Self-Awareness: An Islamic Perspective - Part 1

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 implementing strategies to close those gaps. Our personal improvement strategies follow these same basic principles.

Looking at EI, we need to be aware of our emotions, in order for us to effectively control, or regulate them. We should not let our emotions hijack our body, and mind, and do things that we later regret.

Connection with Allahﷻ

Success in this life and the next depends on the strength of our connection with our Lord. Allah Almighty refers to this unbreakable bond in the following verse:

“There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the right path has become distinct from the wrong path. Whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower.” [Qur’an 2:256]

Our utmost priority in this life should be awareness of the strength of our connection with Allah and boosting it until it reaches the level of the most trustworthy stronghold or “urwat-ul-wutqa”. Additionally, the stronger one’s connection is with Allahﷻ, a wonderful side-effect is that one becomes more emotionally intelligent. This makes it easier to better practice self-regulation, which is a key ingredient of emotional intelligence. Additionally, one’s orientation in life would be aligned with divine guidance by calibrating one’s moral compass and giving life meaning, and purpose, thereby boosting self-motivation. One would have better self-awareness, reflecting on the divine guidance in all walks of life and assessing one’s own level of compliance with them. It would also be easy to emulate Prophet Muhammadﷺ in social interactions and empathize with others as God Almighty had sent Muhammadﷺ as the gold standard of character and the ideal example for humanity. So in essence, as one improves his or her connection with Allahﷻ, the emotional intelligence would naturally increase, and more importantly, would be used as a tool for noble purposes instead of taking advantage of others and serving selfish, or evil pursuits, such as Abu Jahl or Hitler.

We will look at how we can build self-awareness and assess the strength of our connection with our Creator and Sustainer in the next article.