One of the better books I read in the past year was With the Heart in Mind: The Moral & Emotional Intelligence of the Prophet by Mikaeel Ahmed Smith. As we grew more and more apart in the world and our primary mode of communication increasingly became fast-moving and from behind screens, the demand for emotional intelligence (EQ) also spiked. Even in the business world, IQ stopped being the in-thing and EQ gradually became the number one sought after skill in employees. A skill which businesses now spend hours of ingraining in them. Any unbiased observer who takes a cursory look at the online and offline behaviour of young Muslim males will see clearly that this is definitely a form of intelligence we are sorely deficient in. It is as though being connected with our emotions and invested in the emotions of the people around us is now a vice. And unfortunately, this goes for both the learned ones among us and the not so unlearned.
Emotional intelligence could be said to mean the ability to be present with people and connecting with their emotional state when dealing with them. Not just talking to them or past them but actually being there with them. As with all other things in modern life and psychology there has been a lot of materials trying to secularize this body of knowledge and detach it from its eemani origins. What the Ustadh Mikaeel Smith tried to do is study the prophet’s (ﷺ) moral character and extract immensely the emotional intelligence lessons that could be found in it. How to develop it, cultivate it, maintain it and practice it. He aims to help readers reach an understanding of the role of any intelligence in which the primary function of the intellect is to know Allah and lead others to Him as well.
The book starts by taking a look into the concept of sound intellect, its importance in relation to developing sound moral and emotional intelligence, as well as identifying social, emotional, and moral dimensions to it. This served as a good groundwork for the second section which discusses emotional intelligence proper. It explains emotional intelligence as something that should be understood as both intrapersonal and interpersonal. Ustadh Smith explains that the goal of prophetic dawah is to deliver the divine message to people and to get them to understand it; to penetrate their hearts and mind. For different people there are different cognitive and emotional barriers (past trauma, background, etc.) and for this penetration and understanding to happen effectively, you must learn about and understand their emotional state and the barriers they pose. But only after you first understand your own self with such emotional depth, can you then begin to understand the emotions of others in such ways to cultivate meaningful relationships and penetrate their hearts and minds. And the prophet (ﷺ) exemplified this.
Knowing “how” and “where” to relay information to specific people is just as important as relaying the information itself.
A traveller, 2020 AD
The fruit of emotional intelligence is that you are able to effectively articulate your ideas and values to others in such a manner that resonates with the bulk of people even if they disagree. It is, however, not enough to just have emotional intelligence. This emotional intelligence must always be coupled with moral intelligence. You must accompany your perfect means and ways of relating a message with a perfect message because emotional intelligence is just a tool and when lacking proper moral intelligence, instead of providing productive and beneficial influences unto others, can instead be used for nefarious and manipulative ends. Sociopaths for example are almost always people with very high EQ but the difference is that they deploy it for abusive ends. What we must aim for is to be able to communicate in such a way that resonates with everyone’s heart an equally morally sound message.
The author ended the book with a chapter explaining how EQ combined with moral guidance has and can still lead to radical and transformational change both at the level of the family and society. He also looked at the concept of education, double-loop education and the single-loop education and how they manifest. You should get a copy!
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“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I think this week qualifies to be one of those weeks. From police brutality in the land of Trumpistan to the BLM protests all around the world, to the lootings and violence that graced them. But while it can indeed be overwhelming, we must not give in to despair, let it upend our lives or drive us into ideological Pidgeon holes. Almost everything has happened once before and we just have to engage our history books more. A brilliant historian once said:
“We learn history to keep us from taking the present too seriously. This isn’t to say the problems of the present aren’t serious. Just that history helps us avoid getting too dazzled by current trends, or too swept away by any particular narrative.”
One event that has been particularly depressing though is the coming to light of numerous rape cases in quick succession in Nigeria. It’s depressing because it’s one big elephant in the room; a problem which we all know is present and endemic but which we never talk about. I honestly cannot think of anything beneficial I have to add to the discussion, so I have just been observing people’s reactions. But I observed something that could be said to be more depressing than it all, which is the response of a lot of men, especially religious Muslim men, to the understandable outrage that was being expressed by women. This is why I felt the need to write this maybe some people will read it and take benefit.
For what it’s worth I think there is something fundamentally broken about …. how we navigate discussions on issues around women in the majority of Muslim communities. I strongly believe that a lot has to change about how we raise young Muslim men and how we teach them to see and appreciate themselves in relation to women. I believe a lot has to change structurally about our communities and its replacement has to be something that fully involves and considers how the other half of our community is affected by each and every detail of it.
A traveller, 2020 AD
A good friend saw the above quote and asked me to explain or exemplify it. It’s a little difficult making people relive past experiences they didn’t even notice occurred so I promised I will start pointing out cases to him in the moment when they occur. A very good example to point out is the reaction of a lot of men and more saddening, Muslim men, to the ongoing outrage against rape. And I believe it represents a model case of mansplaining.
Knowing when to talk and when to just shut up and listen is a life skill everyone should have.
A traveller, 2020 AD
The concept of mansplaining is today another deeply ideologically loaded concept that’s often deployed to silence criticism and redirect attention away from the substance of the argument being made towards the one making it; a veiled type of argumentum ad hominem. But as with everything, it isn’t without its valid viewpoints. Rape — and sexual assault generally- is extremely gendered. While there are valid claims of male victims, it is an almost exclusively female experience. Even with the vast underreporting, it is estimated that about one in three women have suffered some form of sexual assault in their life, every woman has either been or probably knows someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted sometimes in their life. So to see a lot of men trying to drown out the voice of women on the topic is appalling.
And even though we pretend like it’s not a thing, the same applies to Muslim women too; ranging from the completely irreligious to the most devoted of them. A good percentage of those sexual assaults were carried out by the men who were supposed to be their most trusted protectors; their fathers, scholars, religious teachers, brothers and even husbands. So, when women are outraged by it, they don’t need our pontifications about what causes or doesn’t cause rape or sexual harassment. They don’t need us to tell them how and when to be outraged, they were raped by many who spoke, looked and talked exactly like us. This isn’t excusing every form of outrage; it’s recognizing that people are angry because they feel betrayed by the very people who should be their most trusted allies and rightly so. So once again they don’t need our pontifications. They just need us to shut up for once and listen! There is not even a need for a solidarity performative outrage, they just need us to shut up for once and listen!
إِنَّمَا يَسْتَجِيبُ الَّذِينَ يَسْمَعُون
Only those who truly listen (with their heart and ears) will respond…
[Quran 6:36]
How we make sense of occurrences, particularly tragedies, cannot be separated from our deeply rooted assumptions about the world and how it should work. Our worldview is probably the most powerful affecter of how we interpret those tragedies and the conclusions we make from them. But it takes a level of emotional intelligence to understand that tragedies, especially the sort being discussed, are not tools for agenda-setting polarization or getting back at people we don’t like, that they are real life experiences that have mostly permanent damage on the lives of actual people and not commodities to be exploited. Some people will go overboard in outrage or even say things that are borderline blasphemous, but a time of tragedy and deep sorrow isn’t the time to engage in ideological fisticuffs. It isn’t the time to list out the thousands of things that could have been done differently. It is the time to share in the pain and horror all women already share and can relate with, it is a time to listen and empathize. If we must say anything, then it is to assure them that we are committed to making the world a safer place for them and their daughters that will come after them. This is emotional intelligence.
Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair…
She looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition — the glazed separateness.
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye.
I have once been unfortunate (yes unfortunate!) to look into the eyes of a young lady who had just being violated and witness the sheer hopelessness and despair therein. She needed reassurance that everything will be okay but none of us could summon the courage to tell that lie. I wished I could have told her that everything will go back to normal after a few days or even a few years, but it would have been a lie. I couldn’t betray her and lie to her again just moments after she suffered the greatest betrayal of her life. I wished I could have promised her that the sacred experience of sexual intimacy which should be is a thing of beauty, love, joy, ajr and barakah hasn’t just been made into a nightmare she will probably have to relieve every day for the rest of her life. This also would have been a lie. I wished I could just hold her close and tight and tell her she is safe. But then again, I wondered, how will her body react to that? Will it simply find solace in the warmth of my embrace and feel safe or will it see it as another hostile violation of its space and reject me? All these was going through my head in a the space of seconds even though I wasn’t the one whose life was just upended by another’s violent lust. Now imagine what she, the victim, was thinking all through that time. Now imagine her relieving this experience again, but this time with the very archetypes of her violator pontificating online about the million and one things she could have done better.
There is really nothing more to say — except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to ending rape and sexual assault in general. It is a problem that requires a multivariate analysis. Anyone who simply regurgitates single lines as solutions is either being deliberately obtuse or manipulative, even if they try to use scriptures as justifications. The Shari’ah itself recognizes this multivariance and everywhere in the world where they have hypocritically focused on one or some parts of the problem while leaving others have only seen the problem persist. One of such variables is the subject of objectification of women which a lot of Muslim men seem to have harped on. But we tend to understand objectification of women in simply lustful terms which is quite erroneous. Objectification also includes treating women as people without fully formed minds of their own who are incapable of forming opinions independent of us. It is to treat them like just a bag of flesh whose opinions only have value to the extent that it conforms with ours. This is also a manifestation of objectification and one which a lot us Muslim men are guilty of. If the kind of discussions we’ve had over the past few days is anything to go by, then a lot of us have even combined this form of objectification with the lustful kind. How evil is what our hands write, and our lips utter! And it is even more scary that what the heart conceals could even be more evil.
وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتُ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاء بَعْضٍ يَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَيُقِيمُونَ الصَّلاَةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَيُطِيعُونَ اللّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ أُوْلَئِكَ سَيَرْحَمُهُمُ اللّهُ إِنَّ اللّهَ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger
[Quran 9:71]
I don’t know how or what exactly will magically solve all the problems of sexual harassment in the world, I think there will be a time and a platform for discussing that. But I know men, especially Muslim men, have to shut up more and just listen. You’ don’t even have to come online to listen to strange women. Just ask your mothers, sisters, daughters and neighbours and take time to listen and learn. They all have stories and experiences. Just shut up and listen! And be sure to listen with the heart in mind and be merciful!
وعن النعمان بن بشير رضي الله عنهما قال‏:‏ قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏”‏ مثل المؤمنين في توادهم وتراحمهم وتعاطفهم، مثل الجسد إذا اشتكى منه عضو تداعى له سائر الجسد بالسهر والحمى” ‏(‏‏(‏متفق عليه‏)‏‏)‏ ‏.
Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “The believers in their mutual kindness, compassion and sympathy are just like one body. When one of the limbs suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever”.
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
حَدَّثَنَا مُوسَى، قَالَ‏:‏ حَدَّثَنَا حَمَّادٌ، عَنْ حُمَيْدٍ، عَنِ الْحَسَنِ، عَنْ عَبْدِ اللهِ بْنِ مُغَفَّلٍ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ‏:‏ إِنَّ اللَّهَ رَفِيقٌ يُحِبُّ الرِّفْقَ، وَيُعْطِي عَلَيْهِ مَا لاَ يُعْطِي عَلَى الْعُنْفِ‏.‏
Abdullah ibn Mughaffal reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Allah is compassionate and loves compassion. He gives for compassion what He goes not give for harshness.”
[Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 472]
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Some comments from my brother Muhammad Tukur
And men have always blamed the women who were victims of rape or sexual harassment for not covering their bodies properly and are quick to quote the verse on “Tabarruj”. Going by that, when are men going to be questioned or blamed for clearly not lowering their gaze and in clear disobedience of the verse on that? A lady cannot rape or harass herself.
قل لِّلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا۟ مِنْ أَبْصَـٰرِهِمْ وَيَحْفَظُوا۟ فُرُوجَهُمْ ۚ ذَ‌ٰلِكَ أَزْكَىٰ لَهُمْ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ خَبِيرٌۢ بِمَا يَصْنَعُونَ
“Tell the believing men to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts, etc.). That is purer for them. Verily, Allah is All-Aware of what they do”. (Q24:30).
We have seen or heard stories of children of less than ten years of age being raped or harassed. Is that a case of not covering the body properly? Does the child of less than ten years of age have sexual organs that could lure men? We have seen or heard stories of women who were harassed during Tawaf in front of the Ka’abah. Is that a case of not covering the body properly? Clearly, these examples show how perverted men could be.
I once watched a video of a fully covered woman in Morocco or Tunisia (one of the two countries) who got harassed. I couldn’t find where and how her dressing was provocative. She even had Niqab on. Yet, she got harassed. Yes, dressing decently goes a long way in deflecting the eyes of men. However, it is not exclusively the solution. The onus of rape or harassment should be entirely on the perpetrator and not on the victim. This is so because when cases of rape are established in Shari’a Courts, the man carries the entire punishment on his head. Not to be shared or the other way round. Therefore, we need to start checking ourselves. We should learn to listen more rather than talk long-windedly.

seguntijan:
Rape — and sexual assault generally- is extremely gendered. While there are valid claims of male victims, it is an almost exclusively female experience. Even with the vast underreporting, it is estimated that about one in three women have suffered some form of sexual assault in their life, every woman has either been or probably knows someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted sometimes in their life. So to see a lot of men trying to drown out the voice of women on the topic is appalling.

That is a bloody lie!

Justice ought not to be biased, even along gender lines!