He is `Abd al-Mun`im Salih al-`Ali al-`Izzi popularly known as Abu `Ammar and well-known for his book Al-Muntalaq. Through this book, many enthusiastic du`at (callers to Islam) learned to be more rational (rather than emotional), mature (rather than childish), proactive (rather than reactive), organised (rather than haphazard), etc. Most of the time, we thought that we are among the mu’mins who contribute to the spread of Islam when sometimes we may do more harm than benefit to Islam with our way of promoting Islam.
Below are books by Muhammad Ahmad al-Rashid that had provided me with some psychological lessons that I don’t learn from modern contemporary psychology particularly Industrial/Organisational Psychology. Read the rest of this entry »
Can you imagine what life would be like if we are not able to smell with our nose, to taste with our tongue, and to touch/feel with our skin? I think life would be dull, boring, and nothing to be compared with, nothing to be creative in, nothing to be motivated to, nothing to be thanked for, and nothing to be patient with. If we can understand the underlying basic structure and function of these sensory processes, we might be better `abids/servants and khalifahs/vicegerents to Allah SWT.
OLFACTION/SMELL
You might think that this biologically-oriented knowledge are the product of Western secular knowledge. After all, why would Muslims want to study the detailed about the nose, when we are better off studying aqidah, fiqh, and akhlaq, right? Well, you’re wrong. Shehata (2003) mentioned several early Muslim scholars who had written detailed description of the anatomy of the nose. They are al-Razi, ibn Sina, `Ali ibn `Abbas, `Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, ibn al-Baladi, ibn al-Zuhr, al-Zahrawi, and ibn al-Nafis. You may be surprised that most of them are well-versed in the traditional religious knowledge as well like tafsir, hadith, fiqh, and tasawwuf! I believe we should be inspired to like them i.e. not secularising between human knowledge and the so-called religious knowledge and promoting both types of knowledge to increase and spread hidayah. Read the rest of this entry »