions for virtues is to think of an exemplar case. 

Let us consider the case of Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) in the film 12 Angry Men. He clearly was a man of integrity. What did he do, fundamentally, that constituted this integrity? Most evidently, he showed resoluteness and “stick-with-itness.” He was patient and attempted to convince his fellow jurors. However, he showed integrity because he believed in and did his duty as a juror. He fulfilled his vow, no matter the cost or inconvenience. Given the conflicting views of the other jurors, this ended up leading to him being resolute, determined, etc. 

Thus, it seems that the main aspect of integrity is to have strength in honouring your convictions in spite of difficulty in doing so, and that this is most evident when there is conflict or opposition.

If that is the case, then what makes integrity different from honesty or fidelity to conviction?

Integrity vs honesty: In the case of honesty, it is not clear that this is a separate virtue at all. But if it is, rather than just a sort of ‘overlap’ of two virtues (truthfulness and justice), it is more about forthrightness than about strength of conviction. Integrity has the aspect to it that it is the quality of a person that makes her hold resolutely to her convictions and be honest (or tell the truth) when needed. A person who has integrity is honest, but not all honest people have integrity. 

Integrity vs. fidelity: Integrity is different from mere fidelity because it is the quality of holding convictions reasonably. Juror 8 in 12 Angry Men is responsive to and considerate of the opinions of others. He does not just have a conviction, but a reason-responsive conviction. Thus, integrity is not the same as stubbornness or fanaticism.

What motivates integrity?

The convictions that a person with integrity has are not just convictions that she is born with, but those that are reason-responsive and that require her to do things (i.e. ethical convictions). So, they are not simply ‘convictions’ so much as pledges. A person with integrity is held to her convictions because she sees them as pledges to herself. Because she has arrived at them reasonably and holds them to be true, she takes them to have a moral right over her: the right to be witnessed, defended, enacted. When a person acts with integrity, she is conscious that she has not simply believed something, but that she has made a vow. 

This feature of her convictions — as holding a moral right over her — is why she continues to be responsive to reasons: if they are not true or correct, then her vows cannot be upheld. Simply calling them ‘convictions’ does not reflect this aspect of the subjectivity of having integrity. (Consider that Juror 8 repeatedly urged his fellow jurors to consider their pledges as jurors. He asked them to consider that they had made a noble promise, and not to let other things get in the way of that.)

Thus, what makes integrity a unique moral quality is that it is the quality that enables one to hold her convictions reasonably and in the face of difficulty, where these convictions are seen to be pledges that she sees as holding a moral right over because they are seen to be about moral truth. 

This pledge is what explains the range in the use of the term integrity. We talk about professional integrity, aesthetic integrity, moral integrity, etc, because all of these make some fundamental pledge to holding to the principles of their domain with excellence and against difficulties (each domain of course has difficulties unique to it). If the basic principle of aestheticism is, for example, self-expression, then one pledges to enact this principle regardless of temptation to fall into conformity. However, the term 'integrity' is primarily used for morality, and only analogously used for the other forms of integrity.

Holding on to pledges is also what makes integrity different from truthfulness. Truthful people speak and act truthfully. Pledges, however, are in the context of what is true and grounded in the truth (one cannot make a meaningful pledge in the midst of a delusion), but they also have to be made true. Pledges give an added moral weight to one’s convictions; they are responsive to what is true but also require further resoluteness to be made and remain true. Pledges are inherently future-determining. This is why a person with integrity maintains her pledges over time and despite obstacles. 

Let us make this more transparent with an example: Frodo from The Lord of the Rings is taken to have much integrity. This is not just because he believes the ring needs to be destroyed — he does — but because he holds fast to his pledge to do so despite the numerous obstacles in the way. This pledge is so strong over him that he continues to try to live up to it even when all else seems hopeless. 

Putting it together 

To summarise, thus far we have discussed the following points about integrity: 

• One experiences or sees integrity as being a commitment to a vow or a pledge about a moral truth— they have a moral right over her
  
• It is constituted by holding one’s pledges strongly and reasonably, especially in the face of difficulty, and this is what makes it a unique moral quality (rather than just being equivalent to being moral)
  
• It involves or manifests as seven features outlined above

Yet we still have not answered two questions: 

1. What if someone holds immoral pledges? Can she have integrity? 
2. What is the link between pledges and the seven commonsensical features of integrity?

Pledges must be moral

Let us begin with issue #1: intuitively, we would say that if someone holds immoral convictions — especially ones that are blatantly immoral, like Nazism — then she cannot have integrity, no matter how strong her belief is. Why is this the case?

Partly, this seems to be because she is evidently not responsive to reasons. Were she a reasonable person, she would incorporate anti-Nazi views into her deliberations. (This is why integrity is sometimes seen as an epistemic virtue first, and a moral virtue second: because the morality is seen to arise from the epistemic nature of integrity.)

In addition to that, however, there is a conceptual fiat against having integrity if one’s pledges are immoral. Pledges only have a moral right over us if they are grounded in what is true. If they are not, then it is more correct to break the pledge. 

The issue is not that a pledge cannot be immoral. The issue is that honouring an immoral pledge cannot be an instance of integrity. Of course, immoral pledges can have some other sort of perceived right over us--say, a social or legal right--without being grounded in what is morally sane. I might pledge to kill my child based on a law that is inhumane and unjust. But that is exactly why they would not hold a moral right over us, and the "virtue" that would correspond to holding that pledge would no longer be integrity but something else, like fidelity. A person with integrity sees her pledges as being about moral truths or obligations, and that is why she thinks they obligate her to hold them. If they are in fact immoral, then there is no real obligation to hold them, and the person does not have integrity but instead fidelity. 

So, a person with integrity cannot hold on to immoral pledges.

There is another reason why pledges must be moral, and this is because of the relationship between pledges to be and pledges to do. I will speak more about this below.

Pledge and the seven features of integrity

To #2, let us quickly consider how the idea of fulfilling a fundamental pledge at the basis of our existence relates to the seven features of integrity:

• Stick-to-itiveness: a person who fulfills her pledges will naturally be a person who sticks to them
• Integrity-within-reason: pledges need to be reasonably determined in order to have a moral right over us
• Range: as explained above, range seems to be more about the pledges that we have in other domains, that also have a moral right over us since we have pledged them
• Coherence: I will speak more about this below as the idea of integrity running deeply through us
• Resoluteness: people with integrity are resolute in fulfilling their pledges
• Moral sanity: determining whether a pledge has a moral right over us requires knowing it is morally correct to do; in the case when this cannot be known with complete accuracy, we have to continue to be responsive to reasons to uphold or neglect our pledge
• Judgment: we respect and seek the judgment of people with integrity because they stick to reasonable pledges. 

Now that we have determined that integrity is constituted by commitment to pledges in the face of difficulty, with other features of integrity arising from this, let us turn to another feature of integrity: its depth. We will consider the deep tie integrity has with our whole being, and attempt to explain how to understand this deep relationship through the idea of a fundamental pledge at the basis of our existence.

2. The pledge at the basis of our being 

The depth of integrity

Integrity seems to run deep into our nature as ethical beings. To understand this, let’s look at the opposite of a person with integrity: a hypocrite.

A hypocrite is not just someone who lies. Rather, she is someone who does not embody the virtue of truthfulness. All hypocrites lie, but they are something more. They are people who are not only untruthful but whose behaviour involves maintaining a facade. A facade is a type of lie, but deeper than a regular lie. It is a type of lie that involves one’s entire being. She is knowingly deceptive about who she is in order for some gain. 

The way that this subtlety relates to integrity is this: when we speak about a person having integrity, we seem to mean something deeper than saying that she is just embodying a simple quality. We seem to be saying that she is relating to her self in a way that is virtuous: she is consistent, she is not lying, she is not hypocritical, her actions and beliefs match, she lives up to her pledges. 

Consider how rarely you hear someone say: “That was an act done with integrity.” (There isn’t even an adjective for it!) Instead, we say, “She is a woman of integrity.” We immediately presume that people who show integrity are entirely people with integrity. We don’t make the same sort of jump with a virtue like, say, compassion. We can easily distinguish compassionate actions from people who are compassionate.

The intuition that I am trying to get at here is coherence: integrity seems to cohere with all of our other virtues and aspects of our behaviour, beliefs, etc. Conversely, hypocrisy is incoherent: it is to disintegrate your self.

This seems to be linked to the idea of a pledge: when you pledge something, you are vowing your entire being — everything in your power — to fulfilling the pledge. Your being becomes a ‘slave’ to the pledge. This is what accounts for the resoluteness that pledges require. Fulfilling a pledge requires integrating all parts of oneself to serve that pledge. 

And if that pledge is about your being itself — if the pledge is, say, that you will be a Knight of the Round Table — then your being (ethically) is not only a slave to the pledge but becomes determined by the pledge. 

The pledge to be grounds ethical being

We have implied that there are two types of pledges: 

1. Pledge to do: pledges to do something specific e.g. a politician pledges to pass a bill
2. Pledge to be: pledges to be or become someone e.g. someone pledges to become a politician or pledges to become the sort of person who is kind

We have said above that integrity is a deep feature of our moral nature. So what relates being with integrity? Why does integrity integrate us or make us whole? 

It integrates us because our fundamental being as humans is one of being ethical. Similar to Juror 8’s duty   or pledge  to be a juror, we too have an ethical duty at the basis of our very existence. This is a pledge to be, and not merely a pledge to do something. 

The pledge that is affirmed on the Day of Alastu — the duty of acknowledging God as our Lord, and all that this entails for us as His creation— is an example of a pledge to be. What we pledged to become is worshipping servants of God in the face of worldly difficulty, or ethical beings. 

Integrity integrates us because it links every aspect of our being to our primordial covenant — the initial pledge of acknowledging the nature of our being vis-a-vis God’s being (i.e. as creatures).  

The initial pledge or covenant makes us its ‘slave’ in two ways: 

1. By requiring us to fulfill it insofar as it is a pledge and not just a conviction
2. By being about our being itself — it is not just a pledge to do an act, but a pledge to acknowledge and enact our fundamental being (as creatures). Thus, our being becomes determined by the pledge. 

Unless there is a similar myth or understanding of man’s fundamental being or existence as being one of contingency in relation to an absolute, or in relation to something that requires a pledge to be from us, then we cannot adequately justify the depth that integrity has. We will merely see the most overt signs of integrity, and not that integrity runs deeply through us insofar as our very existence is a pledge. 

Pledges to be ground pledges to do

Why am I calling it a pledge to do? After all, don't we have moral views that don't result in actions? This is because our fundamental moral commitments, even if they do not seem to be commitments to do something, when done with integrity are pledges to hold fast to them (to "do" or enact them) in the face of difficulty.  

Pledges to be are what grounds all further pledges to do. When we pledge to do something moral, the morality is based in our nature as ethical beings. We cannot pledge to be moral (in whatever specific pledge that is, e.g. I pledge to protect the poor) unless we have a fundamental commitment to be ethical.

So the primordial covenant then places further moral duties on us, such as contemplating Him, worshipping Him, etc. These are further determined in the minutae of the religious law. 

As creatures who acknowledge God’s Lordship, many of the features of integrity fall under the rightful way to be integrated humans. Take reason-responsiveness, for example: since God has created us as rational humans and has encouraged us to reason about His “signs,” we are meant to be excellent servants of God by contemplating Him and His signs. Thus, the pledge to be carries within it pledges to do. (Consider that humans have two covenants: one is the primordial covenant, and the other is the specific covenant that comes with a prophet, e.g. to hold fast to the Shariah. These correspond with a pledge to be and a pledge to do.)

Therefore, without appreciating a pledge to be, we will insufficiently appreciate how a fundamental pledge is what justifies subsequent moral pledges to do. Although in our worldly existence we ‘work through’ it backwards, i.e. we ‘forget’ the fundamental pledge and rediscover it through the course of our lives, it is still the primordial covenant or our basic nature as human beings that underlies or grounds subsequent duties/morality.

Is there another type of worldview that can link our being to a pledge? It seems to me that existentialists will make a similar sort of claim, though I am not sure how intellectually justified it is. The existentialist seems to make the claim that we have an ethical duty to have to courage to live in radical freedom. This seems to be construed as a pledge, i.e. it puts ethical duties on us that then determine (or un-determine!) subsequent morality. In such a view, I think that a person who lives with integrity would fulfill this fundamental pledge to her self of being free. Of course, the difficulties that she is living against would be to fall back into the they-ness of the world, or to give up her radical freedom for comfort and security.

The pledge on the Day of Alastu 

We now need to discuss more carefully the pledge that I have claimed determines our very being. The passage relating to the Day of Alastu from the Holy Qur’an is as follows (Qur’an 7:171–178): 

“When We made the mountain loom high above them like a shadow, and they thought it would fall on them, We said, ‘Hold fast to what We have given you, and remember what it contains, so that you may remain conscious of God.’

[Prophet], when your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were not aware of this,’ or, ‘It was our forefathers who, before us, ascribed partners to God, and we are only the descendants who came after them: will you destroy us because of falsehoods they invented?’ And thus do We [explain in] detail the verses, and perhaps they will return.

And recite to them, [O Muhammad], the news of him to whom we gave [knowledge of] Our signs, but he detached himself from them; so Satan pursued him, and he became of the deviators.

And if We had willed, we could have elevated him thereby, but he adhered [instead] to the earth and followed his own desire. So his example is like that of the dog: if you chase him, he pants, or if you leave him, he [still] pants. That is the example of the people who denied Our signs. So relate the stories that perhaps they will give thought.

How foul is the image of those who reject Our signs! It is themselves they wrong: whoever God guides is truly guided, and whoever God allows to stray is a loser.” 

Consider the following:

1. God prefaces the narration about the Day of Alastu by reminding us that we should ‘hold fast’ to what is given to us (i.e. the scriptures and other signs) — already, we are told to remember which is the first step to honouring a pledge. It also sets the scene for us to realise that the primordial covenant is often broken by laxity and forgetfulness. This is confirmed in many other parts of the Holy Qur’an that speak about heedlessness and forgetfulness, e.g. (Qur’an 59:19):
   
   “Do not be like those who forget God, so God causes them to forget their own souls: they are the rebellious.”
   
   Thus, fulfilling a pledge requires stick-to-itiveness and resoluteness.
   
   
2. The conversation that takes place between God and the primordial human souls is not in the form of an overt pledge. Rather, it is an acknowledgement or a bearing-witness of God’s Lordship (and therefore rights) over man. In other words, the pledge is implicit: knowledge of God’s Lordship is sufficient to obligate our ethical duty as beings (to worship/contemplate Him). The pledge/covenant does not consist of an overt promise, but of an existential relation between Him and us: that of a Creator and creation. That is why this pledge is absolute. It is incumbent upon us even if we think that we did not promise to do it.
   
   This existential relation is reinforced in the verse quoted above, i.e. that if you forget God (your covenant with Him or your relation to Him), then you will forget your self. This is because your self is determined by a relation that exists regardless of whether or not your realise it to be so. This idea relates to moral sanity because this is how pledges to be link with pledges to do.
   
   
3. God repeatedly sends signs, scriptures, and prophets to remind people of this fundamental covenant. This is why the excuse of forefathers will not be sufficient to explain breaking the covenant. (This is disputed in different Sunni theological schools.) God says that the person who does not fulfill the covenant will be denying signs, which He sends or makes apparent to us in order that we may contemplate (and therefore remember) our covenant. This relates to integrity-in-reason.
4. Fulfilling the covenant will elevate us. As a result of the above, this is because we will become people of integrity, and integrated beings. Our desires (mentioned directly afterwards), which are disparate and many, will become consistent, hierarchical, and sublimated because we follow the pre-temporal, primary covenant. This relates to the coherence of integrity, and also explains the judgment feature of integrity. Note that the link between this covenant and natural dispositions (fitrat) is another way in which fulfillment of the covenant is integrating our selves.
   
   
5. We bear witness and are clearly meant to to continue to bear witness throughout our lives to the Lordship of God. This speaks to the stick-to-itiveness of integrity. 

The importance of fulfilling a covenant, and indeed just basic promises, is emphasised in many verses: 

“Do not go near the orphan’s property, except with the best [intentions], until he reaches the age of maturity. Honour your pledges: you will be questioned about your pledges.” (Qur’an 17:34)

“Yet they had already promised God that they would not turn tail and flee, and a promise to God will be answered for.” (Qur’an 33:15)

“Children of Israel, remember how I blessed you. Honour your pledge to Me and I will honour My pledge to you: I am the One you should fear.” (Qur’an 2:40)

“We took a solemn pledge from the prophets- from you [Muhammad], from Noah, from Abraham, from Moses, from Jesus, son of Mary- We took a solemn pledge from all of them: God will question [even] the truthful about their sincerity, and for those who reject the truth He has prepared a painful torment.” (Qur’an 33:7–8)

From these verses, and similar ones, we see that integrity (honouring pledges resolutely, even in the face of difficulty) is a highly valued trait in Islam. The difficulties that one can encounter in fulfilling her pledge are many: disease, death, forgetfulness, heedlessness, Satan… Many, if not all, prophetic stories are about how a prophet continued to be resolute and dedicated to God in the face of much difficulty*. The description of their submission to God is integrity, i.e. a fulfillment of his covenant with God, standing up for the truth, and bearing witness to God. 

(*note that prophets are considered to have a second covenant with God as bearers of His message, as well as the primary, primordial one that all humans took. See Lumbard's paper linked below)

An objection

Perhaps it seems that I spent much time developing the idea of a pledge, only for the verses about the Day of Alastu to never mention an explicit pledge. After all, didn’t I say that integrity’s resoluteness is explained by it being about a pledge? And that pledges need to be made true? How does affirming God’s Lordship count as a pledge? 

As mentioned above, the pledge is clearly implicit. By acknowledging God’s Lordship, one is implicitly acknowledging her servanthood to Him, which carries with it obligations. One is agreeing that God is Lord, and it would be redundant — and indeed slightly ridiculous — to then say “And so I will serve you.” God’s Lordship is such that knowledge of it is sufficient to obligate a covenant. Unlike a regular pledge, where one can truly refuse (and perhaps be justified in it), God’s Lordship is such that there is no option of refusing in reality, as all things submit to Him, whether they desire to or not. Thus, it is more properly referred to as a covenant, or a coming together, where man pledges to be God's servant, with the consequence of behaving appropriately towards God as a servant of His*. In other words, man agrees to willingly submit, rather than unwillingly do so. (The other option would be to be like Satan, who did not accept this covenant vis-a-vis refusing to obey God).

Moreover, by bearing witness to God's Lordship, man has not simply said that he will affirm in a passive sense, but continue to actively bear witness to God. Witnessing in the Holy Qur'an is an ethical obligation, a sort of active testifying of God through actions, words, characteristics, etc. 

If this is the case, then how can holding fast to primordial covenant embody the feature of reasonableness? The way that this pledge relates to reason-responsiveness is two-fold:

1. It is in fact reasonable i.e. true to acknowledge God as one's Lord 
2. To recall this pledge in our worldly existence requires reason-responsiveness 

(*I do not wish to spend too much space considering the idea of a covenant in Islam. For more, please refer to Joseph Lumbard's paper, Covenant and Covenants in Islam. A relevant passage from the excellent paper about two words, 'ahd and mithaq, that are used to refer to covenants: 

“In and of itself ‘ahd thus implies a reciprocal agreement and obligation, but when used with the preposition ila, ‘ahd indicates a unilateral ‘agreement’ that has been ‘enjoined’ by one party upon the other [...] The term mithaq itself implies reciprocity between two parties."
The difference between an enjoined covenant versus a reciprocal agreement is exactly the one I am referring to -- our primordial covenant is enjoined by God.)

Integrity and honour 

Lastly, I want to briefly discuss honour. Honour is a term that one does not hear much in contemporary discourse. It seems to have fallen out of favour. Yet if we consider the various features of integrity, we quickly see how similar it is to honour. Thus we say that a person ‘honours’ her contracts. (Interestingly, the term honour is etymologically related to honest.) Similarly, an honorable person will stand for the truth, not betray her principles/pledges, etc. 

So, although the term integrity is not often used in Islamic discourse, it seems to me that the term honour is used almost equivalently. By analysing integrity, then, we have come upon features of honour, and perhaps corrected some misconceptions about honour. 

Conclusion

To live with integrity is to live honorably, and in particular to fulfill one’s covenants with God. It is to live up to our pledges despite the many obstacles of our worldly existence. In our more common day-to-day use of integrity, it is to fulfill one's pledges to do despite obstacles. 

Of course, covenants with God include (and are often discovered through) our pledges or duties to other people. Our nature as ethical beings -- the types of beings who can make and fulfill pledges -- is what grounds all the smaller promises and pledges and acts of integrity. 

Ultimately, then, although our primordial covenant with God is what determines our being as ethical people, there are many ways in which we can demonstrate integrity and honour in our social and interpersonal lives. We clearly admire people with integrity whom we meet more regularly, and by emulating them, it is to be hoped that we will develop characters that honour all of our pledges, including those to God.

I pray that God grants us honour, integrity, and steadfastness to Him. 

چو با حق عهدها بستی ز سستی عهد بشکستی

چو قول عهد جانبازان چرا محکم نمی‌گردی

مولانا رومی 

- MM, March 17th, 2020

(To learn more about the Day of Alastu, consider reading the work, The Lives of Man by Imam al-Haddad.)