Virtue of ‘Ihsan’ in Islam with its Individual and Social Dimensions

Goodness is one of the essential values that exist in human nature in creation. However, as with every potential talent, the potential of essential well-being in human beings needs to be mobilized. It is seen that in the Qur'an, many concepts, such as ”birr”, “ma‘r？f“ and “ihsan”, are used. “Birr” refers to goodness that includes virtuous behavior towards God’s pleasure in the world and the Hereafter, and refers to a wider good than “ihsan”. “Birr” is a wider good that includes ihsan. In this sense, each “birr” is ihsan, but not every ihsan is “Birr”. ？hsan is that the individual is aware of the fact that God sees him at all times, doing a work or duty in the most beautiful way and devoting himself to goodness. As for “ma‘r？f”, it has a broader sense including “ihsan” and “birr”. This is because not only does “ma‘r？f” include goodness, but it also involves abandoning what needs to be abandoned. In this sense, ma‘r？f includes all kinds of orders/works/duties of a person with the intention of getting closer to Allah and any prohibitions that he avoids doing with this intention. However, in our paper, we will focus, among these terms, on the concept of “ihsan” which has a wide range of usage in the Islamic tradition. Ideed, “ihsan” has a comprehensive and rich universe of meaning mentioned in the Quran in almost one hundred verses with a variety of derivatives. In these verses, the concept of “ihsan” used in relation to both God and human beings; ) refers to “do good to others” (Y？suf, 12/23, 100; ？sra, 17/23) and “to do a work/action/duty in the best and right way”, (Baqara, 2/112; Nisa, 4/125) . When ihsan is referring to Allah, it is seen that it expresses His impeccable creativity (Sajda, 32/7; Taghab？n, 64/3) and His generosity towards his servants (Qasas, 28/77; Talaq, 65/11). When it is attributed to human beings, it is understood that it includes his deep respect, loyalty and obedience to Allah (Nahl, 16/30; Y？nus, 10/26) along with good/beautiful work and behaviors that are the result of this feeling. In addition, it is seen that the concept of ihsan in the Quran is associated with such moral virtues as to defeat anger, forgiveness, tolerance, patience (？l Imran, 3/134–135; Maida, 5/13; H？d 11/115; Y？suf, 12/90) to avoid extremism, determination and courage (Al Imran, 3/147-48), greed and generosity (Baqara, 2/236; Al Imran, 3/134). Ihsan has a dominant character among these virtues and has also been the subject of similar uses in the hadith of the Prophet. In this context, the expression in the hadith known as the Hadith of Jibril that “you