Nouman Ali Khan – Quranic Teachings & Modern Psychology

			Let me tell you what a narcissist is. Let me tell you what a toxic person is. These are worlds
within worlds within worlds. And we're not even contemplating how many of these concepts violate
principles of the Quran.
		

			The study of outside of our deen, what you know, lately we started calling it religious education,
secular education. We separated these two, right? There's religious education and there's secular
education. This is a new definition this did not exist in our religion. In fact, our religion told
us pseudo Phil aren't from Guru kaifa. I'll help go traveling the world. Find out figure out
contemplate how did creation begin? How did their own rule learn about the fossils, learn about the
ruins look, find the skeletal structures, go find out how creation began on Bukoba alpha. This is
Allah azza wa jal telling the believer not to close their eyes. And, you know, keep the outside
		

			world outside because it will ruin your faith. You know, other religions. I don't have to name any
of them. But other religions, they would basically tell people don't learn anything from the outside
it will corrupt your faith. It will make you start having doubts. If you want to preserve your
faith, stay within this protected circle. Only listen to these these people. And if you listen to
them, you will your Eman will be protected. The devil will not get to you. But the Quran came and it
acknowledged that Allah gave the human being such a powerful a more powerful tool than anything
else, the human mind, the human heart, the soul, and it's supposed to arrive at the truth by
		

			engaging with exploration. And the more you explore, not you become more doubtful. The more you
explore, the more convinced you become it's the opposite. We were supposed to be a people of
exploration. That's what we were supposed to be. But there's a dark side to exploration. Science can
be a spiritual experience it can be. I've met people that have studied philosophy and history. And
that became a spiritual experience that led them back to Islam. It can be but science, let's take
science for an example. Science by itself is blind. Science has no conscience. Science is not about
good or evil. It's just observation. When somebody is studying chemistry, there are not solid
		

			chemicals. And you know, facet chemical. This is chemicals. When you're somebody studying physics,
there's just physical physical formulae. It's just quantum mechanics. It's just you know, these are
just phenomenon you're observing reality. But people have a conscience. So if you let's remove God,
and remove spirituality and remove guidance from the equation and just look at science for a moment,
if somebody looks at science without any other book, not looking at as an add as an added as an idea
that leads to something bigger. If you look at it that way,
		

			then it's very easy to say that we can use science for very evil purposes to
		

			this the same science that creates nuclear weapons. It's the same science that creates chemical
weapons. It's the same science that creates addictive drugs that 1000s of people are addicted to
around the world aren't, isn't it. It's also a product of science. It's the same science that
creates weapons that kill people is the same science that creates, you know, carcinogens is the same
science that people use to produce, manufacture synthetic food that they know can cause all kinds of
health issues, but it makes them a lot of money. It's scientists that are doing a lot of scientific
study, to produce what's being produced. And science is all around us. The Quran is simply telling
		

			us something, it's telling us that when you look at the if you study and explore science, but you
are seeking purpose, then you will find it. But if you remove purpose from the equation, then you
can turn that into anything. And in fact, that's even true of the Quran. Wild enough. If somebody
comes to the Quran, and they are not seeking purpose.
		

			They're not sick. They're just curious, but they're not seeking purpose. They can very well find
misguidance from this book, Allah Eve himself says you live Looby he Kathy Iran. Well, yeah, the big
one, are you going to be halal fossicking even though Quran you cannot get guidance from it if you
don't come with the right mindset.
		

			I know very, very well educated professors, PhDs in the study of the Quran that are non Muslim, I
know them they've been studying the Quran for 2530 years. They know more Quran that most Muslims
they know more Arabic and more classical. They've seen that than most Muslims but they're not
Muslim. They will go to a conference they will discuss a surah for five hours and discuss every idea
and discuss them have a saloon and then their lunch break. They're gonna go have a champagne. That's
that's normal for them.
		

			because they don't come to the Quran for guidance, the same way you don't need, you don't have to
study the science or study science for purpose. The same way that even applies to the word of Allah.
But I wanted to turn this conversation briefly towards something else. I wanted to turn it towards a
new science that took hold of the world in the last 100 to 150 years. And that's the science of
psychology. Before psychology, when a human being experienced difficulty emotionally, they went
through a tough experience, or they wanted to overcome their sadness and their grief, for example,
right?
		

			They would turn towards religion, before psychology, or they would turn towards philosophy, because
philosophy asked the question, what is pain? Why is there suffering in the world? What is this world
all about? Right, philosophers tried to answer this question. So this doesn't matter what religion,
people turn towards religion to answer their questions of the things that were troubling them in
their heart. But then, philosophy, and even the spiritual study of psychology, spirituality, they
basically got replaced slowly, with this new thing we now call psychology. And psychology is an
attempt to understand ourselves, understand our deepest thoughts, understand our subconscious.
		

			Understand our emotions, understand other people's behavior, our own behavior, right? You people go
to a therapist and say, Why do I get so angry all the time? Why can't I stop crying? You know, why
do people treat me this way? Etc, etc. And you know, I'm a student of psychology myself. And I can
tell you, it's a very elaborate science. It's an exhaustive study, there are it's not just one
subject. It's actually multiple departments, social psychology, personality, psychology, abnormal
psychology, people have dedicated entire academic careers, to exploring more and more areas of
psychology, all of it, by the way, is connected to something in the Quran. Allah said soluti him i
		

			attina philosophy will fee unforeseen they'll will show them our eye art inside themselves. And what
is psychology doing? It's an exploration of the self. That's what it is. But it removes
fundamentally removes God from the equation.
		

			Now, the PERT Did you know like I said, science without purpose can give you chemical weapons can
give you addictive drugs, psychology with the removal of purpose or removal of hola from the
equation, what does it give you? Something has to be there, that is the ultimate truth. And for what
happened, what happened in the world of psychology. And what's even crazier is not just in the
academic psychology, with because of social media, something else happened before I get to my
observations. And that is that in any subject, let's say physics, any subject, let's say, mechanics,
there are people that actually know mechanics, they actually know physics. And those are professors
		

			and PhDs and researchers. But they don't have a YouTube page.
		

			But there's an 18 year old who's read a couple of books on it. And he's got a 5 million followers on
his YouTube page. And he's a much more popular content producer on physics, even though some of his
physics is a joke. If academics actually looked at his work, they'd say, What is this, but he's got
more followers, because now you can present content in a more interesting way, even if it's not well
researched. And it will sound convincing. Right? So what happened with the world of psychology,
there is PhDs and research and analysis and books. And then there are people who will come up with
their own content, and they will come up and say, let me tell you what a narcissist is. Let me tell
		

			you what a toxic person is. Let me tell you how to draw boundaries. Let me tell you if this let me
tell you about trauma. And you've got these people that just became self diagnosing. And now these
terms became popular among even the Muslim community. Now you have a young man saying, you know, my
father is so toxic. He's always gaslighting me. I need to draw some boundaries between myself and my
dad, because he's really getting in my, my emotional space, and I need some healing. And I need to
have some self care. So what used to be arrogance can now be called self care. What used to be bad
as luck can now be called drawing a boundary. What used to you know, what used to be telling, you
		

			know, somebody's telling you a harsh truth, what the wasabi hot, meaning you're telling somebody a
truth that maybe they don't want to hear, but you need they need to hear it. You say this is it.
This is gaslighting. I'm being gaslit. So now what we do is we take psychology, and we actually
undermine some of the most important experiences in our lives. Because the biggest the ultimate
thing is I need to feel good. Anything that gets in the way of me feeling good, is bad for my
psychology.
		

			So the ultimate goal is to keep yourself happy. Anything gets in that way. It's tough.
		

			Toxic its narcissist is that this person is narcissistic. They're not drawing they're out boundary.
I'm being triggered. You're being triggered.
		

			What does the Quran say about that? What what happens when you have an and by the way, I'm not
dismissing somebody having a traumatic experience.
		

			I don't dismiss it. There's such a thing as narcissism these things exist. What I'm saying is we
have turned them into weaponized terms. We don't even understand them ourselves. And it's actually
starting to impact the way we think about our own religion. Our arch our chain of we're not even
contemplating how many of these concepts violate principles of the Quran. Hey guys, you just watched
a small clip of me explaining the Quran in depth as part of the deeper look series. Studying the
Quran in depth can seem like a really intimidating thing that's only meant for scholars Our job is
to make deeper study of the Quran accessible and easy for all of you. So take us up on that
		

			challenge. Join us for this study the deeper look of the Quran for this surah and many other sources
on Vienna tv.com under the deeper look section