Lecture
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17
Social Justice
Islam, A Coherent Social Justice Tradition | Omar Suleiman | 16th MAS-ICNA Convention
22
Jurisprudence (fiqh)
Appreciating Scholarship: Intro to Islamic Law - Tesneem Alkiek | Yaqeen in NY
26
Islamophobia
How Yaqeen Heals Internalized Islamophobia - Dalia Mogahed | Making Principled Progress
29
Education
How Yaqeen is a Resource for Our Community - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Making Principled Progress
35
Social Justice
Conflict Resolution: The Line Between Justice and Peace - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Lecture
47
Identity
Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
Spiritual Personality - Zohair Abdul-Rahman | 2018 Yaqeen/MAS Academic Conference
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Alhamdulillah ibn al-'Aalameen, as-salatu was-salamu ala rasulullah wa ba'd So who here has taken the spiritual personality quiz? Show of hands. Wow, mashallah, subhanallah. Who here did it just this moment when they came in? Okay, almost the same amount, alhamdulillah. So inshallah this session is going to elucidate the theoretical framework that's behind that quiz, and behind the personality type that came out at the end of the quiz for your result. So by the end of this session inshallah for those who took the quiz, I hope that you'll have a great, a deeper understanding of the concepts that underlie it. I do recommend as well to go and the article is published, to read the article as well afterwards if you're interested. There's a lot more depth and detail into the concepts in the article. So, you guys have just taken a quiz, but I just want to ask another question, and if you'll indulge me, if you can raise your hand, if you got to the conference later than you had planned to be. So you came late, okay. People are slowly putting it up. Who here got to the conference at the time that you planned to be? Wow, very good. And who didn't plan a time at all to come to the conference, and just came when they decided to just wake up? Very good. So, what we just demonstrated there, as you can see, there's variance within the audience, and it's interesting even though you guys are the people who have come to the beginning of this talk, there's still some variance there. And the reason why I did this is to demonstrate that it's quite fascinating that human beings are very different people, and they have different behaviors, they have different attitudes, and they have different tendencies. There could also be many different circumstantial factors that contributed to why someone came late. Maybe it's not something that's the regular routine of coming late, but there are some people who are very kind of, it's in their personality almost,
people who know them as friends know this person is always late, no matter what happens. And so part of the explanation for the variance is personality, that some people have some trait within them that actually manifests in the situation where a person needs to come on time as coming late. And actually there's some research studies for those who come late, there's some research studies that suggest that coming late is correlated with high IQ. So, alhamdulillah for those, glad tidings for those who come late. You'll never hear that in any other Muslim conference. So, what exactly is personality? As I mentioned, personality is a construct used by psychologists to try and explain the variance between human behavior, tendencies, attitudes, and beliefs to a wide variety of different situations and scenarios. Essentially it's trying to answer the question, what makes people different? Now, now that we understand personality, what is spiritual personality? And what are we trying to achieve when talking about spiritual personality? The idea is that personality affects so many different aspects of our lives. It affects our career choices, it affects the types of friends that we hang out with, it affects the hobbies that we engage in, it affects our interests, it affects almost everything. So naturally then, our personality should affect our approach to Islam, our approach to Revelation. Any phenomenon in the world, you will see personality affect how that person chooses to interact with that phenomenon. Islam as a phenomenon can also be viewed in this way. So, how is it that a person with a particular personality type or personality trait will interact with the phenomenon of Islam or the phenomenon of Revelation? And it's actually very beautiful when you explore this concept because the idea is that depending on your personality, your trait, your style, your type, whatever it may be,
you may practice Islam differently than someone with a different personality type. And it's not to say that one is better than the other, it's to say that Allah has created diversity within His creation, not just in the way that we look physically, but also in our actual behavior. And that's really interesting when you think about it, just like when you go and you look into a garden and you see the beautiful different colors of flowers and it enriches the environment, the diversity there. Likewise as well, our ummah is blessed with the diversity of people and individuals with their own sets of skills, talents, passions, so that people can build and collaborate with one another towards a common good, so that people can appreciate different perspectives. Because the idea is that it's also teaching us a sense of humility. That just because I see something a certain way, doesn't mean that's the way. And that I can actually learn from other people. So this is the idea of spiritual personality. Now I do want to make it clear, when I say that people will approach Islam and practice Islam differently, I'm not talking about it from a sectarian point of view, that you know, people have different sects or whatnot. I'm speaking about it within a particular same sets of beliefs, that people will practice differently. In the sense, not the obligations, beyond the obligations. What are the things that people choose to occupy their time with? Perhaps for some people it's regular recital of Quran and ensuring that one khatm of the Quran is done every month. For some people it might be ensuring all the sunnah salats are done. For some people it might be seeking knowledge and making sure you're coming to conferences like this and trying to take advantage of learning. For other people it might be fasting. For other people it might be da'wah, calling other people to Islam. For other people it might be activism, political activism. يأمرون بالمعروف وينهون على المنكر Enjoining and encouraging the good and preventing and discouraging the evil. All these different pursuits of goodness, of khair towards Allah, people go into these different doors. So that's the idea of spiritual personality.
And this concept is not something that we've invented. It's something that's existed within the Islamic tradition for centuries and millennia. If you refer to the article you'll find copious quotes of classical scholars dating back as early as Imam Malik that spoke about this concept of spiritual personality. So just to quote, I'll quote Imam Malik, that at one point in time someone came to him and said you know, you're always here in Medina. So Imam Malik was the founder of the Maliki Madhab and he was a famous muhaddith in the city of Medina. And so they came to him and they said you're sitting in Medina and all you do is sit here and recite hadith. What about all the other things? What about Umrah? What about going on expeditions and conquests and the battles? What about all this stuff? And he responded, he said Allah has opened the doors of a'mal, of action, like he's opened and closed the doors of rizq. As for me, the door of ilm has been opened. But those other doors have not been. And so from this we see this concept early on in Islam that not everyone is expected to be kind of a prototypical image of what it means to be a righteous Muslim. There's diversity in what it means to be a good and righteous Muslim. And this concept is very freeing. It's something that brings a sense of freedom to an individual when they recognize that Islam doesn't expect them to act contrary to their personality or their interests and passions. Because a lot of times what happens, and I find this very interesting, I thought about this a lot, that Muslims, especially in the West, where do we get our Islamic education from? A lot of the times we get it from speakers, we get it from people online, we get it from people from YouTube, we get it from the masjid, we get it from people who are teaching us their kind of perspective of Islam. And so when it comes to the aspect of advice that's given, you might be inspired and motivated after a talk and you go up to the speaker and say, you know, I want to start taking my Islam seriously, what should I do next? And oftentimes the speaker will respond in a way that suits his personality.
Say, you know, okay, for instance, my speakers might say, okay, the first thing you need to do is learn, you know, learn Islam, learn aqeedah, and really focus, these are the books that you need to go through, learn first and then go forward. And then a person might say, okay, I need to do this, but it doesn't really fit with them. They're not the type of person that can sit down, you know, for hours and hours at a time reading a book. They're the type of person that gets fidgety at that moment, their knees are shaking, they need to get out, they need to do something. And then oftentimes that leads to a sense of tension that this is what Islam expects from me, but it seems that I'm not capable of living up to that example. And so the idea of spiritual personality is that there is no one right answer to how a person chooses to run to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There's no one way to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. As Allah says in the Quran, Allah invites to subul as-salam, the paths to Allah. Now Allah also says, ihdinas sirat al-mustaqim, so guide us to the straight and upward path, path in the singular in Surah Fatiha, but in other places in the Quran Allah alludes to subul, paths. The idea is that there's one path to Allah, and that's within Islam. But within Islam, there are multiple lanes, there are multiple highways, there are multiple roads, there are multiple exits, throughways, bridges, and a person can carve their path towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so this is the reason why we feel that spiritual personality is a very important concept. And the reason why it's relevant, especially to the vision and the mission of yaqeen, which is really nurturing that conviction within a community to inspire contribution, is that oftentimes it's possible as well that doubts can emerge from a tension between a person's personality and the version of Islam that has been presented to them. That they feel that this faith doesn't really line up with them, they don't find it very spiritual or meaningful, the different things that they're doing and they're trying to focus on. And so this kind of tension can lead to a sense of despair and a sense of thinking perhaps Islam isn't for me, for instance.
Also on the flip side, spiritual personality is a very useful concept to try and discover perhaps there are personality differences and reasons that make a person prone to doubt, for instance. Or make a person prone to doubt the existence of Allah versus to doubt the morality of the shari'ah, for instance. Where perhaps there's a personality difference that actually determines or contributes to the types of doubts that a person faces. And understanding that can actually bring a lot of clarity to a person when they're experiencing a crisis of faith or experiencing a problem with a particular issue, when they recognize, you know, this is something that's coming because of my particular perspective, my attitude, my tendencies, etc, etc. Rather than a purely rational or intellectual reason. Oftentimes a doubt can emerge simply because of preferences and attitudes that are personality based rather than rationally based. Also as well, spiritual personality is useful to try and understand our weaknesses. To know what types of sins we may be prone to. To know what kinds of strengths we may be prone to as well. So that we can build on them. Spiritual personality can also possibly explain as well, perhaps some personalities are more prone to extremism and fundamentalist types of thoughts and ideas. These are all the different implications of this concept. And so it's a very important and significant concept. And we're really excited to kind of introduce it and to build on it insha'Allah in the future. So that was more on the individual. On the communal level, as Sister Abar alluded to in the introduction, on the communal level, spiritual personality is very important for us to understand how we organize our spaces as Muslims. Safe spaces for Muslims to be able to thrive. It's very important for people to be aware that there's not just one particular attitude or way that a person will be active in the Muslim community.
So to ensure that facilities, organizations are built in a way that actually appreciate the differences in people's personalities and their spiritual personalities. And this can also help to possibly alleviate as well a lot of disagreements and conflicts that occur in organizations. A lot of times, sometimes you can actually boil down conflicts rather than some egos or issues of rational debate to simply personality differences. And one of the good examples to understand this is not necessarily in the Muslim community, but in the broader kind of American and Canadian community is the concept of the political debate, the conservative versus the liberal. There was a very interesting study that actually looked at correlations in people who are conservative to their personalities, traits and types, and people who are liberal to the personalities. And they found actually a difference in the sense that there was a higher proportion of individuals who adopted a liberal political attitude who are high in trait openness. And then people who are conservative or high in conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is all about making sure things are stable, making sure that the boundaries are set on knowledge, making sure that, you know, very much valuing hard work and discipline, etc, etc. Openness, and that really you can see how that links to that conservative kind of mindset. And on the liberal mindset, openness is the idea of breaking down the barriers and to being open to different ideas, open to different experiences, to be able to include and encapsulate a greater value. And so you can see how even that, that concept of openness kind of matches with the liberal type of attitude and preference. And so at the end of the day, you can look at a large part of this kind of debate. It's not one is right and one is wrong. It's that these are two different ways of looking at a particular issue. And the goal is the idea of being balanced. كذلك جعلناكم أمة وسطى Allah has made us a middle nation. And the idea of عدل, what عدل means in Islam is put everything in its proper place.
At one particular time, perhaps, one perspective is necessary, and another particular time, another perspective. And wisdom and hikmah is knowing when to use what, despite the fact that you might have a particular personality inclination, recognizing the value, having that higher-ordered thinking to be able to recognize, you know, maybe this doesn't sit well with me, but I recognize its need, and I recognize the value that it serves. And so this is the idea of personality on a communal level. And talking about Islamic organizations, you can see that as well play out. Personality differences can be at the ends of a very, you know, harsh debate, perhaps, in a particular organization. And recognizing that helps people become tolerant of other opinions, other perspectives, rather than accusing the other person, for instance, of being, you know, you know, uncompassionate and rude or whatnot, and the other side of being, you know, oh, you guys are too this or that or whatever, kind of going at that level of the insult, but elevating that to the idea of, okay, I appreciate your perspective is coming from a place of compassion, and your place, your perspective is coming from a place of justice. So that's the idea of spiritual personality on the communal level. Now, that's spiritual personality in general. Now, as you could see when you did the quiz, there's a particular quiz that we've made, and there's a particular personality type. So inshallah, we're just going to go briefly over the theory behind that. So after kind of discovering and understanding that there's this concept of spiritual personality, where did we go from here? We said, okay, would it be possible to describe some of the spiritual personalities, some archetypal patterns in the way that people practice Islam? And so when you look in the classical literature, you find some very interesting discussions in the spiritual writings of the past. We really focus on Ibn al-Qayyim, who was a medieval scholar, passed away 751 after the hijrah.
And in many of his different spiritual books, specifically Madarij al-Saliqeen as well as Tariq al-Hijratain, he spoke a lot about this concept of people possessing, and also Adat al-Sabirin, he talked about people possessing different qualities. He'll talk about a quality and say that some people possess this and some people possess this. And he'll talk about his model as well of the soul of the spirit. And at the end of the day, all personality models have to come down to some structural representation of the soul or the psyche, or whatever you might call it. And so from that stems the theory of personality. And so Ibn al-Qayyim, he starts off by actually saying that there's two fundamental instincts of the soul. And so now we're here, we're starting with the theory. Two fundamental instincts of the soul. The first instinct is the instinct to knowledge. The instinct to knowledge. The second is the instinct to behavior, to act. These are the two fundamental instincts that Allah has put into the body. And that's why human beings cannot stop one of these two things. We're either thinking thoughts in our head or we're acting in this world. And so this is the idea of the spiritual instincts endowed to the human being. Now, the instinct for knowledge allows us to conceptualize, to learn, to grow, to understand the world around us. And the instinct to behavior and action enables us to act based on our representation of the world in our best interest, towards some benefit, towards something that will bring us fulfillment and meaning. So these are the two instincts that Ibn al-Qayyim speaks about. Now, from these two instincts, we'll start with the first one, knowledge. There we go. The diagram will make it a lot easier. So as you can see here, we have the first, the instinct to knowledge and the instinct to action. And this is, by the way, very much common in the Qur'an. You see, alladhina aamanu wa aamila as-salihaat.
Iman, that kind of knowledge, that awareness, that belief in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and action, and doing the actions physically in our bodies. And so this kind of concept, watawasaw bilhaqqi, watawasaw bis-sabr, that we call one another to truth, which is the knowledge aspect, and to sabr, which is the action aspect. And so this kind of pattern, this kind of pairing, is throughout the Qur'an. So it's not just something that's coming from Ibn al-Qayyim. It's coming, rather, Ibn al-Qayyim is taking it from his reading of the Qur'an. So from there, where do we go? So on the knowledge side, Ibn al-Qayyim talks about there being, if you took all the knowledge, you can really categorize it into two types. The first type is experiential knowledge, we termed it in English, or you can say ma'rifatul ahwal. And this is the term of ma'rifah. And the way Ibn al-Qayyim operationalizes this term in madad is to say that the ma'rifah is kind of the inner dimension of knowledge, it's the soul of knowledge, it's the experience of knowledge. That when you know that Allah is One, there's one thing to know it, and there's one thing to experience it, and to live it, and to feel it. And so this is the idea of ma'rifah. Its focus is on experiences. So a person who is interested in this domain of knowledge will be seeking experiences, will be seeking to feel and live the concepts of Islam, rather than learn the details and the boundaries of those particular concepts. And I'll use tawakkol as an instance. To understand tawakkol, for them they would want to know what things can I do to engender this feeling inside my heart. Not to confuse, it's not that people with experience will not read or kind of try to learn concepts, rather to the contrary, people who are more focused on experiential knowledge will actually be very good at abstract thought, and would actually love to read abstract writing. And that's why you find a lot of spiritual writing is very abstract, very metaphorical, very poetic. Why? Because when you experience something, it's hard to articulate it.
When something is inside, it's hard to articulate. The way that you articulate it is usually in the form of poetry, or in the form of abstract thought and representation and metaphor. And so this is kind of the aspect of knowledge that people who have a focus on experiential knowledge will focus on. The second type of knowledge is ilm, and we talked about here, ilm al-ahkam, judgment-focused knowledge. And this is the knowledge that is really focused on understanding the concept objectively. So experience-focused is more subjective, first-person, phenomenological. What is your experience of that particular concept? Judgment is more third-person, objective, how it is. How does everyone understand this particular concept? How would, what are the rules and boundaries of understanding this concept? What are the definitions of this concept that make it different from another concept? So for the instance of tawakkul, understanding what is tawakkul? How is it different from other closer concepts like tafweed? What are the different practical things that you can do? Judgment-focused people are looking for things that they can implement. What are the rights and responsibilities that I need to do at this moment? Practical-focused. This is the idea of judgment-focused knowledge. And so for tawakkul, it would be, give me just five things that I can do that would objectively say that I am now engaged in tawakkul. Their focus is well on understanding the objective value of things. So what's the reward associated with X? I want to do that which Allah has rewarded more with. In this particular context, this has more reward. Okay, I want to do that because it's objectively has a higher reward. Versus the person who's experience-focused might not care as much about the objective reward attached to it and might focus more on what do I do that makes me feel close to Allah? Whereas the person with judgment-focused would say, for instance, on a Friday, we'll take a Friday as an example. It's after Jum'ah. And so a person judgment-focused might say, okay, what are the things I need to do now? Need to finish and read Surah Al-Kahf, and I need to make du'a in the time of istijabah.
And I need to send salat and salam upon the Prophet ﷺ. So someone with judgment-focused might focus on these things. Experience-focused might say, what can I do to make me feel closer to Allah? And they may focus on one thing only because they feel closer to Allah with that. So that's the idea of knowledge. The last idea is the idea of deeds, amal, actions. And actions are two types as well. Ibn al-Qayyim talks about adudus sabireen, that there are two types of energies or forces that inspire a person to behave. One is an initiatory that makes a person act, and another is an inhibitory that makes a person restrain. And so there's action-focused and restraint-focused. The idea is that people sometimes are more focused on acting on what is good, and some people are more focused on restraining from what is evil and sinful. And so a lot of times, when people are acting on what is good, sometimes they're weak on restraining from evil. And Ibn al-Qayyim talks about this. He says you'll find someone who prays five times a day, who fasts Mondays and Thursdays, but then they're addicted to some sort of sin. They're not able to restrain themselves because they're more focused on the action part. And contrary as well, he talks about how a person who's more restraint-focused, he doesn't necessarily pray all the time or go for Jumaa, but he's strict, only eats halal meat, doesn't commit any zina, doesn't get involved in any of that stuff, but is not really doing as much. So these are the two different kinds of patterns of behavior for deeds, for behavior, for amal. And so from these two different types, we see that these are the kind of basic functions, you can say, of spiritual personality. The experiential knowledge, judgment knowledge, action behavior, and restraint behavior.
And from these, you get the four archetypes.
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