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Afterlife
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Afterlife
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tamim al-Dari (ra): The Palestinian Sahabi That Met Dajjal | The Firsts
145
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Adi ibn Hatim al-Tai (ra): From Christian King to Companion | The Firsts
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Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zayd ibn al-Khattab (ra): The Quiet Brother of Omar (ra) | The Firsts
161
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid (ra): From False Prophet to Shaheed | The Firsts
347
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Amr ibn al-As (ra): His Wicked Father and “Better” Brother | The Firsts
353
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid ibn al-Walid (ra): The Legendary Military General | The Firsts
494
Quran
Juz’ 26: Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed and Dr. Zohair Abdul Rahman | Our Afterlife and Our Purpose
610
Allah
Finding Faith Through the Prophet's ﷺ Conviction: Dr. Omar Suleiman | My Moment of Conviction
724
Social Justice
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735
Prophets
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771
Angels
Ep. 13: The Hadith of Jibreel (as) | Angels in Their Presence | Season 2 | Dr. Omar Suleiman
805
Afterlife
Sincerity Shines and Hypocrisy Blinds | Judgment Day: Deeds that Light the Way Episode 25
962
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Anisa, Al-Numan, and Amir (ra): On A Boat From Abysinnia | The Firsts
969
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid Ibn Sa’id Ibn al-'As (ra): A Dream of the Prophet | The Firsts
985
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zaynab Bint Khuzayma (ra): The Mother of the Poor | The Firsts Shorts
995
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Shurahbil Ibn Hasana (ra): The Scribe and Commander | The Firsts Shorts
1017
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Al-Shifa bint Abdullah (ra): The Healer and Scholar | The Firsts Shorts
1070
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khawla Bint Hakim & Uthman Ibn Madhun: The Righteous Couple | The Firsts
1186
Islam in the West
Dr. Ahmed Osman: The Martyrdom, Funeral, and Burial of Malcolm X | Yaqeen Presents
1539
Acts of Worship
When the Prophet Sent People Home from the Masajid for Taraweeh | Daily Reminders
1654
Identity
Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
1658
Social Justice
Overcoming Compassion Fatigue, Numbness, and Burnout - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Khutbah
1698
Acts of Worship
Day 24: When the Night Draws its Curtain —The Importance of Tahajjud | Ramadan Strong
1750
Social Justice
Conflict Resolution: The Line Between Justice and Peace - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Lecture
1751
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Spiritual Personality - Zohair Abdul-Rahman | 2018 Yaqeen/MAS Academic Conference
1766
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Conversations at The Carter Center: Harmonizing Religion and Human Rights
1767
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How Yaqeen is a Resource for Our Community - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Making Principled Progress
1773
Islamophobia
How Yaqeen Heals Internalized Islamophobia - Dalia Mogahed | Making Principled Progress
1795
Jurisprudence (fiqh)
Appreciating Scholarship: Intro to Islamic Law - Tesneem Alkiek | Yaqeen in NY
1824
Acts of Worship
Episode 6: The Highest Companionship in the Highest Garden | Prayers of the Pious
Who Do You Imagine God To Be? | Webinar
When you think of God, what do you imagine?
If you have a positive perception of God, your outlook on life will likely be the same, leaving you with better mental health, stronger resiliency, and more meaningful relationships. On the flip side, a distorted perception of God might leave you struggling to find connection and cope poorly amidst challenges.
In this webinar, we explore some of the factors that shape our perception of God and how you can begin to work to improve your understanding and connection to God today.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulil kareem, assalamu alaikum. So very excited to join you all today. We have two very special guests. My name is Sisneem and I'm going to help moderate a discussion that I've been wanting to have with these scholars on our team at Yaqeen for so very long, alhamdulillah. We're joined by Dr. Hassan Alwan, who holds a PhD in electrical engineering but also has a master's in clinical psychology and alhamdulillah has done a lot of work for us at Yaqeen as a research fellow. You might have seen my Qur'an 30 for 30, but when this man speaks, you can listen to him for hours. So we're very excited to have him. And of course we have our very own Dr. Uthman Umarji, who has his PhD in educational, correct me? Educational psychology. Educational psychology, alhamdulillah. So more of our psychology background. He also has studied at Azhar as well. So both have a really good mix. We got Islamic training. Dr. Uthman also has a background in engineering. We're going to explore that in a second. So we've got some engineers. You put them two together, throw in some Islamic studies and you have some incredible studies that alhamdulillah have come out with them working together, both in Southern California. So for those who are out there on the West Coast, you guys are very blessed to have them in the community and alhamdulillah, we're very blessed to have them at Yaqeen where we can really use their expertise and their backgrounds to produce awesome work like the God Image Study. So just about last year, alhamdulillah, or earlier this year, we released a paper called the Alchemy of Divine Love. And essentially what this paper, this research looks at is that both of you who are not just research fellows and contributors at Yaqeen, and by the way, Dr. Uthman is our director of data studies at Yaqeen, but you guys are also very involved within the community. You're working with people on the ground, you know, both in a clinical setting, both as imams, community leaders, and you work with people who have, you know, just doubts about Islam or who are coming up to you and are saying, are admitting that, you know what,
hey I'm Muslim, I believe in God, but I have this difficulty submitting to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I'm having this difficulty really, you know, building that relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So you've experienced different issues on the ground and what, from what I understand, you did some thinking, did some probing and pushing, and realized that a lot of these issues are stemming from not the issue itself per se, but how these people are perceiving Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That maybe the issue is deeper, right? Maybe the issue isn't about the doubt itself as an example, but how you understand Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to be. What's your connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? So you guys pushed it a little more. You know what, maybe it's these misconceptions of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that are causing these questions or these issues, but then you guys pushed it even more to look at, you know what, what is it, how did you get to these misconceptions, right? And did some studies, looked at parenting styles, looked at how, you know, different relationships in your life might have affected this perception. But what's really incredible is that the work that you guys have done is really relevant to everyone. Because it's speaking to both parents, both children, to community members, to the average Muslim. How do you perceive Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Who do you imagine to be? And how is your relationship with him? And when we can answer those questions, and you guys have begun that research, it really opens up the doors to so much that, and we'll talk about this in detail, better mental health, stronger resiliency, so many different incredible positive traits that come out when you have a better perception of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So it's very exciting for everyone joining. This is relevant to everyone and really is going to impact so many different aspects of your life. So I want to open the floor to both you Dr. Hassan and Dr. Uthman. Tell us more about this research. Why is it important and how is it really relevant to my day-to-day life or the average listener? Bismillah wa salat wa salam wa rasool Allah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wal muraat. Jazakumullahu khair for having us. It's always an honor to be on these programs with you. So as part of that question, why is it relevant to me or relevant to you? I mean Dr. Hassan and I,
we speak about it, it's to kind of look at each other and say, what else matters in life in many ways, right? It is perhaps one of the most important things that one has to think about in their entire life is who is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and what do I think about him? We are finding in our research as well as in our life experiences speaking to people that it affects everything from your mental health, right? If you feel anxious or if you're feeling depressed, that can be related to your image of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It affects how you think about yourself and your sense of self. Do you feel lovable? Do you feel like you have any worth? Is your existence worthwhile? Can God accept you? It affects your life satisfaction. You know, do you feel like your life is heading in the right direction? Are you content with what has happened to you in this world? It affects your relationships. It affects how you parent your kids. It affects how you treat your spouse. So I mean the list can go on and on and on, how you cope with the difficulties that hit you. So in essence, why is it relevant? It's relevant because it affects probably every single thing in your life. Yes, subhanAllah. So to second what Imam Afman is saying, it affects even the purpose of my creation. When we were created, we were created for a purpose and we were created as we all know to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? So we are a relational human being, like the human being is a relational being, created to relate. We have a phenomenal ability to relate and we were intended to relate. We relate to everything, our spouses, our mothers, our fathers, but more importantly to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Central to forming a relation, how do I relate to something, is how do I perceive this something. So Imam al-Ghazali even says, If we were to say that I want to love and be loved, I want to experience love and I want to experience a relationship where love exists and other emotions too. It's impossible for one to love someone without first perceiving something of him. Love follows my perception of who I love.
So knowing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the way I experience Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will definitely affect the way I will attach, the relationship, my attachment to him. How, what type of attachment I'll have is going to be based on my perception of him. It even goes further, you know there is this statement, Whoever really knows Allah on an experiential level, as we'll speak, this is not knowledge of the head, as Imam Uthman will speak later, right? When I really really know someone, right, and when I really know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I can see and I can interpret, it's like I can assign correct meanings to everything in life. When good things happen, I see Allah's attributes. When negative, when I perceive something as negative, I still see Allah's attributes. So as Imam Uthman said, I'm able, I'm never alone, right? Most people suffer, typically in hardship, because they're left alone in it. You know there is this statement, they say kids are not afraid from darkness, kids are not afraid, they're afraid of being alone in darkness. So knowing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allows me to to see the world in a different way. As Imam Uthman said also, to see myself, you know, the definition of who I am, my sense of self comes from who Allah is. How does Allah treat me? And we see that in kids, right? Like they look for their parents and, am I good? Am I nice? You know, like I need validation from you, right? So the perception of my my parents and the perception of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala helps me even define who I am. Finally, many of the struggles that we pass through, we often complain about the symptoms, you know, anxiety, depression, you know, low self-esteem, whatever, right? Sometimes the core of all those issues, at the core of it is one thing, is la ilaha illallah. Is this experienced
well enough or not? We call it al-tawhid al-wujdaini, experiential tawhid. Subhanallah, it's incredible. Really, it comes back to this idea that if you perceive Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the way that he describes himself, this accurate understanding that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has all these names and attributes, that that relationship, you're naturally going to want to know him, you're going to naturally want to build that connection with him, and then you, as you mentioned, you begin to see him everywhere. And that really brings to light, brings you to life, because you can have, you know, the connection that we were created for, to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so I can only imagine sort of the snowball effect that could have on our mental health and our overall, you know, quality of life. But I'm curious, this is a very interesting topic for two engineers, you came into a room together, what made you, you know, get started, get thinking, what, you know, did something happen in the community, what triggered this type of research? Because it really is almost one of a kind, and it's going to open the doors, inshallah, to so much more research in the future. So subhanallah, it started years ago, I think, maybe even nine years ago, like I remember, like maybe around 2013, 2014, right? And I was like, you know, going to be giving different talks in the MSAs, you know, talking to people in the community, and I started to become more interested in individual counseling. And people oftentimes would come and they will complain about some kind of a struggle. Sometimes it's spiritual, sometimes it's psychological, sometimes I see it's psycho-spiritual, spirituality, like, you know, is affecting their psychology and vice versa. And as I started to speak with people, I started to notice patterns, you know, people come with the same questions, for example, the why question. And people even complain not about the question, they tell you, I know I shouldn't be asking this, but I can't help but ask that, am I a bad Muslim? You know, so like, questions of that sort, you
know, I know I should be happy with Allah's decree, but really, I can't, I'm upset, I'm angry, what do I do? And now, we call it meta-emotions, not only I'm angry, I'm angry that I'm angry, I'm sad that I can't submit, right? And what's the solution? So I started at that point to see, hmm, interesting, this is much deeper than the logical answer. Sometimes people would come with doubts. I have doubts about Islam, how can you prove that this is the right religion? Right? And some turn to atheism, right? And you can see they're very militant, very angry, very upset. So there is some anger, it's not really logical, there's some emotions there, where are they coming from? And I started at that point to realize, wait a minute, their view of who Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is, we're not speaking about the same God here, you know, this is not the Allah I know, but the person memorized all the attributes, you know, if you tell him list the 99 names of Allah, here, 1, 2, 3, 4, but in a way, the experience is different. And at that point, I was like, okay, I started my psychology, clinical psychology degree. So I started reading in there, you know, trying to see what's going on, and you know, is there a relationship? And again, being an engineer, I started to say, can we quantify this? Can I have a list of questions? So before I answer someone, before I give an answer, you know, I was telling Imam Uthman just before we started, one problem is that there is no one medicine for everything, like medicine, the medicine that can cure one person can actually kill the other person. The answer that I would give one person and to work perfectly with him, I noticed you say to another person, he does not or she does not accept it. Right? So before answering on the logical, like, I need to assess. And that's again, when the engineering part comes in, okay, let's can I quantify this? Is there a way you know, and then studying? Interestingly enough, you study the literature and Christians have been
doing this. They have I found out they have measures of measuring the attachment to God, the attachment to God inventory, they give you a list of questions. And based on that, they measure your what style of attachment you have with the divine. They have a whole theory, you know, object relations, and how do you view Allah God? And you know, how does it affect you? And I was like, okay, interesting, but it doesn't describe a lot is described a Christian God, which is not this, you know, this, this, our theology is different. It's not suitable. Right? So that's when I started, okay, you know what, let's let's develop some items based on, you know, spirituality. And, and I started assessing and surely enough, you can you can start to see patterns and you actually actually can predict, you know, a person would say a question and you say, I bet the root cause is that attribute of Allah in particular. Right? And then I at that point, I showed it to Imam Uthman, we were discussing it, because at that point, I was I was doing something interesting. I was saying, Okay, let me compare, let me give this questions to the shuyukh, you know, the imam in our community, right? And then the answer and you see their scores, of course, mashallah, really high, you know, then I say, Wait a minute, let me give it to the other people. Oh, my God, there's a lot of distortion. And you start to see males and females, sisters and brothers, there is a difference. age groups, there is a difference, right? So I discussed it with Imam Uthman. And that's honestly, he helped take this to another level, you would have never seen this in any paper, it would have probably still been Excel spreadsheets, you know, only when I met Imam Uthman, and you know, he added this, you know, when Yaqeen, of course, Yaqeen Institute, let's take this properly to the other level, you know, I think he can speak more about that. Yeah, so I mean, just to go back to the history, this is about seven, eight years ago, when when Hassan approached me, he'd already been doing this for quite a while. And I said, Look, Hassan, we got to do this properly. We got to use proper statistical models and all these techniques and factor analysis, we started geeking out over this for a while. And that's our engineering side. And people look at us like we're insane. What are you guys doing? But, but yeah, so essentially, through that process of refinement year by year,
and Hassan would go to a halaqah, say, Uthman, I have 10 people for you, can you analyze the data? I'm like, yeah, do with 10 people, we need hundreds of people from different ages and different backgrounds. And that's really what only through Yaqeen, we were able to do this, we could set up set, we could send these surveys out to a lot of people. So we did like 300 of them in the first survey, then we did 700 of them in our second survey in Canada. And so now, it's snowballed into something. And each time we do one set of analyses, it generates 50 more questions in our mind. So it's an ever evolving kind of study. So and that's where we are today, Alhamdulillah. Incredible, SubhanAllah. We've got now, seven, eight, nine years in the making of this project. So I think it really speaks to the value, the potential of where this research is going. And I think it really helps build trust, right? You're not just putting this together, coming into room and using qualitative analysis, which is extremely important and valuable, but you're also testing it out. That's why we got the engineer minds together, right? Testing it out. And really, we're really backing these claims also with this quantitative analysis, this quantitative data. So it's extremely insightful in that sense. But now let's get into the meat of things, right? Okay, we got the data, we're comfortable, we know that this is not something, this is something that we can really trust and understand. But I want to know, what, where does my image of God come from? How do I understand Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Because a lot of these times, as you guys, I'm sure will elaborate, it's not even conscious. You're taught a way of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but then you also experience it, then there's parents, and there's so many different levels. So perhaps starting with maybe the mind, how we're taught about Allah, where does that image of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala come from? Yeah, so SubhanAllah, so we'll start with a basic definition just to kind of lay this out. So we speak about having an image of Allah or an image of God, right? Very clearly, we're not speaking about how one physically imagines him to be, right? That is, of course, beyond our perception and not something which we delve into. But we're here speaking about how do we imagine his attributes to be. And those attributes, he's, of course, spoken about in the Qur'an in so many
ways, but it's rather academic at that side. And that's one way that we do, so we talk about two different ways we learn about Allah. One is through this kind of intellectual process of your being lectured about who Allah is, and you're being told he's the creator, he's the one, he is powerful, he is near. And that kind of forms in your mind, okay, this checklist of things that I can repeat. These are the 99 names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If you're given a child or even like a young adult, like a quiz on like, you know, who is Allah, they can answer it all correctly. But the second thing, which is again, our engineering minds had to get out of, it took a long time, to recognize that no, the reality is that we learn things through our life experiences. We attribute meaning to everything that happens to us every single day. And so like, you know, I like this analogy that we inhale these experiences of life, and we exhale these beliefs. Give you a simple example, someone might, you know, lose a job as an example, right? But we want to make sense as to why things happen to us in life. We're meaning-making creatures. So someone might say, well, I lost my job, and they'll attribute it perhaps in this way to, you know, maybe God is mad at me, right? So he made me lose my job, right? Now, there's no way to know that, right? But someone is now assigning like theological value, right? To one losing their job. And someone else might say, alhamdulillah, I lost my job. Allah wanted me to take a break because I was overwhelmed. I was not giving time to my family, right? His love is being shown to me in this act. But again, we get back to like, there's no like intellectual kind of like book answer to that. And we want to get into what life experiences shaped this entire process. So I know Dr. Hassan will speak a lot more about this with parents, but like, how does our, and we really think about this from a developmental perspective, this is not something that starts at the age of 20, right? Or 25 or 30, literally from infancy, right? We are beginning to learn about who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is. And these distortions, or the correct image, can form with things that happened very early in our childhood, things that happen in the media, things that happen in pop culture. And so that's kind of, we want to just place this kind of at two different points. Your mind is absorbing things, your heart is absorbing things, and if
these two are not aligned, then we're going to have some problems. Yeah, subhanAllah, like, you know, like, I've said something here, like, reminded me of a story. When he's speaking about the head knowledge, and the heart knowledge, you're like, when we know something, you can be very theoretical. Do you know that a father loves his son? Yeah. And then you ask, do you have children? No. So you don't know anything about what you're speaking about. When you have children, you will really, really understand, what do I mean here? Yeah, it's theoretical here, but I didn't experience that yet. Right? So we're speaking, when we speak about God image, or tawhid al-wujdani, like, for lack of, you know, words, we mean the following, that the theological concepts of God are intact. So like, there is no distortion in my creed, because that is also very disruptive. If from the start, the theoretical concept of who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is distorted, that's a major distortion, right? So, but that's not yet enough. So, okay, I memorized the 99 names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, I can tell you where they are in the Quran. But there is another component, which is what, how did you experience it? How were they conveyed for you? And I'll give you a simple example. If I tell you the word, for example, playground, I know what a playground is. But what does, what feelings do I get by this word? It's based on what my memories in the playground. If my memories is my father and my mother taking me there and see, I stored not only the cognitive part, the emotional part gets stored in my memory as well. Both, right? And that's my experience. So I learned about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you see a masjid, yes, theoretically, this is the house of Allah. This is where you go and worship Allah and I can quote all the areas of the benefit of the masjid. But if while growing up, when I go to the masjid, I get yelled every time. Emotionally, how did you say the word masjid? What do I feel? I know I should, I know up there, I should be feeling good. But in reality,
I'm not feeling good. What's the problem, right? It has been now my experience. There is a story, maybe we'll, I'll say later, I'll just say it quickly now about this importance of experience, right? A fisherman has two kids and one of them decides, you know, I'm going to go get a degree, PhD, mashallah, alhamdulillah. And the second follows his dad, he takes the boat, becomes a fisherman. Years later, you know, the guy comes back, he has a PhD, great, you know, knows so many things. And he tells his other brother, the fisherman, let's take the boat and let's go for a, you know, and have a discussion. As they're sailing, he starts, you know, telling his brother, tell me, do you know anything about calculus and math? And he says, no. He said, oh my God, you don't know? Oh, you don't know what you're missing, man. How are you living? You lost one fourth of your life. Okay, maybe you know something about philosophy and history? No. Oh, what are you doing with your life? You miss so much, you lost one third of your life. Okay. Maybe some, anything about biology or physics and no, oh, you lost half your life. What are you doing? But as they're sailing, a storm is forming. The boat is rocking and surely enough, the boat is about, you know, to capsize. So the fisherman asks his Mr. PhD, do you know how to swim? He says, no. He said, you lost all your life. Now, the point. Here is what knowledge of Allah himself. If I do not really know Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la well, I cannot sail in this life. And notice here, the reason I said this story, if he asked him, do you know how to swim? And he says, yeah, I read the 10 papers about, did you swim before? No, you don't know how to do it. You will not be able to swim. You'll drown. So same thing with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, the God image has to do not only with the theoretical concepts I have about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, but the experience, how were they conveyed to me? And that has to do, again, this relational element. Right. And we'll speak more about this.
Yes, as you guys are talking, I was thinking about the story of someone from our community, a young boy at the time. And he was a hafidh of the Qur'an, very involved in the community, came from a very conservative family, you know, checked off all the boxes. Right. That ideal perfect kid, in quotations here. Right. That everyone really aspired to. And subhanAllah, you know, in his teenage years, it was almost like something flipped and no one could understand what was going on because he just decided he was an atheist. Right. And it really took everyone by surprise because, again, we thought it came out of nowhere. So he was taken to the imam, the imam sat him down and said, listen, tell me all of your doubts. Right. List them off one by one by one and we can go through it. And they went through it. They spent hours and hours that, you know, is it because you don't believe in the existence of God? Do you like what really where is that? And the imam was pushing and pushing. And of course, it got him nowhere. Right. But that wasn't the issue. And it's kind of like what really became apparent for people who are close to this individual, close to the family, is that when the imam started talking to the parents and the imam started to learn about how did they parent this child, what was their relationship with the child? What was their attachment, that connection? And it turned out that his father was very, let's say, rough around the edges. Right. That he had a certain way of parenting. And now knowing the results of your study, now knowing what you guys have been working on, it's almost so clear and obvious that it really was that parenting experience that that presumably, of course, this is something that we can only assume here, at least anecdotally speaking, that led to that that that distorted perception was unfortunately, eventually led to this person leaving Islam. So I was hoping you guys could talk about that. What is the role? You know, we've got the mind, that intellectual experience. Your parents might have taught you about God. You might have learned about God.
They might have taught you how to respond in certain situations. You've got the mind. You've got that heart. But now you've got also a very key critical component is parenting. What is the role of parents in terms of setting this up for a perception of Islam? So that's a very interesting question, and you can take it from both the very spiritual approach and you can take it also from a very psychological approach. Both agree. Right. So I speak about the roots in spirituality of it. Allah created the human beings to know, to worship Allah is to know him enough that this knowledge of him subdues my heart into a loving, submissive relation. I submit out of love because I know who I'm submitting to. That's ibadah, right? So, well, when we're created in this life and we come as infants, like babies, the babies, they need provision. They need enough food and shelter and what have you. Right. And Allah is the one that gives provision. And interestingly, Allah does not give provision by creating provision in our stomachs directly. No, you have the sun, the ocean, the clouds, rain. That's the water you're drinking. Right. Then, you know, trees will grow, crops will grow. That's the wheat that is into your bread. All this, it's carriers. Allah's provision is carried to us through the medium of this creation. The sun, you know, as I said, the ocean, the clouds, the wheat. Right. So that's the delivery. But as a human being, when I'm an infant, the human being has a need of provision. But also the human being created for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we have a more fundamental need, love. We need this, again, attachment. So the parents are the medium through which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will convey love to that kid. When I'm two years old, one year old, you can't theologically tell me
about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that I'm not ready yet. I don't see him. How do I learn about love? What's my blueprint of what love is? I only know one thing, my dad and my mom. Right. So I'm looking up to them. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala creates love in the hearts of the parents. And this is something amazing. If you're a parent, your kid is born and you just love that kid. Where did that come from? See, Allah gives that to the parent. And why? You're going to be the medium now. Your task is carry that love to your son or to your daughter. And subhanAllah, if you do that, because I love my son, because I love my daughter, I will send them to school. I'll buy them things. I'll spend on them. Every single thing I did for my children, because I love them, according to the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, is counted as charity for me. So subhanAllah, like I spent, I don't know, somebody spends $20,000 and sends his kid to college. It's like spending $20,000 in charity. You might go to Jannah, subhanAllah, because simply you sent your kid to college. And why did you do that? Because I love him. My love of my son made spending on him and sacrificing for him so easy. I do it while I'm smiling and I end up happy doing this. And the year after, I might enter Jannah. The kid now experienced his blueprint of love is what? My dad. So I learn about what love is. I learn about, so two questions. Am I lovable? I make mistakes. I'm not perfect. Am I still worthy? Where do I get that answer from? What did my dad and my mom show me? Right. Did they show me how to how to correct for my mistakes? Did they parent, did they convey Allah's attributes, not only love? Allah ﷻ sometimes deprives us, we speak, right? Not everything you ask for, you get. A good parent doesn't do that, right? But if that relation was good enough, I experienced, I have a blueprint. When you say love, I've experienced.
Later on, now when I read the Qur'an, unconsciously, I'm using this blueprint. My attachment to my parents, right? Not only what my parents told me about Allah, how did they deliver? When they were praying and I made noise, did they yell at me? So, oh, I know when there was Allah, they're always very mean. And then they tell you Allah is the Rahman, the Rahim. I don't see that, dad. I don't experience that, right? So, if that relationship was good, it forms a blueprint that later, if I'm unconscious, when I read the Qur'an, I'm coming from that perspective, right? So, a God image is also formed through our relationship with our parents. How was it? Yes, finally, you just triggered this example that I talk about sometimes. Like, imagine like a parent, and I know in certain cultures is very, very common, that almost every time the name of Allah is invoked, it is going to be Wallahi! And then something's about to go down, right? And so, think about this. You're a child and you're growing up. And when you hear the name of Allah, you know, it's going to be a punishment. It's a timeout, something being taken away from you. You're going to get hit, whatever. It's something bad that's about to happen. So, you create this association. It's like Hassan gave that example, right? You know, the memory that comes with it. So, the memory of the child when he hears the name of Allah, in this case, is something harsh, something negative, something aversive. And you think about the exact opposite. Imagine a parent who constantly, and then, by the way, that manifests in how you, what the parent does. So, for instance, if the parent himself or herself thinks about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in a certain way, they will manifest that in how they treat their child. So, if Allah is harsh, then they're going to be harsh with their kid, right? If Allah is gentle, they're gonna be more gentle with their kid. In our research, we found that. But now, imagine that you use that to motivate your kids. So, okay, you want your kid to pray. And this is the thing Hassan and I speak a lot about, is that all these parents, they want good for their kids. It's not about the parent who is like, wants bad and the parent who wants good.
They all want their kids to go to Jannah. They all want their kids to worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But one parent might think that, you know what, the way to obedience is the way of the stick. So, it's constantly using this fear that if you don't pray, you're going to hell, right? If you don't do this, Allah is going to be mad at you, right? If you do this, right, Allah is going to be upset at you. And so, this fear-based motivation also inculcates in that child, again, who is Allah, right? Allah is someone who perpetually do things to avoid His wrath. Versus a parent who might do the opposite, who might say to their kid, son, daughter, you know, it's time for Salah. Allah loves it when you pray, right? Allah appreciates it when you read Qur'an, right? Allah, when you make a mistake and you say sorry to Allah, Allah loves that. And you give them the Hadith, right, of where Allah is happier with like the tawbah of His servant, right? And then someone in the middle of the desert, right, he loses his provisions, loses his camel, right? And the guy thinks he's about to die. And then, you know, Allah sends back, you know, his provisions. And he says that, oh, Allah, right, you are my servant, I am your Lord, right? That Hadith that, you know, it's so confusing at first, right? It's like, no, Allah's happy, right? He knows you're going to make a mistake, but His joy is in your tawbah, right? Think about this different way of parenting, right? Another parent might have said, Allah hates it when you make a mistake. And if you make that mistake again, you might go to a place that you don't want to go. And so, of course, we don't want to over exaggerate and say there's never an element of, you know, of being firm and having consequences. But we're just trying to outline is that what memory dominates a kid's life. And even when it comes to a parent, when you think about your mother, your father, your mother, your father probably disciplined you at some point in your life. They might have put you in a timeout, they might have taken away something you wanted. But is that is that the main memory you have of them? When you think about your mom and dad, do you think perpetual punishment, anger and frustration? Or do you think there was so much love and kindness, but they would hold me accountable for my own good? And again, that's how we see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this balanced way. And they've absorbed it the way they absorb their parents. A percentage of that, they will transfer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
One thing that came to my head and we're discussing that is you look to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? And subhanAllah, like there is a relational element there as well, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants us want to tell us about himself. He sent Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, a human being that we can relate to. And because Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is a gift of mercy, as he said, innama ana rahmatun muhdah, wa maa arsalnaka illa rahmatan lil'alameen. He really conveyed that through his transaction with people. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knew, know about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, not only through the theoretical discussion. Knowing who Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is, the way he is, the way he related to them, right? It's a perfect carrier. That theological component was carried relationally to them. And you can see it in many instances. You know, like one we were discussing is, again, parenting, right? So again, I want good for my kids. So here is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and here is Abdullah ibn Abbas, young man. And you can comment him, son, memorize Qur'an. Here is the benefits of why I'm memorizing Qur'an. There is nothing wrong in doing that. One, two, three, four, right? But he, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he comes, he hugs Abdullah ibn Abbas. Notice this hug. It's conveying, imagine a loving parent hugging you, right? And then beside his ear, he whispers something. And instead of telling him, memorize Qur'an, he makes dua to Allah. Ya Rabbi, make him one that is faqih, that memorizes the Qur'an. So what did Abdullah ibn Abbas associate this with? A hug, love and the request, I'm making dua for you. That's such a powerful way. You remember the other example? Yeah, the example we spoke about is the example of Mu'adh ibn Jabal, right? Yeah. So when the same thing, young companion, right? He goes to him, Mu'adh narrates. He said, he grabbed me by the hand, right? And he says, oh Mu'adh, I love you. So don't forget to say after every salah, Allahumma a'aynni ala dhikrika wa shukrika wa husni ibadatik, right? Oh Allah, allow me to remember you.
Help me to remember you and to worship you in the best possible way. That again, it's done in this environment that's encapsulating these emotions first and foremost. Which again, now you imagine if you're Mu'adh ibn Jabal, when you finish your salah, like what comes to your mind? The Prophet grabbing me by the hand, telling me that he loves me. Okay, I'm going to say this now, right? That's very different than the alternative that could have been there, right? So even if it was good, even if it was, say this, right? And you're going to get Jannah. Say this and you're going to get a house in Jannah, right? And this happened over and over, not even in things that were, even in harsh circumstances where someone did wrong, how the Prophet corrected them correctly. And we might come back to that maybe later in our conversation. Yeah. And by the way, even when we punish, let's say my kid did something and it's wrong. And I need as a parent, because it's my duty, like to deprive or, you know, what does he see in my face? My facial expression, that I'm sad that I'm punishing, that I wish it wasn't the case, that I'm trying to give him a way out. But yeah, I'm punishing, but he's still a good, you're still a good kid. That's beneath you, you know, like, I'm sorry that this is happening, right? Or I'm punishing out of vengeance. Here you get this, you know, that emotional experience says a lot. Remember, the blueprint of what love is, what attachment is, comes from our parents. And as Imam said, like, again, I just want to finalize this. It doesn't mean our parents are the only people that do this, an uncle. So like, let's say my parents weren't great. Do I have a good uncle, a good aunt? Sometimes my religious teacher, my school teacher, the masjid experience, the community experience. Do I have any model of a good, any good blueprint? And that can happen later in life. Even if my original blueprint was bad, research shows attachment styles, you know, your image can change through a healthy relationship. JazakAllah khairan. There's so much I want to pick apart there. Really so much insight.
But I want to focus on the last aspect that you were saying, Dr. Hassan, because really what I also picked up is that it's almost cyclical in nature. That if my parents had a distorted understanding, perhaps from their parents or from a different life experience, then they subconsciously might pass that on to me through their parenting style, right? So here I am now, the child of parents who had this experience and now have have passed that on. Am I a lost cause? And I imagine this speaks to a lot of people listening that, you know what? Well, here I am. I've got this distorted image. And I think you started really just getting at the Sheikh Hassan that it's not just your parents that are affecting this image. There are so many different opportunities to learn from others and to have that experience. And what I think is incredible about that point, by the way, is that it really speaks to the value of family and value of community, that it's not just this one person show that we want to be able to cultivate communities, healthy communities, because these are also spaces where our understanding of Al-Hasrata is being formed. So I'd love if you guys could speak to that, perhaps give examples, but really how other outlets for us to rectify our image of Al-Hasrata. Yeah, I mean, one thing that again, just to pick up on Dr. Hassan's point, is this, I want to remind people, I remind myself and thinking about this, when the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam began, you know, his message, you know, when the Wahi started, like he didn't have children that he's starting with from scratch to kind of build them up right from day one. He had people who had severe distortions already. So actually, this is what he was doing. He was dealing with this reality. And this is why many of the companions, they had these anxieties, right? They would come after they made a mistake and be like, I'm ruined, I'm doomed, right? Like, where did that come from, right? It came from some other set of superstitious beliefs, perhaps from Jahiliyyah, it might have came from their own parenting.
And so the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is really, I think for all of us, it's not just for those people at that time. He is for us today. He can play that same role in a different capacity. And you go back and you think about through reading the Seerah, that's actually very restorative for one person. So another example, and we give a few about love to encourage people to do good, but also gentle ways of discouraging bad, right? And how the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, right? He has a teenager, Al-Fadl ibn Abbas, riding on a camel behind him, right? On the day of Nahar, the day of Eid, right? And a beautiful, you know, sahabiya comes up to the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to ask him a question. And this young man is just behind the Prophet and just mesmerized at the beauty of this young sister, and he's staring at her. And again, how the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is able to simply not get mad at him, but he's able to just turn his hand backwards, take his chin and turn it away from the sister's gaze. And that's it. It's done. But you see how even corrective behavior is done in this form. And so the hope here is that for all of us who say, you know what, maybe I had something different in my life. Can I see in the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam an example? Now that leads to step two, which is, can I find someone living today? I think this is Hassan's point about, you know, it's religious teachers and it's scholars and it's murabbis. Is there someone who embodies these attributes of not only the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but people who embody the attributes of Allah, who will allow me to see Allah in a healthier way? And can I inculcate a relationship with that person through sohbah, right? I'm in their company regularly, right? I see their mannerisms, right? I see how they treat their friends, right? How they treat their spouse, their kids. I see their generosity. I see their forgiveness. I see their compassion. And when you see that in them, it's so much easier to then, of course, to project it that if this person who's godly has these positive traits, well, who is Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, right? So that's one way that we've spoken a lot about. And there's a lot of examples we can give in stories of scholars and in history.
I don't know if you want to add anything, but. You know, interestingly enough, when I started my psychology degree, like I was again coming from an engineering background, I was looking for an intervention. Meaning what? People come with problems. People come with symptoms. Depression is a symptom, right? Like the sadness and anxiety, right? So I was looking for what, like when somebody comes with depression, what's the pill? Pill here means what's the intervention? What do you do? Cognitive behavioral therapy. What do you guys do? What's the procedure, right? Acceptance and commitment therapy. What's the procedure? You know, so I was coming from the perspective that each struggle, if you will, has an intervention. But then I just, wait a minute, the Prophet, peace be upon him, he took a community full of problems. Speak about trauma. They had tons of addiction, trauma, you know, people. Yeah, people. There were even Muslims that felt sad, felt depressed, right? It's something that you deal with. You lose people, grief. It's there. He, peace be upon him, comes and you see those people moving. Just it's so restorative. They just transformed. And again, from what was his intervention? You know, I was like, what's the intervention? Like, I can't find it, right? Then here's the interesting part. And we learned that even from psychology. The number one thing that predicts the success of therapy, you know, like when you go into a therapeutic relation and like you, you go to a therapy and what makes therapy successful or not? Is it the counseling technique? The interventions you're using? Is it the skills that the person came with? The family support he already has? Does that predict, you know, the therapy? And to my surprise, the number one predictor of why therapy succeeds was the therapeutic relation. Meaning what? If me as a client or me as a person perceives my therapist, my therapist did only this, showed empathy, sincere compassion, you know, gave me some positive regard.
Listen to me, was with me, right? If he gives me that, if there is this positive environment, I already have the seeds within me. Allah created them. Those seeds are now water. I will flourish. So what really? And they say it's basically rahma. And they call it holding environment. To be patient enough, to be kind enough, to be compassionate enough, to show sincere from the heart. People feel it. This is like, I think, 48 percent. It's like more than almost 50 percent of the success of therapy is based on that. So what is that telling us? That if somebody comes with a problem, especially if it's rooted in, you know, God's image, somebody comes with doubts. How do I treat him harshly, argument to argument? Or like, what was going on? Why do you have those doubts? And I show compassion and mercy and rahma. And, you know, that is curative. That in itself is a part of the cure. And that's actually the answer to your question. And honestly, I have some data points. I remember, like, you know, the advantage of having quantitative analysis. Some people would come and they would give them the survey. Right. And I assess the God image so negative, the image of their self so negative. Right. Their attachment style so disorganized. And then I start, you know, OK, let me see what works and what doesn't. And I start speaking about Allah. Forget the problem. Let's see how Allah treats us. Let's see who he is. How he is. What does he do for us? Let's observe, you know, how what he created and what does it mean. And, you know, three months later, you give the survey and guess what? It changed. Three months later, it changed. And you can see and through the attachment with that person, you know, the therapeutic relation, like I'm trying to embody this through that relationship and speaking about Allah while embodying it. Right. To as much degree I can. I'm mirroring Muhammad, peace be upon him, to the best I can. You can see the difference in the person in front of you. And we have some data, you know, to show that that's incredible.
And I think what's what's extra important about that point is that it's really the relevance of this to everyone. So even if, you know, you have a distorted God image, yes, we need to rectify that. But now here we're speaking to people, even with positive images of Allah, you have a role to play that if you have that understanding of Allah in your community, if you have a niece, a nephew, a cousin, someone in your family, that it's your responsibility to be able to transmit that compassion, to be able to transmit this religion, our teachings, our understanding of Allah in that manner. Right. So I think that that's that should be motivating for everyone. It should be motivated for someone. If I have a distorted image, I hope that I can rectify that. And there is that there is that positive outlook on the outside. And you know what? Maybe, Alhamdulillah, I was raised with this incredible experience. I, you know, whether it was through the mind, the heart, the parenting, whatever, you know, we can attribute it to, you know what? I want to be able to transmit that same compassion, love, that balance in Allah's names. Right. Also, in our understanding of His justice and everything else that comes with with Sifatul Jalad, that His attributes of greatness. So, you know, we've all got a part to play in these conversations. But now let's look at it on the other side, that I'm now a product of this incredible image of Allah or I'm working towards it. Right. And I think it's for I imagine for most people, it's this journey that we're constantly trying to improve. What does my life look like? What are these positive outlooks that the data has shown and that you guys have experienced on the ground with, whether it's clients or just community members, through that, that improvement that you were just getting into? So what we are finding in the research so far and through a lot of our interactions with people is we want to come back to this issue of submission. Ultimately, this is Islam means to submit to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And like we keep speaking about, every person who professes La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah
would not argue with the fact that Allah has the right to create and command as He wills. Right. But so many people, they don't spiritually want to submit to that. Right. And then that question comes up. Why? We find that those who have this really positive image of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, right, who recognize His Jamal and His Jalal, for them, submission is not as difficult. And so this is really the fruit of it. The fruit of this is that when anything happens to you in life or you're commanded to do anything, you see it within His benevolence. So something happens to you that you don't like, you're able to say, you know what? Wallahu ya'lamu wa antum la ta'lamun. Like I know that Allah knows better than I know. Right. So whether He commands me to do something, right, or something befalls me in His life, He knows what's in my best interest. And so it changes my ability to submit. I'm not saying, yeah, Allah, why did you do this to me? There's something better out there for me. It's easy to, that's, and that's just the first level is that it becomes easy to say, I'm willing to submit. I know you know what's good for me. Right. And then as you practice that more and more, right, it becomes easier. And ultimately, like that submission becomes sweet, right? And it becomes enjoyable. And this is coming out in our forthcoming paper. But like, this is a difference between the person who really understands Allah properly and the one who has the distortions. One is like, I love salah, right? I love Quran, right? I love to forgive people, right? I love to give sadaqah. I find satisfaction in it. And someone else is like, fine, I'll do it. But it's like, I really just, I'm doing it so I don't go to hellfire, right? Like, that's it. I don't enjoy these things one bit, right? And so we talk about the aspect of thriving. It allows you to thrive because you recognize that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is your wali, right? He is your maula. He's your caretaker, right? He's protecting you and aiding you in every possible way, even if you can't see it in the moment. And I think that's something which takes a long time for people to understand is that this test of life, right? It's decades and decades long. But when you have the deep trust in Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, you're able to see that, you know what?
What he's doing to me in this moment, it may be aversive to me right now, but you know, I know that five, 10, 20, 30 years down the road, he has something better in store for me. And this is a journey he's taking me down, even if that's currently a path of darkness, right? It's currently a path of mistakes and a path of pain. There's something in that for me. And I think about the stories of the anbiya, Yusuf Alayhi Salaam, right? Or Musa Alayhi Salaam or Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. All of them didn't just have, well, Allah loves me, so he's gonna give me everything in this life perfectly, right? No, he dragged them from one hardship through another in the pursuit of ihsan, right? In the pursuit of growth and ultimately in the pursuit of becoming people of rida, right? Of contentment and satisfaction. And that allowed them to transcend the dunya, all right? And to succeed in this life and of course in the next. So I know Hassan has so much to say, so I'm gonna stop to give him the chance to kind of pour his heart out on this. Yes, Alhamdulillah. I want to be practical and give you an example. You know, something that maybe illustrates it through, even while I'm speaking, something that you can experience as well. And I'll give it through an example and then I'll state the concept, right? So imagine that loving dad, loving father that comes to his kids. He has two kids and he says, you know what? I'm going to give you whatever you ask for. Ask and you'll be given. What do you want, right? Those are kids, mind you, right? So one of the kids, being a kid, what is he going to ask? Baba, I want tons of chocolate, a bag full of candy of all sorts and all variants and lots of gum and this and that, right? Okay, I'll give you that. Is that it? That's it, right? And his dad will give him what he wants. Now comes the other kid, a little bit more intelligent. And imagine now he says the following. He says, Baba, dad, I'm a kid, I don't know much. But there is one thing I know for a fact. I know really that you love me.
I know how much you love and care about me. That's why you're asking me this. So therefore, the best thing for me must be the things that you ask me to do. Even if I don't understand, you ask me to go to school. Because it's you, it must be the best thing for me. You ask me to sleep early. It must be the best thing for me. You ask me to eat healthy. Although I don't like it, I don't understand it, but I'm so sure if you ask it, it is the best thing for me. Therefore, the best thing to ask from you is what? Help me do the things you ask of me. You ask me to go to school, Baba, help me with that. You ask me to do well in math, help me be better in math. You ask me to eat healthy, Baba, teach me how to eat healthy. Because I'm sure if you ask it, it must be the best thing, right? And then scholars now took this in a very scholarly way. They said, what is the best dua? If you want to ask Allah, what is the best thing to ask for? It's interesting what they're looking at, right? And then Ibn Taymiyyah said that, Ibn al-Qayyim narrates it, and others also. Like Ibn Ata'illah says the same thing. Ibn Taymiyyah says, I contemplated what is the best thing to ask Allah. And then it came to me that it's to ask Allah to help us do the things that he asks of us. He asks us for ibadah, for worship. Therefore, the best dua must be, Ya Rabbi, help me be a better worshiper. Help me worship you more. Make ibadah easy for me. Help me do what you ask. And then he says, I looked, and I found that this dua is already in Surat al-Fatiha. He said, Iyaka na'bud wa iyaka nasta'een. Every single time when we recite Surat al-Fatiha, and we say, you and only you we worship, and you and only you we seek aid from. Ya Rabbi, aid me to worship you. Now, step further.
Do you see what's going on? Allah knew that most of us left to ourselves will not even think about this dua. Will not ask this, right? So what did Allah do? He put this dua in Surat al-Fatiha, and Surat al-Fatiha by obligation. You have to pray every day, and you have to recite Surat al-Fatiha in every salah. So when you look at it, you say, SubhanAllah, look what Allah did. The best dua ever, he did not give it as an option for me. He made it compulsory. So in reality, he's making it compulsory on me to ask the best thing. And SubhanAllah, now you realize, wait a minute, and you know this is the hadith we have in the paper, that all Allah's commands are this way. You know the hadith, it's a long hadith, but in it, that a servant of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala will not get closer to Allah with anything more beloved to Allah than that which he made an obligation on him. So you can understand it two ways. The first way is what, if I want to get closer to Allah, see, it's starting with me. And there is this journey. So here is what I need to do. I need to first do all the obligations, the prayers, the zakah, you know, all the things that are obligatory, right? But you can flip it, you say, wait a minute. So when Allah realized that most people left to themselves, they will not seek his nearness. They'll be just doing whatever. He took the very things, the most important, the most effective things that would make people enter into a loving relationship with him, and he made them an obligation on them. But wait a minute, now I understand why salah is an obligation. Allah's making, it's as if Allah said, telling me, you can't lose on a loving relation with me. You have to become a wali of mine. You need to live by me and with me. I'm not going to give you a choice. I'm going to make it up. You have to do those things, whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not, you're going to enter Jannah.
Whether you like it or not, you can't lose on me because I'm your wali. So if you have that perception, a very different perception than a cop, you have to do this. And if you don't do it, you go to hellfire. I'm waiting. I'm looking for your mistakes. It's not this way. The core of it is actually love. SubhanAllah. So I hope that was useful. Again, at a loss of words here, beautiful examples, beautiful in explaining it. But really what we're getting at is that you have this image of Allah, you have the correct image of Allah, it's going to saturate into your life in every aspect. You're going to not just have, it's not even just about the mental health. It's not just about the resiliency. Those are great. But more importantly, you are going to build a relationship with Allah out of love. And that's going to transform your worship. You're going to enjoy doing things that are obligatory, but you're also going to enjoy pushing yourself beyond. We're always looking for that quick fix. You know, I want motivation. That pump of energy I need so I can pray tarawih, so I can fast, I can do all of these things because we're looking for that constant motivation. But with that proper image, it's like an internal battery that just doesn't, you know, that keeps going. I'm always going to want to push myself. I'm always going to want to go the extra mile because I understand who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is. I understand that everything he's given me, everything he does for me, everything he wants, the good and bad, what we perceive to be bad is all a means of bringing me closer to him. And really, and that just makes you a happy person, makes you a grateful person, makes you appreciate every little thing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does for us. And imagine, you know, like, this is what I tell myself, like, imagine what your life would look like if you had that full understanding. Everything is just, is incredible. And, you know, I could go on and on about that, but really, I think I just want to, you know, emphasize this for our listeners
that correcting your perception of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to transform your life for the better. And that's really what we want to get at. That's what the study is trying to really show, that this is your opportunity to stop, reflect, hear all the different things that might have contributed to your image of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is an opportunity for change, opportunity for closeness to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And you're guaranteed when you do this, not at the end of the tunnel, but as you go through this process, your life is going to transform for the better. And I want to end really on one note, that I want to, you know, pose this question to you, both of you, that I'm not there yet. I still have this really negative perception of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I want you guys to explain, you know, you've got a client that comes in to, you know, for your services, very lucky for the Southern Californians that have this opportunity. I walk in and I've got this negative perception, right? Number one, can you explain to me how that's affecting my life negatively? What does it look like on the flip side? That if I've got this bad perception, how is it affecting all aspects of my life? But at the same time, how do you coach me through it? What can I practically do to get out of this situation or to work towards that solution? So Alhamdulillah, like, yeah, that's something we see. And especially like, I do believe in pastoral counseling, that, you know, like not only psychological counseling, but you integrate Islamic theology into counseling sessions. So the very first thing, let's say somebody comes and he says, you know, he's struggling with something. Let it be spiritual or psychological. Sometimes one of the first things I do now is what, I give the assessment. Meaning what, like, okay, before I speak, before I decide, how are your views of Allah's attributes? Which one is weaker? And what we found out, there are patterns. Some people, like, you know, they're very strong in Allah z-Rahman, Allah z-Wahhab, right? But they're very weak in Allah's reverence and Allah z-Jalal, right? And some people, it's the opposite. Yeah, I believe that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the Razzaq, the one that provides,
Allah's very capable, but they're very weak that Allah z-Mu'in, you know, that he doesn't aid me. So the perception here is Allah gives me the test and he sits and watch, you know, okay, let's see what you do. And that brings resentment. For some people, they're upset because they feel as, I can't see Allah's help. Why is he doing this to me, right? So the first step would be the following. I talk a little bit with the person, try to understand the background. Family history is very important. Parenting, as we spoke, like we take that. But also we get this assessment, which I think is crucial to develop that questionnaire. And I think eventually it will be very good for imams, you know, to do this, because it gives you quantitatively what the pattern in front of you is. And it assesses two things. It assesses the God image, how that person perceives different attributes of Allah, the attachment style, the type of psycho-spiritual struggles, right? So now you have a full picture in front of you, right? So I'll just give just a simple example here just to relate to, which is actually very real and very interesting. So some people come and it's not about depression or anxiety, it's really about what you call self-esteem. They just feel that they are so bad, no matter what happens, they will definitely be punished. They're not good enough. And it shows now in different areas in life, the way they are with their husbands and their wives, the way they are in this community, the way they think of themselves is that, you know, basically I'm never good enough. I have to be perfect, but I'm not there, right? God is good, but you know, I just... So once you realize that pattern, right? The second thing is the following. If you try to tell that person, regular psychology, try to build a self-esteem, they resist it. They resist it, right? So why are they resisting that? What I found out, like even through research and now, shame, they're afraid of compassion. Why is that?
They have been taught the only way for me to improve, the only way for me to get some results is what, to lash myself. So if you ask that person, what will happen if you are kind to yourself? And no, no, no, I can't be kind to myself. I can't, don't speak about compassion because if I do that to myself, I can give it to others, that's great. But if I give it to myself, my standards will drop. If I'm kind to myself, I will not study. If I show compassion and leniency towards myself, you know, or accept that Allah's all forgiving, no, no, no, then I will stop praying. And you see parents tell, don't tell my kids that. Don't tell them. You have to tell them if they don't pray, they will be punished. Because if you tell them anything else, right? They will just abandon this altogether, right? So don't speak about compassion. I'm afraid of it, right? So there's a block of compassion. So in that case, what I do is the following. So let's say we want to improve the, what I call relational self-worth, that you're a worthy human being. So how do I do that? I say, okay, there is two ways. One, let me speak about you. The second, okay, no, let me speak about Allah. So the intervention will start. Let's learn about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Let's see how He treats other people. Let's take examples from the Quran. How about the people in the Battle of Uhud? Those archers that, you know, violated the command of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did what they did. And you know, it was terrible, wasn't it? And they messed up really in a big way. They're companions, they're great people. It was a slip that had terrible consequences. So basically you take from the Quran examples, which they never saw before. When they studied the Quran, Quran tells us about good believers, bad disbelievers. What about good believers that slipped and made mistakes? And how did Allah treat them? So let's go through that story. Here is what they did. And let's go now through the verses of Surah Al-Imran, about 80 verses. Now notice how Allah speaks to them. Notice how Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la forgives them.
Notice how Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la defends them. He's their wali, right? I'm speaking about Allah, right? Story after story, so stories from the Quran, right? Through the therapeutic relation that you show to that person, you know, in my eyes, you're good. I treat you as such, right? If the sense of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, the word is grace, that's the attribute that's missing here. Grace is what is Al-Ghafoorur Raheem, that although I don't deserve, Allah is Al-Mannan. He gives, not because I deserve. Many people think, no, no, I have to deserve. No, Allah sometimes can give people what they don't deserve because He is Al-Mannan. He's graceful. He forgives and He forgives, right? There is no price for it, right? So emphasizing that element in particular, through stories, through the relationship, right? Through certain deeds that yield this, you see that the person's sense of self starts increasing, right? It can be completely different if you have the opposite. We were speaking about this. You have now the opposite image altogether. People that, yeah, we realize that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is all-giving, all-generous, right? So the relationship with Him is a transactional one. We call it the magic genie lantern, you know, like Al-Din, you know, like the magic genie? Like, you know, the lantern where you rub it, the genie comes up and you ask and He gives you what you want. Some people, Allah's that for them. Astaghfirullah, I'm not saying in a physical way, of course. But the relationship is about what I'm doing, what He asked me. Therefore, I'm expecting it's transactional. I should get what I need. Why are bad things happening? Why did I fail the exam? I pray. So I'm entitled, which is a major thing we're seeing now. Entitlement. And sometimes it comes from parenting. The parents were always giving. Whatever you want, I'm a kind parent, I'm a good parent. I never say no. Where is Al-Mana? Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is the one that gives, but Allah's also the one that deprives to protect, right? So depending on the assessment, depending on what attribute is missing,
you will have the intervention, right? To amplify this attribute of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la through, and I'm emphasizing, I can't emphasize this enough, it has to be through a relationship, right? Not theoretical. So if the relationship does not mirror the attributes of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, what you're saying of theology will fall on deaf ears. It's not going to make any impact. It actually can be hurtful, right? Wallahu'alam, I don't know if that answered your question. No, I answered it and more, Alhamdulillah. I just want to give the last opportunity for Dr. Uthman to chime in experiences in terms of how you coach someone as well, and really how that that can look like on a practical level for a lot of people listening in. You know, I think Dr. Hassan said so much of it, so I think if I have to make a few closing comments. So number one is like Dr. Hassan mentioned, what we are trying to do is, and we're not here to say that we have the answer for all this, this is an ongoing evolution and we're scratching the surface of this. We invite other people who are, who think hard about this to continue to collaborate and to come up with ideas. What we are hoping is ultimately like, again, we can have this kind of battery of stories. Storytelling we found to be very, very powerful, right? So Dr. Hassan mentioned the story of the battle of Hud and the archers, the story of Ka'b ibn Malik, right? The story of Ushab al-Jannah and Sufi al-Qalam, right? Even when Allah deprives, what is He trying to do in the deprivation, right? You know, people who, you know, because of their sense of entitlement, right? Wanted to withhold, you know, sadaqah from people and Allah took away their blessing to actually bring them back to Him. So Allah is literally dragging them to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through taking something away from them, right? So when Allah says, قُلِ اللَّهُمَّ مَالِكَ الْمُولْكَ تُوطِي الْمُولْكَ مِمَّن تَشَهَى وَتَنزِعُوا الْمُولْكَ مِمَّن تَشَهَى Allah takes, gives power and takes away power, but all of it is what at the end of the day? بِيَدِكَ الْخَيْرِ, right? All of it is out of His goodness. So we're trying to develop, right, these stories to really allow people to experience it and almost vicariously then apply that to themselves. So that's on the intervention front. But what Hassan
mentioned earlier, I want to come back to a little bit, which is about, there's a lot of things we need to be aware of beyond our parents. Sometimes people have this propensity when things are not going well in life, it's kind of, I hate to say it, but in psychology become far too prominent, is that, well, all this trauma is from my childhood, right? All this trauma is from my parents. And we want to say, this is, first of all, like, let's not exaggerate this. Parents have a major role to play. They need to be good enough, right? It doesn't mean they have to be perfect, but also what is the diet that's in someone's life? So when someone is assessing, and I was just speaking this weekend, you know, a few days ago to some college students, and we say, well, what are you feeding your spiritual diet? You know, it's not just your parents, but what's in pop culture? What's in the media? You know, I didn't realize this, but after doing some investigating, like people love Marvel, right? And our youth especially watch these movies and there's like, you know, a whole universe and you have to watch all the movies to understand what's really happening. But Marvel has a problem where consistently they are speaking negatively about, so the bad guy in the Marvel movies has become some sort of a powerful deity, right? And this powerful deity in one movie kind of looks to be benevolent, but deep down he has all these ulterior motives, right? And in the other movie, it's the same thing where he's using humanity actually for his like, you know, sick desires, right? I would have been left from all this, but I tell people, do you not realize that they're watching these movies over and over and over and listening to these songs and these TV shows that in Western culture, especially, are constantly mocking and making fun of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that one day you might wake up and you don't recognize this. It's unconscious, but you have this bias against Allah, that Allah is harsh, Allah is mean, Allah is punishing, you know? And I gave that anecdote, I remember about a year ago, someone sent even a tweet, you know, to Elon Musk, right? Very, you know, a Muslim guy inviting him. He said, oh Elon, you know, you're such a smart guy, why don't you think, do you think about your akhira, right? Do you think about, you know, your afterlife? And he says, no, I don't really think about it a lot because, you know, most of us are going to hell. God is going to throw me in hell probably anyway. He throws everyone in hell, right? So this is, where is it coming from, right? This is not necessarily coming from something intellectual. It may not even be
coming from a relationship. It might be coming from what's just kind of in the air and that we're breathing. So I tell people, be very mindful of your spiritual diet, right? What type of things are you exposing yourself to that might be slowly, slowly, slowly distorting how you understand Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and that we also assess. We assess that through questions, we assess that through their understanding of life, right? What are they into entertainment-wise? So there's so much more, again, we can speak about, but our goal is inshaAllah to at least awaken the desire in the hearts of people to recognize, Allah talks a lot in the Qur'an about these distortions. He says in the Qur'an that people have not estimated Allah in his proper estimation. Our goal in life is to attempt to get as close to the proper estimation as possible, and with that, inshaAllah, no matter how weak we are, how many mistakes that we make, we beg Allah for His forgiveness, that we, you know, we, as the Prophet said in the hadith, right, that Allah said in the hadith Qudsi, I am as my servant sees me. So if we see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in a positive light, we will see positivity all around us. And if we see Allah in a negative light, then we'll unfortunately see doom and gloom even where it doesn't exist. And so we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow us to see Him for who He truly is, and to protect us from ever falling into these distortions, and that He allows us to help others in their path of rehabilitation, and He allows us to raise our kids in a way that they see Him in His beauty and in His majesty. Ameen, ameen, ameen. Jazakumullahu khayran. Jazakumullahu khayran again, both for your time, Dr. Hassan, Dr. Uthman Umariji. I do want to shed light on some of the incredible resources that these two in particular have put together. If you have not seen our paper on the alchemy of divine love, it is the first paper on the series on this topic. I encourage you all to read it, alhamdulillah, it's been making its rounds. It's a very, very widely read paper, and it is going to be shortly, shortly followed inshallah by a second paper, and this second paper is going to focus on more of that parenting, that, you know, what are those parenting styles, what does that look like,
and how does that translate in terms of you contributing to your image of your child's image of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And speaking of parenting, our next week, our content that's going to be coming out is going to be a lot of our parenting content that we have. We are working on so many new papers, video series, all that, all the stuff that you love on parenting, alhamdulillah, and we'll be releasing just snippets of the content that we've produced in the past. And lastly, we have an entire series on the names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we've got our theology department, they've been pumping out papers on Allah's names, and so I think that's a great place for us to start, to start reading on Allah's name, Allah's name, and the different names of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and we hope to really build up that series, get all, you know, all the 99 names and more, really looking at Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's names in different contexts, in different situations. So very excited to be a part of this initiative, to really work with you all, to be inspired by both Dr. Uthman's work, Dr. Hassan's work, to rectify our image of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and hopefully, if you've walked away with anything from this incredible webinar, it's that this is an invitation for really, for you to reflect on how you perceive Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There's so much we've learned here, right? Taking a moment to sit down and think, you know, how have I come to learn about him? What are my, how do my relationships with other people look like, with my parents, with my family, my community, and really how can I work to rectify that? Knowing full well the positive effects that's going to have on your life, the positive effects it's going to have on your ibadah, and your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And for those of you who are already on that journey, to be a source of comfort, to be a source of learning and teaching to others who desperately need it as well. So this is not just an individual journey, it's a reminder that we come together as a family, we're coming together as a community to really be able to rectify this image of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and really come out on the other side with having built that connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
and enjoying the sweetness of that connection, both in this life and in the next. Once again, I can't thank you guys all enough. Jazakumullahu khayran, and inshallah we'll see you guys again soon. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Wa alaykum as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. you
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