Piety Without Virtue: On Superficial Religiosity and the Ethics We Lost - Mohammed Al-Fazari
A few months ago, I visited a non-Muslim East Asian country on a trip that lasted nearly a month. During that time, I saw everyday scenes that seemed ordinary from their point of view, but which struck me as remarkable and unsettling. I didn’t know their language or their currency, and most of my transactions were in cash, out of necessity, not choice. Yet not once was I subject to fraud, deceit, or manipulation, from the taxi driver to the corner shopkeeper, and including the housekeeper, every interaction was straightforward, honest, and ethical to the point that I felt I was in a moral space where people’s actions were driven from within, not by outside forces, with no surveillance, threats, or sermons.
I don’t mean to imply, as some do, that this is because of the lack of a religious system and the presence of an ethical one; such a broad generalization doesn’t match what I observed. Religious practices were indeed visible and publicly performed. But what was clear is that what drives this society is a deeply rooted internal value system, one that doesn’t oppose religion nor replace it; instead, it is an organic part of it, or perhaps an extension of it into everyday life. These are values and practices that originate from within, not just imposed through law, but rooted in a living conscience and a collective culture that considers honesty, integrity, and discipline fundamental to identity, not merely moral guidelines.
Indeed, no society is free from individual misconduct, and I don’t claim this one to be perfect or flawless. I’m not here to present this country’s experience as a moral absolute. It’s entirely possible that on my next visit, I’ll see something different, just as one might anywhere else. But what I did observe is that ethical behavior is the norm, not the exception, and that breaking it is seen as a departure from what’s familiar, not a widespread conduct that’s tolerated, overlooked, or justified.
Comparison is unavoidable. In our Arab-Muslim societies, especially in some, where religion is deeply ingrained: the call to prayer is heard five times a day, mosques are plentiful, sermons are regularly delivered, and religious education is mandatory in schools, yet you find yourself checking your pockets now and then, scrutinizing every receipt, and negotiating every purchase out of fear of being cheated, deceived, or exploited. The taxi driver playing Qur’anic recitation from his car doesn’t hesitate to double the fare; the restaurant owner with a Quranic verse displayed on the wall might insult you if you don’t tip him after he’s used flattery, assuming you weren’t already cheated on the bill. And the housekeeper, who outwardly shows every sign of religious devotion in appearance and speech, won’t let that piety stop her from stealing whatever she can.
Society should stop judging piety based on the number of prayer sessions or fasting days and instead focus on a person’s honesty when no one is watching, their integrity when unmonitored, and their fairness when they hold power.
I couldn’t ignore the urgent and logical questions that came to mind at the time, questions that are by no means new. Many thinkers have examined this question in different ways within the philosophy of religion, ethics, and the sociology of religion: Why doesn’t outward religiosity in our societies lead to ethical behavior? Why doesn’t the strength of ritual practices result in a transformation of conscience? Is the problem rooted in the conceptual framework through which we are taught religion?
From early childhood, a Muslim child is taught to memorize the five pillars of Islam: the declaration of faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage, all of which are ritualistic practices. The six pillars of faith complement these: belief in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Day of Judgment, and divine decree, both good and bad, all of which are internal beliefs about metaphysical concepts. What’s immediately clear is that none of these pillars include ethics. A child is not taught that honesty, justice, or trustworthiness are core principles of their religion. It appears as if the unspoken message is that morality is optional, supplementary, or decorative; if it exists, it’s welcomed. If it’s missing, it’s no big deal, as long as the rituals are performed.
This is further supported by a well-known hadith found in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim: “Whoever testifies that there is no god but Allah, alone without partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, and that Jesus is the servant of Allah, His word conveyed to Mary, and a spirit from Him, and that Paradise is true and Hell is true—Allah will admit him into Paradise regardless of what his deeds may have been.” This confirms the core belief that leads to Paradise: God will admit the monotheist into Paradise even if he has fallen short and committed sins, because those who affirm divine oneness are ultimately destined for Paradise, with their rank there determined by their deeds.
This pedagogical foundation later takes root in the collective consciousness and shapes a model of the “pious Muslim” based solely on ritual observance. Someone who prays, fasts, gives alms, and performs pilgrimage is considered “upright,” even if he is unjust in his household, exploitative of those around him, or unfaithful to his promises. This gap between ritual and behavior is not accidental; it is based on a widespread interpretation in religious tradition that suggests sin is erased through prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. Texts that promise forgiveness to those who pray, fast, and remember God have, in popular thinking, become deferred indulgences, rituals seen as automatic purifiers, regardless of their ethical implications.
One lies, then prays, and imagines themselves “cleansed.” They cheat, then fast, and convince themselves their fast has wiped the slate clean. They steal, then perform a minor pilgrimage, and deceive themselves into believing they return “as pure as the day they were born.” The irony here is that this same Muslim may mock the Christian who believes in indulgences or confession followed by prayer, while having no problem believing that fasting a few days will erase all past and future sins, or that repeating specific phrases after prayer will forgive his wrongs, even if they were “as great as the foam of the sea.”
This type of superficial religiosity and false reassurance is undoubtedly not the result of inherent cruelty or intellectual deficiency, as claimed by the essentialist racists who accuse the followers of a particular religion. Human beings are fundamentally alike everywhere; the difference lies in the intellectual frameworks reinforced by educational and religious institutions through inherited traditions and conventional interpretations of religion.
In school curricula, ethics are not taught as a core, independent foundation of behavior but rather as ritualistic actions connected to rewards and divine compensation. Religious institutions often equate religion with rituals, such as rules of purification, the specifics of prostration due to forgetfulness, the pillars of fasting, or the number of optional prayer units. As for the moral discourse, which should be central to the religious message, it is either conveyed in overly elaborate, rhetorical language or neglected in favour of excessive focus on ritual.
The Murji’ah sect went even further by claiming that faith is solely about inner belief or combined with verbal testimony, and that those who commit major sins are still fully faithful believers. They are neither declared unbelievers nor destined for Hell if they die as monotheists, even without repentance. In other words, judgment is postponed in this world, and their ultimate fate is left to God in the afterlife. While this view might, on one hand, help prevent the spread of excommunication and extremist judgments, it also leads to the marginalization of behavioral and moral aspects, whether in ritual conduct or human relations.
Since these and similar sects were historically linked to political authority, they often avoided addressing major ethical issues that could embarrass ruling authorities, including justice, dignity, accountability, transparency, and rights. Instead, they focused solely on the individual’s faith and rituals, without addressing the nature of the society in which he lives or his behavior within it. As a result, the Muslim individual grows up practicing a ritualistic, privatized form of religiosity, centered on his vertical relationship with God, while neglecting his horizontal relationship with people. Therefore, he sees no contradiction between his religiosity and acts of lying, injustice, or fraud, as long as he performs the motions of bowing and prostrating.
There is another important point related to the religious tradition itself that cannot be ignored. After the foundational jurists, their students came forward eager to make a name for themselves and introduce new ideas, beginning to expand on minor issues, such as the details of prostration for forgetfulness, the intentions behind fasting, the purposes of charity, and the levels of water purity. Over time, jurisprudence concerning worship evolved into a vast field where scholars sometimes created hypothetical situations that never actually occurred, then generated endless debates around them. With this buildup, the imagined jurisprudence of ritual became, in the public eye, the core of religion itself. Knowing it became a sign of piety, while the philosophical, moral, and human aspects of religion were pushed aside.
This all served to weaken the influence of the Qur’an itself. The number of Qur’anic verses that address ritual acts (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage, purification, transactions, divorce, etc.) barely exceeds 500 at best. That means over 90% of the Qur’an addresses matters of existence, humanity, society, justice, reason, stories, and destiny. Yet we raise generations to believe that understanding religion begins with the pillars of Islam and faith, followed by rules of intention and levels of purity, while neglecting the centrality of verses such as: “Indeed, God commands justice and kindness” and “Give full measure and weight with justice, and do not deprive people of what is rightfully theirs.”
Didn’t the Prophet himself establish a clear foundational principle in his well-known saying: “I was only sent to perfect good character”?And wasn’t the Prophet Muhammad known before his prophethood as “the truthful, the trustworthy,” not “the scholar of pilgrimage rites”?
A religion that doesn't produce such a person, no matter how many rituals it has, misses the true essence of faith. For someone who prays but is unjust, they haven't truly prayed. Someone who fasts but lies hasn't truly understood the concept of fasting. And someone who makes a pilgrimage but doesn't fear God in how they treat others may have visited the Kaaba but not its Lord.
Several contemporary thinkers have recognized the gap between ritual and the true essence of religion and have worked to reestablish the ethical aspect of religion despite ritualistic rigidity. Malek Bennabi argued that the decline of civilization in Muslim societies is connected to the breakdown of moral frameworks, and that superficial religiosity, when disconnected from core values, not only burdens the individual but also hampers the potential for renewal. In his view, a Muslim’s colonizability begins when he loses moral sensibility and relies solely on outward displays of piety.
Muhammad Abduh, meanwhile, fought his battle against the authority of stagnant jurisprudence, rejecting the idea of reducing religion to a list of do’s and don’ts. He emphasized that religion is a project of social reform, measurable by its ability to improve lives and transform reality, not by the number of rituals or outward signs of piety. Any religious discourse that fails to serve humanity, he argued, becomes a burden upon it.
Abdolkarim Soroush distinguished between religion as text and religion as lived experience. He saw religion not as a strict system of scriptures but as an ethical and existential engagement that the individual undergoes. In his philosophy, no religious interpretation can be valid unless it arises from a living moral conscience. Ethics, he argued, precedes understanding, guides it, and defines its limits. Any interpretation lacking ethical integrity will produce a distorted form of religiosity, even if it appears to be rooted in the holiest expressions. Therefore, Soroush believed that understanding religion is shaped not only by the text but also by the moral framework that the reader brings to it.
On a more fundamental and philosophical level, Taha Abderrahmane offered a comprehensive view in which ethics are not just the core of religion; they form the very foundation of religious knowledge itself. He distinguishes between genuine religiosity and corrupt religiosity. In his perspective, religion is not based on a contractual relationship between the believer and their Lord but on ihsan(virtuous excellence), which is demonstrated through behavior rather than slogans. Taha identified one of the main failures of modern and contemporary Islamic thought as its surrender to instrumental logic, which reduces religion to what is useful, practical, or externally visible, and separates ethics from jurisprudence and spirit from law. This is why he called for what he termed a “renewal of the ethical method” in understanding religion, where character becomes the focus of moral responsibility, not just external conformity. To him, religion is not primarily a legal or ritual system but an ongoing process of self-cultivation through spiritual effort, vigilance, and sincerity, restoring spiritual and moral goals as the foundation of all worship and human interactions.
In this context, he argued that religiosity without ethics is merely ritual, incapable of elevating the soul, and may even corrupt it. Worship that doesn’t purify the self or foster honesty, justice, and humility can become a spiritual burden that justifies arrogance, tyranny, and excommunication. His aim is to refocus the moral and spiritual mind against instrumental rationality, so that religion becomes a form of inner growth rather than an external tool to satisfy society or power.
What we need isn’t more rituals added to our lives but a faith that places ethics at the heart of religiosity and restores their central role in the religious message. This doesn’t require rebelling against religion or breaking away from it but returning to its original spirit, the spirit shared by all religions. It calls for us to reevaluate our priorities in education, sermons, law, and social life. We should begin teaching children honesty as a virtue, not just as a list of rules. Our sermons should focus less on punishment and rituals and more on ethics and their significance.
Not because rituals are unimportant, but because the same God who commanded prayer also said: “So woe to those who pray, who are heedless of their prayer, who make a show and withhold simple kindness.” That is: the prayer that lacks character and leads to no real action. The issue isn’t with rituals themselves but with stripping them of their moral significance and turning them into acts disconnected from their purpose. The alternative view doesn’t reject worship but reattaches it to its true goal or what it should have been: the transformation of the human being.
Society should stop judging piety based on the number of prayer sessions or fasting days and instead focus on a person’s honesty when no one is watching, their integrity when unmonitored, and their fairness when they hold power. In this view, prayer becomes a tool, not a goal, a way to purify the self, not a social badge. Fasting turns into a moral practice that trains the senses, not just temporary food avoidance.
We need an intellectual revival that starts with redefining what it means to be “religious”—not as someone who merely stands in prayer, but as someone who does not betray when trusted, does not lie when speaking, and acts justly in conflicts. A religiosity that reflects the Prophet Muhammad’s words: “The closest of you to me on the Day of Judgment will be those of you with the best character”—and echoes the Qur’an’s commands: “Speak kindly to people,” “Do not walk arrogantly upon the earth,” “Do not transgress—God does not love transgressors.”
This is the real construction: building conscience, not just mosques. This is the true revival: reviving conscience before reviving rituals. A religion that doesn’t produce such a person, no matter how many rituals it has, misses the true essence of faith. For someone who prays but is unjust, they haven’t truly prayed. Someone who fasts but lies hasn’t genuinely understood fasting. And someone who makes a pilgrimage but doesn’t fear God in how they treat others may have visited the Kaaba but not its Lord.
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