The Heartlands of Islam vs. the Lands of the Heart
As the heartlands of the Muslims are under attack, our brothers and sisters there are being blessed with becoming shaheed. In place for their suffering and sacrifice, they are, as Allah says, “alive with their Lord, receiving rizq from Him,” and will have the highest ranks, forever, in Jannah.
But there is another, even more concerning attack which has been on-going for some time; not upon the heartlands of Islam, but upon the lands of the heart—the hearts and minds of Muslims. If this attack is successful, and it is becoming more and more so, the result is not a physical death followed by the eternal company of Allah like our brothers and sisters in Ghaza, but a spiritual death in which one loses the very faith that grants them the possibility of that eternal company. We seek Allah’s protection from that for all.
Where is this attack coming from?
It comes from modern mass education.
The kind of education we all receive.
What Does Modern Mass Education Provide Us?
Modern mass education gives us three things, only one of which we need.
- Knowledge Content – the content taught in the sciences, English, mathematics, etc.
- Mental Habits
- Fundamental Concepts – understandings of foundational concepts such as “evidence”, “knowledge”, “human being”, “reason”, “science”, “world”, etc.
Number 1 (Knowledge Content) is the knowledge we need to make our way in the world. The modern world is a complex place and we need this Knowledge Content to properly implement the deen in our time.
Number 3 (Fundamental Concepts) is problematic not because it’s “un-Islamic”, but because the fundamental concepts have been fully shaped by certain historical problems that were particular to the West, and thus predispose anyone who learns them to the same problems the West suffers from. So, if by “un-Islamic” you mean, “not thoroughly worked out based on all data available, including revelation,” then yes, the conceptions are un-Islamic.
Number 2 (Mental Habits) is what I’d like to talk about in this post.
What is a Mental Habit?
A mental habit is a framework of thoughts that come naturally to someone. Ever heard of the phrase, “use it or lose it?” It’s often mentioned in terms of building muscle—if you don’t use your biceps, they become weak. If your biceps become weak, you’ll notice that you have difficulty lifting heavy objects. But the more you use your biceps, the stronger they get, and now you’ll be able to pick up that same heavy object without even thinking about it.
The same can be said of mental muscles. If you do not use a mental muscle, it becomes weaker (“I used to have an excellent sense of direction but now I’m dependent on GPS”). But the more you use the muscle, the stronger it becomes, and the easier and more natural it becomes to use it. When I was a child, I had memorized many phone numbers—my home, my friends, my neighbors. It took no effort for me to pick up the phone and dial them. Now of course, the situation is quite different!
Similarly, mental habits are a set of thoughts that work together in a coherent framework that we get so used to using, we don’t realize that we are using them—they are totally natural to us.
A system of education is not simply designed to provide knowledge content. It exercises the mind in a particular way of thinking – to develop specific mental habits. In fact, one could say that in a system of education, the formation of mental habits is just as important as the gaining of knowledge content.
Mental Habits Can Shape How We See the World More Strongly than Our Religious Beliefs
The iman in our hearts—in Allah, the angels, Jannah, Jahannam, etc.—is deeply embedded within us. But that does not mean that our mental habits are necessarily informed by those fundamental beliefs. In fact, I would argue that our situation today is exactly as such: we believe in Allah, His Messengers, His Angels, His Books, the Day of Judgment, Jannah, Jahannam, and everything else—but our mental habits are not always shaped by them (other than in our worship and in, hopefully, how we deal with each other). This disconnect between what we believe and what our mental habits are finds its expression today in the various efforts to “teach according to a Quranic worldview”, of which Inara is a part. Many of us feel this disconnect and don’t like it.
Revelation Calls Us to Develop Certain Mental Habits
The problem is that the current K-12 education system teaches certain mental habits that are in direct contradiction with revelation’s mental habits. One of the goals of Inara is to reimagine education in a way that all the knowledge content can be taught—with the right mental habits.
With that we say “bismillah” and begin a short series of posts about Mental Habits.
At Inara we firmly believe, as we’re sure you do, that single words from the Quran, when unpacked, show us reality as it really is, and should be the basis for all our Mental Habits.
The first such word we would like to explore is: السبب – sabab.
This word forms the basis for the first Quranic Mental Habit we will need to discuss, the one upon which other important Mental Habits are built.
We call it the Mental Habit of “Seeing Asbab.”
So, what does “asbab” mean?
Click here to go to the next post in the series.
