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by Muhammad Javed

Below is the introduction from my new book titled "7 PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION: Key Strategies From Prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) Life that will Turbocharge your Leadership Effectiveness, and Career Growth".

Communication skills can be succinctly defined as “the ability to convey information and ideas effectively.” Communication skills are also referred to as interpersonal skills or soft skills or social skills, or social intelligence. Verbal skills involve the spoken language, while non-verbal communication includes body language, facial expressions, and eye contact.

Social skills are the outer zone where we interact with others in a variety of settings, roles, and situations. This is where our personality, self-awareness, ability to self-regulate, and motivation – all come into play in a complex manner to navigate through the path of life, interacting with people – be it our family, colleagues at work, bosses, authorities,...

Is Capitalism Evil?

by Muhammad Javed

Imagine a world in which it’s richest 1% control more wealth than 90% of the human population while 3 billion live on less than $2.5 a day and more than 1 billion children go to bed hungry![1] This is sadly the stark reality we live in today, in which the dominant economic system of capitalism breeds greed and inequality, fueled by interest, putting self-interest on a pedestal and irresponsibly consuming resources, leaving a devastating impact on the environment to maximize profits and share-holder interests. Is this system that has been adopted in most Muslim countries, willingly and unwillingly, by the powers of the day in line with the Quranic vision of an Islamic Economic system? What impact does adopting capitalism have on Muslims? These questions will be briefly explored in this short paper.

Although the definition of capitalism has eluded a fixed definition over the years and has evolved over time, today’s...

Self-Awareness

(Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence; Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way)

Edited by Fatuma Hirsi

Self-Awareness can be defined as the ability to recognize and understand moods, emotions and drivers, as well as their effect on others.

Self-Awareness also includes being conscious of who we are, our purpose in life, our goals, our strength and weaknesses – mentally, spiritually and physically. It is also about knowing our personality and our habits – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Self-awareness also takes into consideration our values, beliefs, world-views and the condition of our heart that leads to a comprehensive understanding of ourselves.

There is a popular business catch-phrase, “what gets measured, gets improved”. Most quality management philosophies start by looking at the current state, how things are today, before looking at the future state - where we want to be. It then identifies the gaps, thereafter formulating and...

Emotional Intelligence – The X Factor

 (Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence: Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way by Muhammad Javed)

 Edited by Fatuma Hirsi

So, what about the age-old formula of success that has been drilled into our heads by our parents, teachers at school, “Study hard, do well at school and you will succeed”?

Interestingly Lewis Terman, a social scientist and psychologist, had a theory that it was the intelligent high IQ individuals that were the movers and shakers, shaping the world in every field of influence from science, politics to business, medicine etc. So, he decided to get evidence to back his theory and selected more than one thousand high IQ students (with IQ score140 and above) and followed them through their adulthood. The results in their adulthood did not quite turn out as he expected.

Indeed, a small portion of them were very successful, but many were average people and a good number of them ended up as...

by Muhammad Javed

{Excerpt from the book, Emotional Intelligence: Reflecting On The Prophetic Way}

The process of purification consists of multiple steps as is outlined in the picture above. In this article, we will be focusing on repenting and staying away from sins.

Stay away from sins (especially habitual sins that accumulate like backbiting / gossip, smoking cigarettes, forbidden gaze (porn / staring at woman etc.)), etc. as they add up and can have a chaotic impact on own spirituality and performance as time also get wasted and we slip into worse things.

Repent constantly for slipping into sins

We should constantly repent for falling into sins as all human are prone to error. Allah(swt) loves when his slaves turn to Him, admits his sins and repents through tawba and istigfar.

The negative situations and states we find ourselves in is because of our mistakes, sins and transgression as the Almighty states:

وَمَا أَصَابَكُم مِّن مُّصِيبَةٍ فَبِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِيكُمْ وَيَعْفُو...

What is the Condition of Your Heart?

(Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence; Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way)

By Muhammad Javed

The heart is certainly the spiritual seat/throne of the individual where the feelings, emotions and even thoughts rest. It is also the seat of the soul, and the king of our bodies. As Allah ﷻ says,

“The Day when there will not benefit [anyone] wealth or children. But only one who comes to Allah with a sound heart.” [Quran 26:88-89]

While some argue that the brain is the pilot of our human self, it is a well-acknowledged fact that the seat of our emotions is our heart. Studies have also shown that there are 1000’s of neuron receptors in our heart, which convey signals to our brains. {As a proof, heart patients experience severe emotional disorders!}[1]

The seat of faith or eman is also in the heart. Allah has explained that there are three types of hearts: The Dead Heart, the Intermediate heart and the Sound heart.

Our...

By Muhammad Javed

8 rakah vs 20 rakahs. This is a common debate that bombards from masajid across the globe, all the way from Alaska to Makkah and down to Sydney. Come Ramadan time and it is not farfetched to find even family members disputing about the correct number of rakahs to offer for Taraweeh prayers, the superogatory prayers after Isha during the month of Ramadan. It looks like almost everyone has a different opinion on this matter, ranging from top scholars in Saudi Arabia, where the imams in the grand masajid of the holy cities, Makkah and Madinah, offer 20 units, while most imams in most of the other masajid in Saudi offer  8 units; to different Islamic centers in USA and Europe. This conflict of opinion has also promulgated hatred and division of communities and religious organizations in some areas. Is this issue really worth dividing homes and communities over? How would the sahabas deal with conflicting opinions? What is the prophetic proof on this matter? What...

Emotions - The Great Blessing

(Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence; Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way)

Edited by Fatuma Hirsi

Let us step back and get a deeper understanding of emotions and Emotional Intelligence. Emotions are feelings that we experience, and they are created by Allah. Allah says, “Indeed Allah is the One Who makes you laugh and cry” (Qur’an 53:43). So we don’t have control over the emotions that we feel, but we have the ability to regulate and choose how we react to those emotions: either to let it grow, intensify, take control of us and do something we regret, or to pause, control and choose the appropriate response.

Imagine, for a second, that we had no emotions! How would life be? No happiness, sadness, no excitement or surprise, no fear or anticipation, no love or hate. Life would be paler than black and white, wouldn’t it?

Psychiatrists have observed many cases where highly successful professionals become...

How the Sahabi (RA) exemplified Emotional Intelligence?

(Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence; Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way by Muhammad Javed)

Edited by Fatuma Hirsi

Even though they had faced the toughest of battles with armies ten times their size in the past, what they faced paled in comparison to the biggest calamity to have struck the companions of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. Their beloved Prophet, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, their guide in worldly affairs and the hereafter, their last resort in good and bad days, more beloved to them than their parents or children or their own selves, had left this world.  He had returned to His Lord, the “The Highest Companion”. The companions’ attachment to the Messenger has no parallel in history. It was a combination of love, awe, respect, adoration and commitment to the extent that one companion said he would rather give up his life than that a hair of Rasoolullah ﷺ gets hurt.

When this news spread, there...

Emotional Intelligence (EI) Explained

(Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence; Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way)

Edited by Fatuma Hirsi

In his book, Emotional Intelligence; Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way, Muhammed Javad, takes us on a journey to understand Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence (or Self-Purification as labelled by the Author) from an Islamic perspective. He makes us see how these two are interrelated and how together, they are critical, not just for success in the worldly sense, but by being self-aware, practicing self-regulation, being motivated about Jannah, interacting with others while following the boundaries of Sunnah, and following the examples of the Guide to Mankind, Muhammad Mustafa ﷺ, is critical to attaining ultimate success in the after-life.

The term “Emotional Intelligence” (EI) first appeared in 1964 in a paper written by Michael Beldoch. In 1989, Stanley Greenspan conceptualized “Emotional...