Amber Haque > Quotes

“Ibn Khaldūn believed in the corruptibility of fiṭrah. He believed that this fiṭrah can be corrupted or destroyed by man’s corruption of his dualistic human nature. Bad social influences can cause the evil aspect of human nature to predominate, and good Islamic social values can lead to the good aspect of human nature to predominate.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“The term fiṭrah is synonymous with tabc which signifies inborn disposition or nature.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“three levels of human nature for Ibn Khaldūn: fiṭrah, dualistic human nature and aggressive human nature. By the aggressive human nature is meant the animalistic side of human nature, which is prone to injustice and destruction. This is the lowest, most depraved level of human nature. When”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Since the origin of every action is a cognitive, emotional, or intellectual mental activity, those who are given to long periods of contemplation will perform their acts of worship and obedience quite easily. While internal cognitive activity is the key to every good and proper action, it is also the source of all disobedience, whether implied or overt.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“According to Tustarī, man sealed a covenant with God long before his entry into this world, when he was still a speck endowed with intellect, and he acknowledged God’s supremacy by his affirmative answer to the question, “Am I not your Lord?” The true test of man’s faithfulness to the covenant with his Lord is his phenomenal existence in this world. Tustarī states: “The self-consciousness of man derives from the moment of affirmation of Divine Lordship (rubūbiyyah) with their first profession of faith”.10 This is man’s involuntary submission to God; it is man’s pre-existential state, and it is also the state in which he is born on earth. Man’s submission in this world, however, is a voluntary submission according to Islam, which complements his innate nature.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Biological determinism, in its exaggerated form, claims that anything, normal or abnormal, that people do is fully governed by their inherited genes, their nervous system, and inborn biochemistry. As”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“the concept of mechanical human being as adopted by behaviorism; this concept has been replaced with that of a human being as an “information processor”.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Muslim scholars who clearly associate it with tawḥīd (Oneness of God) and the religion of Islam itself.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“This deformed approach was, from the start, strongly opposed by several scholars. The British psychologist, Cyril Burt, for example,”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“if a correct perception and conceptualization of human nature is lacking, any attempt at explaining human personality will be flawed, inaccurate, and perhaps misleading.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“the context of the “pre-existential” fiṭrah. Basically, this concept means that God created fiṭrah so that man could come to acknowledge Him as the one God who has power over all things.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Generally, it is regarded as the characteristics which are enduring and unique to the person.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Ibn Khaldūn seems to consider religion (particularly Islam) as a system which can preserve human nature closest to its primitive good state, while allowing for the evolution of the individual as well as the collectivity.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“The closer they remain to the primitive/ innate state of human nature, the better they are. It may be argued here then that the explanation for Ibn Khaldūn’s hostile attitude toward the sedentaries is that they are seen as having corrupted their good, primitive, innate human nature, while his admiration of the Bedouins stems out of their apparent closeness to the primitive goodness of human nature,”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“The seat of knowledge in man comes from the metaphysical elements referred to in the Qur’ān as heart (qalb), soul (al-nafs), spirit (rūḥ), and intellect (al-caql).”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Despite most Western academics’ contention that psychology is a science, and its study must entail scientific endeavor, their contributions are largely based on human speculation,”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Personality consists of overt as well as covert behaviors. Although overt behaviors can be studied by objective methods, covert behaviors like thoughts and feelings are only intrinsic to the individual and cannot be studied objectively.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“the concept of personality is part of the Western lexicon, which carries implications to be considered later. Gordon Allport, a Harvard professor, first introduced the term into psychology in the 1930s. In contrast, the classical writings of Islamic scholars use terms like “nafs”, “qalb”, “rūḥ” or psyche to signify human personality.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“According to al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277), fiṭrah is an unconscious state of belief, which a person acquires at a conscious level through a process of socialisation, depending on his family upbringing and societal influence. If a child were to die before attaining the age of discretion, he would be of the inmates of Paradise. This applies to the children of polytheists as well.5 This view is supported by the following Ḥadīth:6”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“If studying Islamic contemplation from the psychological point of view necessarily deals with the conscious inner cognitive thought and feelings of people, then these three dominant perspectives of Western psychology (behaviorism, Freudian psychoanalysis and neuropsychiatry) can offer little or no help.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“they often end up in endless philosophical debates providing no conclusive answers unless the questions are examined from a transcendental point of view as given in the Qur’ān.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology and learning theory, tried to formulate an all-embracing theory, but none succeeded,”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“In its recognition of fiṭrah as innate goodness, it also acknowledges a dualistic conception of human nature, which is distinct from fiṭrah. This duality of good and evil within the human soul, is dynamic: it is capable of transformation to a higher level in harmony with fiṭrah, or degradation to an animal level, with a capacity to corrupt, or even obliterate, the pure innate fiṭrah.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Knowledge and rūḥ are inherent in the nature of man, and are collectively known as alfiṭrah, which directs man’s behavior throughout his life. The”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Man’s perfection and knowledge of God depends on his faithfulness to the pre-existential covenant, to his fiṭrah, by emulating Prophet Muhammad, the primal manifestation of divine names.11”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“If the mission of the prophets is to remind man of God’s oneness, then it is also their mission to remind him of his fiṭrah.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Pre-existential fiṭrah is man’s primordial perfection and the earthly fiṭrah is in harmony with this perfect state. The role of prophets is to remind man of the oneness of God (tawḥīd), his original nature, and his primordial fiṭrah.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“Qur’ān (see above), the right religion is the one that teaches the oneness of God, and it is this religion that is in harmony with the innate human nature which is inclined towards this divine monotheism. So, for man to know himself and to realize his innate nature, he must follow this true religion (dīn hānīf). This religion is Islam, in the wide sense of its belief and submission to God, as confirmed by the verse, “The true religion with Allah is Islam” (Q. 3:10).”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“The seat of knowledge in man comes from the metaphysical elements referred to in the Qur’ān as heart (qalb), soul (al-nafs), spirit (rūḥ), and intellect (al-caql). Knowledge and rūḥ are inherent in the nature of man, and are collectively known as alfiṭrah, which directs man’s behavior throughout his life.”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives

“He even suggested that just as a healthy person keeps some drugs and first-aid medicines at hand for unexpected physical emergencies, he should also contemplate and keep healthy thoughts and feelings in his mind for unexpected emotional outbursts.12”
― Amber Haque, Psychology of Personality: Islamic Perspectives