Altruism (īthār) is the selfless preference for others advocated in classical Ṣūfism and inspired by the Qurʾān. The French term altruisme , from which the English word derives, is a neologism coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) to describe the moral capacity to act selflessly for the benefit of others. It is most closely approximated by the Arabic term īthār , the maṣdar (verbal noun) of the fourth form of the verb athara ("to choose, prefer, or favour someone or something over another"), in the sense of ātharahu ʿalayhi ("he preferred him