The Quran and Pop Psychology

Allahu Allah azza wa jal Vicki Deborah Hill Karim bada Anna Kula arugula Jimenez shaytani R Rajim

Moussa Berman. We'll see but in in lobby of nila,

on the human biller here, the callback

from the Shakti so the way your Sidley Emery were Hello Dr. Tamela Sandy of ngapali Allahumma Tabata and the multi Billa ilaha IL Allah, Allah how much I nemenhah Lilina M and what amino Saudi had, what was the what was sub sub Erminia bahala mean?

Allah azza wa jal in the Quran has

given us an incredible insight on how to see ourselves and how to see the world around us. And the place I want to start today is actually not the IRA from Soto Turabian that I read a small bit of but actually from solid facilite where Allah subhanaw Medina says so nudie him IR Tina fill FRP Wolfie unfussy him here it'll be another home and nothing.

Well, I'm yak fibula, big nawada coalition in shahid. Allah says we will show them Our signs our miracles in the horizons and inside themselves will be unfussy him inside of themselves, until it becomes abundantly clear to them that it is the truth. Now let's think about that for a moment. Allah has given us revelation, the Quran, and one of the goals of the Quran. For any human being who contemplates the Quran is they become convinced that this word is in fact the word of God. It is the truth. So part of its goals, the Ayat of Allah that have been revealed, is to make it clear to a human being that this in fact is a hack. It is the ultimate truth. And help also interestingly has

another meaning. And hack also means purpose. Like Allah says, halacha similarity with Allah will help. He created the skies in the earth with truth will also means with purpose. So not only do we get truth from the Quran, we get purpose from the Quran, our existence is not an accident. Our life is not just chaos. It's not just a temporary experience and that it's over. It is a purposeful and meaningful existence right? And these are the conclusions a person draws when they contemplate the word of Allah. But in this ayah, Allah azza wa jal now says that we will show them Our signs not in the Quran, but in the horizons outside and we will show them Our signs inside of themselves. Wolfie

unfussy him until it becomes clear to them. That it is in fact true meaning the revelation the message of the revelation is also encoded inside of ourselves. And the result the conclusions that the revelation leads us to that fundamental conclusion of la ilaha illallah, the fundamental conclusion that one day we will stand in front of our rub, the fundamental conclusion that this life is in fact temporary and leads to something much bigger. These fundamental conclusions, Allah is saying, anyone who contemplates the horizons, the skies, and anyone who contemplates deep within themselves will arrive at these conclusions, they will realize that it in fact is the truth. So you

get a very clear message from the Quran, that at the very least, there are three kinds of ayat at least there are ayat of the Quran, the Ayat of Revelation. And the other categories, you can call them all i add Colonia but you can sub subdivide them also as they are the Ayat of creation, the horizons that Allah calls, there's Ayat Neff, ci inside of ourselves, there are Ayat, right there's an n all of those if the purpose of an IRA is to guide you, is to guide me. And Allah is saying all of these are means by which we can guide it. Now this changes our view of how it is that a person reaches guidance. In fact, another place in the Quran, Allah azza wa jal says enough is somehow it

without the law yet in little movement in the movement in Allah says in the skies in the earth, there are miraculous signs from people who are going to believe for believers. Just like there are Ayat in Revelation for believers. Now Allah is saying the sky is the Earth have I asked for believers? There are also a kind of book that you have to read and contemplate. What that does for the Muslim is it changes their view of how they explore life. When we're learning our deen. We're learning our deen when we open up the book we learn about our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam we learn about Allah we learn about the previous prophets. This is one way of learning our deen and it

is the fundamental way of learning our deen but actually studying geology, studying history, studying chemistry, studying physics, studying astronomy, these sciences but we're studying the AtHoc is also in fact something that can lead a human being back to Allah. I'm reminded of a famous case and fortunately now his interview is available on YouTube. You can search it yourselves, Professor Maurice bookwell was a very famous embryologist.

See, who in his own studies when he was living in the Muslim world and he saw these people that are so devout to their religion, he was curious about them. And he wondered what the, what their book has to say about his subject his field. And he's, he's been dealing with embryology his entire career, one of the world's leading Canadian embryologist. And he studies the Quran and he's among the Arabs. So he asked them, Okay, I'm reading this in the translation about the formation of a baby. But tell me about this word and tell me about this word. And he starts exploring the meanings of the words in the Quran. And because of his knowledge of embryology, it led him to Islam. And he

talks about why he became so convinced that the Ayat of Allah were coming and commenting on the Ayat of creation. And there was no inconsistency between them. You know, another very interesting figure who actually is in the UK, and might be back in the US sometimes to Professor Abdullah Rathmann, who, you know, studied all kinds of psychology, studied psychology all over the world. In fact, he became interested in the question, what is the soul? Before he was Muslim? What is what is the soul? And

he wanted to know what the Hindus describe the soul as he wanted to know what the shamans described the soul as what are people that have these weird religions in the middle of the jungle in the Amazon? How do they describe the soul? What are their spiritual experiences? How did the Christians look at it, how he traveled the world sat among he sat in the southern Hindu temples for months, just to get a spiritual experience the way the Hindus get it. You know, he said, among Buddhists, he all in all of these experiences, and he did not consider Islam, one of the contenders for his exploration until in the end, somebody recommended Why don't you look at Islam and what he had what

it has to say about this Oh, and this is someone who's well educated and well versed in the science of psychology, and the science of self. And he arrives at the conclusion, and now we'll help he teaches Islamic psychology. Now.

What I'm trying to get at is 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 does not exist in our religion. In fact, our religion told us pseudo Phil aren't from Furukawa go travel in the world. Find out figure out contemplate how did creation begin? How did that whole rule learn about the fossils? Learn about the rule of law, find the skeletal structures go find out how creation began Bumble okay for but the 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 have 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, Mufasa chemical versus 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 ad as an edit 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 thought

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 alive himself says you live Looby he Kathy Iran. Well, yeah, the big one, are you going to be halal, possibly, even the 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'll 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 will 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 a 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. These are worlds within worlds within worlds and 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, we're 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 Allah 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 it

His work that 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 they'll also will hug me meaning you're telling somebody your 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 toxic. It's narcissist is 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 haven't? 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, we're not even contemplating how many of these concepts violate principles of the Quran. Direct principles of the Quran I'll just give you one example. Inshallah Tata herbal. Allah azza wa jal said and this is what I recited in the beginning of this football, Allah said Ma sada MIM we'll see but in Elizabeth Nila

whatever calamity happened to you, whatever struck any any any kind of calamity that struck somebody got in a car accident. Somebody guy got diagnosed with the disease, somebody's family member passed away. Somebody lost a job. Somebody got into a fight with their spouse and they're getting divorced. Somebody you know, walked or ran away from home. Somebody you know, they don't want to deal with their family anymore. So they blocked every number and now they're just gone forever. You have a brother that doesn't talk to you doesn't it won't pick up your calls will respond to your text messages. You have a son who hates your guts. You have a you have a mother who just walked away from

the family happens.

There's people experience different kinds of calamities in life. Ma Saba min we'll see. But in in NaVi there the first thing Allah says, no, no, nothing struck anyone ever except that ALLAH allowed that to happen. Number one.

But then the question is, Why did Allah allow something so terrible to happen?

Why would that happen? And Allah says sometimes in this ayah there are many Ayat on this, but this ayah Allah teaches a powerful lesson. He says, Well, my human being that he Yeah, the Kaaba, who?

Whoever truly has faith in Allah.

Allah will guide that person's heart.

Allah will guide their heart. And what is Allah saying? Allah is saying, My heart feels anxiety, my heart feels anger, my heart feels sadness. My heart feels frustration. My heart feels this person got away with something they should they deserve justice. They got away with it. My heart feels that it was unfair. My heart feels unrest, my heart feels all of these things. But if I have the mind and Allah, Allah will guide my heart through these negative emotions.

Actually, some of those negative experiences are a test of my Eman and if I do have Eman, Allah will guide my heart.

In other words, I'm supposed to go through some of these difficult experiences to truly experience guidance. I have to go and this will be the way my Eman gets secured. And he man is the greatest asset a human being can have because on Judgement Day, the only thing that matters in minute Allah because when selling the only people nothing will be of any benefit except people will come before Allah and they have a good heart. And the only way to have a good heart is to have you man in that heart and the old

Be ready have you been in that heart is Allah will guide that heart. And the only way that heart to be guided is to go through a tough experience and hold on to your faith anyway. And not let that be not that be shaken. And you stay the course. So this is, this is a remarkable thing Allah has said, in this ayat, Allah is telling us to face a traumatic experience, to face it, to deal with it, but deal with it with faith and not let it change you.

And this is why the best people, the best people that ever lived, the prophets themselves are the humans atossa Every one of them are victims of trauma. If you want to use psychological terms, every one of them were surrounded by toxic people.

Every one of them have their boundaries crossed, every one of them.

Every last one of them had to experience narcissism,

isn't it?

Isn't Abraham Ali Saddam have a toxic father didn't use a father his Salam have narcissistic brothers, didn't they? You know, isn't he a victim of family abuse? Wasn't he being gas lit when he was being called a thief?

Isn't this what was happening to them? So they could take all of that, listen to all of that, and those experiences. And then for the rest of their life. They can say I know all these fathers are toxic. I know I need to draw a healthy boundary between me and them. And even Ibrahim alayhi salam was weak when he's being expelled from his own home.

You know, it turns back to his father and he uses Yeah, Betty. He turned my my beloved father attached to him hope. He turns to his father and says, Dad, I still love you. You may not be good to me, but that doesn't mean I will no longer be good to you.

And I'll still pray for you to be forgiven. That has stuck with me. I'll I'll pray for you still.

I you know, because maybe Allah will turn your heart. I can't do anything about it. I have to leave now. That's okay. But I still care about you. He doesn't say you know what, you are a narcissist. You are a toxic person. I am glad now there's a distance between us I need to keep you away from my own personal healing.

This is not his attitude. This is not his approach. What we have done is we have created and these judgments these these labels. They are against the fundamental teachings of our deen and I'll leave you one last loved one less but especially within our families.

Okay, somebody you could have a argument between husband and wife happens. Okay, don't raise your hand.

But if you have an argument husband, wife and one of you says you know, you're so you're such an abuser. You're such a gaslighter instead of what is the Dean tell us as a vocal leader by the Apollo, the T axon in the Shetland Islands Oh by Nico, Allah says that, tell my servants, say something that is better and more beautiful. Because shaitan will try to cause friction between you. Chaos between you and discord between you. There's an argument happening and you hear something painful. You could respond with something that will make things worse.

You can also respond with something that can change the direction of the conversation towards something better.

Allah is not telling you to walk away from the conversation. Allah is telling you to deal with the conversation. If the conversation is completely out of hand, Allah is saying that Hertha Maha Mudra he Lucado Salah when the ignorant addressed them, they walk away peacefully, they say peace. They don't walk away stormed out, they work away peacefully.

But in this is sort of the opposite. I learned something I was fascinated by being a student of psychology. I was fascinated by it. Yeah, you have Latina Amanu indominus logical and what I would advocate for

those of you who believe some among your children and among your spouses, there may be enemies for you.

This is in Medina, the Sunnah was revealed in Medina rasool Allah SallAllahu sallam was living among the Jewish and Christian tribes and he was also among many among the Muslims were actually leading towards the *, they were leading towards hypocrisy. And you don't know in your family who really has the man who doesn't there was a mix. And Allah is that now the Prophet SAW Selim says, Get ready for brother or get ready for offered and some family members saying why are you going to get yourself killed? Stay home. Just tell them you got sick. Just just I'll just say you were slick. you overslept. And tell them later and they're trying to hold you back. They're trying to you know,

because they don't want him to go. Well, why do you have to go every morning at Fajr queues to stay? You know, and they're having these conversations. And Allah azza wa jal tells him that there may be among you salts people that the family is so extreme that they might even be enemies for you. That extreme. I mean, you don't use this iron golem

Wednesday now I know what you are to me

and no one has logic about logical Marabu and lako that this is an extreme case. These are extreme cases the word I do is not used lightly in the Quran. Okay but this is the extreme case fine and extreme case can exist an extreme case where your own spouse and your own children according to Allah are what an enemy. What do you do in the extreme case? Well what you do from the pop psychology perspective the Instagram psychologist can tell you what you do in such extreme cases as you draw some boundaries and you walk away and you heal yourself and you you know declare them abusers and all all this stuff.

And what does the Quran say why and therefore, what is fertile without fertile for in Allah Allah foto Rahim. Okay, and if you can forgive, if you can overlook, you can cover their mistakes. Okay, at one point they became really aggressive. But now they're really sorry about that. You know, don't bring it up again, does fall. Safa means to turn the page from suffer. Turn to pay. You know what that means? I remember what you did last year. You remember, I still remember those words. Do you remember what you said?

That's not those Fico.

I'm still traumatized about that. Let me repeat it again as if it happened, right? I didn't say it again. No, no, but it still hurts me though.

I'm still traumatized. Therefore I need to do thicker of that all the time. I need to give you a football about that all the time. Allah says if you can just turn the page to how ALLAH is forgiving to maybe things will reconcile even in the worst case, there's room for reconciliation that have room to make things better. But if the hearts are not if you're too absorbed in yourself, you're not going to look for a solution the only thing that you want to serve as your own your wishes. And so this is the last thing I will share with you. The direction that psychology is in going in now pop psychology reminds me of the idea of social Jatha or a terminator Ha Ha Ha Ha hoo ha ha ha Bala

Allahu Allah. And

did you see someone who takes their feeling, their empty feeling, and it turns that they turn it into their God,

their god has become their feeling. And Allah allows this person to be misguided. Even though they have knowledge either in they can know they can be a PhD, they can be a doctor, they can be a professional, but they are being led by their emotions. And they give themselves a new diagnosis and give themselves other people a diagnosis depending on how they make them feel. Today, you're a narcissist, tomorrow you're an abuser, the next day you're a toxic person the next day or this the next day you're depressed the next day you're, you know, you have attachment issues.

You're just throw out these diagnoses label people up Allah Allah, Allah, Allah,

wa Allah so many, but you know, Allah says, then this kind of a person, Allah will put a hit a ceiling on their hearing, you know what that means? That means doesn't matter if you try to reason with them. You cannot reason with people who live by emotions.

Many of you have experienced this when people are living by their emotions. If you're trying to be logical, it's like talking to a wall.

But I feel but I feel what I feel the feeling is That's the God how am I gonna solve it? Somebody's gonna call behavior shower, you know? That and Allah places a cover over their hearts. Oh my Yeah, Damon brother in law, who's gonna guide them after Allah?

that I had that last part of that IO who will guide them after Allah you know what that means? They replaced Allah with their own feelings.

That's why there's no more guidance for them. Because they're Eli is actually Allah but they're either became their house. So Allah says familia de even by the law, who's going to guide them after Allah, after they remove Allah from their hearts? What guidance can they have? On the flip side contemplates a lot at the hub when, when as a person experiences difficulty and trauma and actual difficulty in their life. Whoever turns back to Allah and faith Yeah, the call bow Allah will guide that person's heart. Allah will be equally che naughty Mama knows everything. There's nothing Allah doesn't know. May Allah azza wa jal guide our hearts and not allow us to become a you know,

worshippers of our own feelings and actually remain worshipers of Allah and the depths of our hearts. And may Allah not make us of those who easily pass judgment on others. unjustifiably. You know, I know this, the hotbar is already over. But one last thing I will share with you. We cannot judge another person's heart in Islam. I cannot point at you and say you're a minority if you have an effect in your heart, I can't do it. When there's no way for me to know. Even Allah did not let Musa know if it only has Cofer in his heart or not.

A

landlord who you have the car on Yaksha

go talk to him nicely. Hula Honkala Lena, both of you go talk to him nicely. Maybe he'll get reminder maybe there's some part of his heart that can benefit from a reminder. You don't know if y'all Lightsphere on it kills babies. Come on, come on, but guys heart is made up of some kind of special stone that will never crack. No, no, no, you don't know. You don't get to know. This is Allah telling Bousada in cinema Will Ferrell. So I cannot judge another person's heart. But in this new psychology, I can easily judge another person's heart. The woman I call somebody a narcissist. I'm judging them for their arrogance. The moment I call somebody, one of one of these terms, I'm not

actually judging their actions. I am judging the state of their hearts. Be careful. This is not something or lean allows. But we've made this a normal practice because we're enamored by these terms. Now, if you're going to understand these terms, if you're not a student of the subject, don't do it. Don't miss diagnose yourself and Miss diagnose others it's only creating a problem in our society and in our families. BarakAllahu li Walakum feel Quran is one of annually you can build it with a cracking