Role of Pleasure and Happiness in the Human Development with an Approach to Islamic Teachings

In the past few decades, discussion on the critique of hedonistic and self-centered philosophy of ethics in the conventional economics has been of concern to the Muslim thinkers, particularly, Muslim economists.The present study is an introduction to pleasure and happiness with a focus on their interrelation from the viewpoint of the Qur’ān and traditions. The basic hypothesis of this article is that in line with the tendency to happiness, Islam enjoys an al-inclusive, coordinated, and moderate viewpoint concerning gratification of pleasures in the development of various human personality dimensions. We have used the “attributive” research method for identifying the concepts of pleasure and happiness and employed the “content analysis” method for the part relating to analyzing.The results confirm that from the viewpoint of Islam, pleasures are to be utilized in such a way that would be consistent with all the capacities and components of human personality; and that man would achieve true happiness only by properly believing and understanding the pleasures of the Hereafter. Paying attention to a moderate Islamic approach reflects the necessity of cultural engineering of pleasure and the Islamic ethics-oriented happiness, paving the ground for enunciating general orientations for institutionalizing pleasure-seeking and prosperous behavior required by Islam.