Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Adi ibn Hamid ibn Zakariyya
al-Tikriti al-Mantiqi is an author who has not made the best seller list for a
millennium. Born in A.D. 893, Yahya was an influential scribe and scholar in
Baghdad in the mid-940s who attracted both Christian and Muslim disciples. A
dual language edition of his work, The
Reformation of Morals is available.[1]
This is a remarkable work that deserves to be better known.
While today it is popular to claim that one cannot or should
not change because one is born that way, Yahya ibn Adi argues that individuals
can and should change their behavior to have better morals. Yahya’s comments
compare interestingly with those of two Book of Mormon kings: Benjamin and
Mosiah.
Yahya argues that “people are disposed to bad morals,
inclined to yield to base desires.” [2]
“There are some people who take no notice of the matter; but when they are put
to notice, they perceive the foulness, and so sometimes their soul brings them
to renunciation.”[3] King
Benjamin was more emphatic: “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been
from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the
enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a
saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child,
submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all
things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth
submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19).
Yahya also argues for the flip-side of something that King
Mosiah argued. King Mosiah argued that: “how much iniquity doth one wicked king
cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction! Yea, remember king
Noah, his wickedness and his abominations, and also the wickedness and
abominations of his people. Behold what great destruction did come upon them;
and also because of their iniquities they were brought into bondage.” (Mosiah
29:17–18). Yahya
argues that “the advantage of kings of good conduct is immense. They will
dissuade the wrongdoer from his wrong, they will hold back the angry man from
his anger, they will punish the immoral man for his immorality, and they will restrain
the tyrant to the point that he reverts to moderation in all his affairs.” [4]
Because we all need repentance and improvement, Yahya ibn Adi’s work, The Reformation of Morals, is as relevant now as it was a millennium ago.
[1]
Yahya ibn Adi, The Reformation of Morals,
ed. and trans. Sidney H. Griffith (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
2002).
[2]
Yahya ibn Adi, The Reformation of Morals,
ed. and trans. Sidney H. Griffith (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
2002), 11.
[3]
Yahya ibn Adi, The Reformation of Morals,
ed. and trans. Sidney H. Griffith (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
2002), 11.
[4]
Yahya ibn Adi, The Reformation of Morals,
ed. and trans. Sidney H. Griffith (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
2002), 11.
