Borrowed Blueprints: What Self-Development Carries Into the Muslim Heart

(Reading time: ~24 minutes)

Like many Muslims around the globe, I have had a keen interest in self-development all my life. Who does not want to understand themselves? Who does not want to become a better person?

It seems obvious that when you want to develop yourself, you turn your attention to trends in self-development and psychology. You shop for the books, courses, or services that best match your needs. It seems like a no-brainer that when you desire to improve yourself in any particular capacity, you look at the self-development genre that offers valuable knowledge, skills, and tools whose promises meet your expectations.

Self-development is a huge industry whose market size was estimated at 53.24 billion USD in 2025 and is projected to reach 67.21 billion by 2030. Just like non-Muslims, Muslims are typical customers and contributors to this industry.

Is Self-Development Safe?

It does not occur to most of us to ask such a question. For most of us, psychology and certain genres of self-development, like engineering and medicine, are based on research and practical evidence. We assume it is technical in nature and has no theological or ideological foundations. It is a purely practical or technical field, just like carpentry, pilot training, or farming, or so we intuitively suppose.

We seem to think self-development is predominantly psychological and sociological and has little, if anything, to do with religion. In fact, many Muslims think self-development can give them an advantage in practicing Islam, studying it, teaching it, and even optimizing it. The last word, “optimizing,” might puzzle you, but it has been quite a widespread phenomenon since the early history of Islam. Historically, many educated Muslims thought they could optimize discourse in Islam by integrating philosophy into their understanding of the Islamic belief system. Hence, certain disciplines developed, and many deviant sects emerged throughout our history.

Modern Trends, Old Patterns

Today, many Muslims think that studying psychology will be a great addition to what they perceive as an underdeveloped understanding of human nature in the Muslim tradition. They think they are revolutionizing Islam with modern theories of the self, the brain, and other academic discoveries. They assume they have a unique advantage over conventional scholars of Islam who limited themselves to the study of the Muslim tradition and were not lucky enough to be enlightened by the revolutionary advancements of science in decoding and demystifying human behaviour and human nature.

Some of those individuals pose as well-meaning advocates who are willing to educate and enlighten the “uninformed” scholars of Islam and the Muslim masses on discoveries that will “liberate” them from the confines of a “limiting” view of human nature. They offer them a transformational tool that will finally unlock their ability to serve the Ummah. Some of these very “saviours” ironically present themselves to non-Muslim Western scholars as a unique bridge between modern scientific findings and a rich tradition that confirms modern theories. They are desperate to show the West that Islam does not contradict the findings and theories of modern science. They perform a desperate dance between the Muslim tradition and modern social sciences, believing—in their vanity—that they are the ones who will save Islam and Muslims from being stuck in the “dark ages” while conveying traditional depth to modern theories! I just felt exhausted writing about this! Imagine how tedious it is to be one of those so-called experts!

On the Opposite Side

On the flip side, there are those who oppose anything Western in this regard. Ironically, Western influence has seeped into most areas of their lives and thinking without them realizing it. As a result, many of their statements conflict with the reality of how they actually live and think.

This side opposes modern theories not because they have identified what is problematic about them, but simply because they have a general attitude of rejection toward many things that come from the West.

My main criticism of this group is the baffling inconsistency in their attitude. While they display an outward rejection of psychology, their current understanding of human nature is not grounded in the Muslim tradition either. In fact, their view of human nature is heavily shaped by modern psychology. However, this influence is informal. This subtle influence has been seeping into the local cultures of Muslim populations for more than a century. If this group were to be consistent, they would recognize this psychological influence and reject it as well.

Logically, there should be no difference in one’s attitude toward influences from modern psychology, whether they happened today or a hundred years ago. The methodology should remain consistent. But this group of people is not consistent. They seem to operate on the assumption that since scholars a hundred years ago did not resist such influences, they must be all right. Or, it could be that they think the influence of psychology only occurred recently. In both cases, the methodological error is serious.

This side has taken a safer approach and, in most ways, deserves recognition for its keen interest in preserving Islam and protecting Muslims. But they have fallen short by not applying the same principle to harmful concepts that made their way into the culture before their lifetime, in ways too subtle for their awareness to notice. If you want to be consistent, you have to complete the work you have started. It is to this complete view that I subscribe—yet, with a catch!

Safe or Unsafe?

Self-development is a rich field, and there is no uniformity among all its tools and approaches. In order to do justice and arrive at practical answers, we must maintain a nuanced and differentiated approach to its constituent parts. A sweeping judgment about everything in self-development would be unfair and impractical. The field is a mix of universal components and components unique to it. It has seriously dangerous components. At the same time, it has developed beneficial skills that are universal and transferable.

Merely understanding this point is not sufficient to navigate self-development safely. In fact, Muslim practitioners who seek to combine Islam with modern forms of self-development and psychology believe they can engage this challenge simply by virtue of being Muslim or having some basic knowledge of Islam. The truth is, Western self-development has been making deposits into the culture of Muslim populations for more than three centuries. Some of the things we think of as Islamic are actually a product of Western influence. Because we grew up seeing only these influences, we mistakenly think they have always been part of the Muslim tradition. A lot of what we think is traditional is actually a departure from our tradition that took place a couple of hundred years ago.

Dealing with self-development or psychology is not simply a matter of rearranging the pieces to make them look Islamic. The issue with modern social sciences is way more complex and runs deeper than this simplistic approach posits. It requires serious commitment and dedication. Undoing centuries of disruptive—yet subtle—shifts in language, culture, and thinking that were orchestrated by armies of orientalists and colonial forces requires more than simply putting concepts together in a blender and expecting a coherent outcome.

Modern self-development, including the social sciences, is predicated on a set of beliefs—an underlying philosophy or set of premises. This is where the problem resides. Historically and factually, this underlying philosophy comes from the European Renaissance. The assumption that there is only matter and that the study of matter can explain everything underlies all the ideas and tools of this school of thought. Even when the soul is taken into consideration, it remains a problematic view of the soul that is not in line with what Islam teaches.

The exclusion of the soul from the study of human behaviour and development is not a fringe omission that can be restored by simply inserting add-ons into the system. Nor is it a simple structural imbalance that can be restored with quick fixes. The Western model of psychology and human development presents a distorted view of the reality of human nature. If we were to call it by its real name rather than trying to be politically correct, we would call it an ideology.

Because we were born in a world that has swallowed this ideology hook, line, and sinker, we look at it from within. You cannot see its flaws unless you break free from its confines. And you cannot break free without a big sacrifice and a substantial investment in understanding the Muslim tradition in this particular area. A surface reading of al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, or Ibn al-Qayyim will not do that. A modernized translation of Al-Balkhi’s or Ibn Hazm’s books does not cut it. In fact, you can read such traditions through a Western lens and arrive at conclusions never even intended by the authors. This statement describes most of the available readings of such texts. The severe, yet subtle shift in language and concepts guarantees that you read into the writings of such scholars what you have been conditioned to believe about human nature, without ever noticing that your interpretation is foreign to the original text.

I say this after having spent two decades doing just that.

This is exactly what is happening with the so-called field of Islamic psychology. Our thinking—our worldview—has been secularized and naturalized to the point that we have become mouthpieces for an atheistic view of human nature. We push against our tradition while claiming we are here to revive it. The extent of deception is so profound that a simple reconfiguration of modern psychology to desperately make it cosmetically Islamic is both naivety and unintended betrayal.

To answer the question of whether modern self-development—including its “Islamized versions”—is unsafe to consume, here is my view:

I am aware this will trigger resentment and criticism. If you are open to the truth and are sincere in truly finding out how Islam views human behaviour and development, read on and keep an open mind. There is substance to this argument, and insha’Allah, I will share some clear examples shortly. If you are triggered by this argument, know that you are not the intended readership of this work. Yes, you may have studied psychology or counselling for years with good intentions to help Muslims and assist the vulnerable. I congratulate you on your intention, but this does not make the attempts to Islamize modern psychology valid.

It is important to note that your study of any field of the social sciences will not be in vain if you open up to what the reality of the Muslim tradition says in this area. You actually have a unique advantage! You also will have developed, in your training and practice, valuable skills that are universal and thus transferable. They can be a great asset once you come to recognize and embrace the Muslim approach to human nature and human development. This blog is not intended to explain what the Muslim tradition says about human nature; we have been holding courses and campaigns at Rashidoon.com to contribute to this quest.

I will now turn to demonstrate why modern psychology and social sciences are not safe.

Modern Self-Development… Why Not?

Let’s look at the main areas of concern with modern self-development.

Purpose

Self-development is not only a set of tools and strategies for change. Every model of human behaviour is built on a worldview—a set of beliefs. Developed by generations of thinkers and researchers from Europe and North America, modern self-development and psychology reflect their worldview and beliefs about human nature.

The first of these beliefs is the purpose of human life. Why do humans exist, and what are they supposed to do with their lives? Any development in the human condition draws its direction from the contents of such a belief. Those who believe the purpose of human life is optimum functionality in business and work have developed different goals, strategies, and tools for positive change than those who believe that the purpose of human life is service or moral excellence.

Development is a relative concept. What is considered development in one worldview may be considered a waste in another. For example, attaining the traits of generosity and selflessness is considered development in a moral worldview, yet these same traits may be considered weakness in a worldview predicated on capitalism and wealth extraction.

Modern approaches to self-development structurally reflect this misappropriation of purpose. To think that such models can be easily repurposed to serve noble purposes and contribute to an Islamic purpose is both naïve and dangerous. 

If you have been a keen observer of the Da’wah scene in the English-speaking world, you must have noticed how many people in the field have adopted modern marketing practices. In some cases, this has resulted in deceptive ways of baiting viewers and cheap tactics to gain traction. There are du’aat whose messages have deteriorated into attention-grabbing content, even when that content is controversial and non-beneficial.

Modern self-development models retain the ideologies of their founders, developers, and practitioners. They embody these ideologies in their structure, not only in the topics they deal with. These ideologies are built into the models themselves, and when you seek to use them for a good cause, you will get contaminated results. This even applies to sciences that we think are benign, such as psychology. These are not neutral and universal tools that can be put to work for any purpose. The tools of psychology are purpose-built and are designed to serve both identified and unidentified purposes.

Philosophical and Ideological Concerns

Techniques, tools, and skills are born from the womb of underlying beliefs. Western self-development has been designed around Western values and is informed by their guiding principles. They leave their fingerprints in every component. When you attempt to repurpose such models to serve Islamic purposes, you will run into inevitable dissonance. Western concepts and values in many areas run counter to the noble purposes of Islam. 

Take, for example, celebrity culture, which was adopted from its pioneers in the West into the Da’wah scene. The excuse was that having more fans and followers means your Da’wah can spread far and wide, and this gets you more reward. About a decade and a half into this adventure, we now live with the consequences. We witness how this particular phenomenon has wreaked havoc on Muslim hearts and Muslim culture. Popularity has become the only parameter of successful Da’wah, regardless of its soundness or outcomes. Real substance does not really matter as long as a Da’ee can draw crowds!

In Islam, deliberately seeking prominence in society is a big no-no. Even when the stated purpose is to serve the public, the active pursuit of positions of power and influence is frowned upon, as it is the likely breeding ground of insincerity and an indication of a thirst for power. People who crave power and end up having what they want often become the tyrants of the future—sometimes overtly, but often covertly.

Modern science assumes human behaviour and inner experiences are functions of the physical components of our nerves and brains. In a sense, humans are viewed as biological and chemical robots. Thoughts, intentions, and feelings are assumed to be caused by brain activity and hormones. This is not a basic omission that can simply be corrected by adding the soul, the mind, and the nafs to the mix. You cannot simply mix up concepts from two contradictory worldviews and expect to be consistent. Psychology is simply an alternative to Tazkiyah and the Sciences of the Heart. You cannot get a Halal meal by adding Halal beef to a ham sandwich. You do not get Halal content if you make actresses in erotic films wear a hijab.

Core Concepts

Modern self-development has taken older terms and reinvented them. Concepts like the self, heart, mind, and feelings have undergone massive shifts in meaning. Because this change was gradual and subtle, the public assumes these concepts and their meanings are timeless and universal.

Take, for example, the concept of emotions. Allow me to share a personal story to demonstrate this point.

I have always thought that humans, regardless of background, had this universal concept of emotions. In 2015, the general manager of a leading Islamic Institute at the time suggested that I develop a course called “Fiqh of Emotions.” The idea appealed to me and sounded like a promising project. 

However, I could not think of any term in our tradition that is equivalent to emotions. In the Quran, the Sunnah, and the writings of early scholars of Islam, the concept of emotions, in its modern Arabic equivalent, is non-existent. I did not know where to start my research on the topic because I could not find anything substantial on emotions.

Questions went through my mind, such as: Is our tradition lacking in this area? Are emotions a new discovery, and were our scholars—not to mention the Quran and Sunnah—clueless in this regard? 

There were a few occurrences of words such as shu’oor (شعور)—which is used nowadays to mean emotions, in the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah. It is also found a few times in the Quran in a verb form. But there was not enough substance to begin research. It seemed like this was a void in our tradition regarding the understanding of emotions.

Years later, I read that the concept, not the word, of emotions first appeared in the early 1800s as a new way of relating to what humans experience within. This shocking finding challenged the assumption that the concept of emotions had always existed. I thought to myself: if the concept itself is new, what about the Arabic words used to refer to it nowadays, such as masha’ir (مشاعر) and ‘awatif (عواطف)?

I decided to check classic Arabic dictionaries. To my surprise, the word shu’oor meant knowledge of subtle things, more like a personal realization. ‘Aatifah meant mercy and compassion. Neither of these words meant “emotions” to speakers of Arabic before recent European influence. 

I went back to the Quranic verses and the statements of scholars that I had previously marked as containing these words. It was shocking to see that I had been reading those texts according to the altered meanings of the words. When read according to their original meanings, the texts made so much more sense and provided entirely different insights.

This sounded the alarm for me with regard to how the Arabic language has been altered over the last few hundred years to accommodate newly formulated Western concepts. To allow such modern concepts into the Arabic language and into the thinking of its speakers, words whose meanings were close to the intended concepts were stretched and changed. Over time, the original meanings were pushed to the margins, in some cases completely forgotten, while the new meanings were emphasized and given center stage.

The words changed, and with them, the conceptualizations shifted. The original understanding of human nature was displaced by a new understanding using familiar words that had undergone subtle semantic surgery. A profound sense of inferiority to the West lubricated this mutilation of thought and language. It made it seamless, and the substantial transition went completely under the radar. Now, we read the Quran and our tradition through Western eyes.

There are other words whose meanings have undergone this serious semantic mutilation. Nafs, Qalb, ‘Aql, and many others have been hacked. We assume their meanings have been stable through generations. The fact is, however, they have been hijacked. When we read the Quran, the Sunnah, and our tradition through the lens of those hacked concepts, the cumulative semantic shift is undeniably substantial. Since this has been happening for more than a century, generations have been raised on hacked meanings.

The original meanings have been lost. Even when we have the original meanings preserved in writing, we use the hacked versions to understand what we read and what we say. There are fields of study entirely based on this shift in understanding. For example, ‘Ilm an-Nafs (علم النفس), which literally translates as “science of the self” (the Arabic term for psychology), is entirely built on a modern concept that did not exist in the authentic Muslim tradition. Nafs in the Quran, Sunnah, and the Muslim tradition did not mean selfhood, psyche, or a sense of identity. The shift was subtle and almost impossible to grasp, even with ample explanation. This is a topic that requires a dedicated piece of writing. We ask Allah to help us get to it!

Displacement

The inner dimension of humans was mostly understood in reference to the soul or the heart. This has been the case in Islam. In Europe, it was also the case for centuries. As Europe started to move away from religion, it sought a new system to describe and understand the human experience without reference to religion. It sought to secularize the study of the human mind, feelings, and motivations.

This was the environment in which the underpinnings of modern psychology were born. It is for this purpose that modern psychology and the social sciences were, to a great extent, incepted and developed. Modern social sciences were, in part, meant to displace the only way available to understand the human experience at the time, which was the religious view. Displacement was the mission of modern social sciences from the very beginning.

The question was: How can we understand, describe, and predict human behaviour—inner and outer—without God, the Soul, or the heart? 

Self-development and psychology are still on course when it comes to this intention. I do not think the pioneers of this endeavour ever dreamed that this project would reach beyond the boundaries of Europe. They did not know that even Muslims, who had better sciences, were going to abandon the treasures they once had and join this juvenile adventure.

Psychology and the social sciences have actually displaced the rich tradition of the Sciences of the Heart and Tazkiyah on a large scale. When we innocently adopt these frameworks and think we can help Islam and Muslims with them, it does not occur to us that we are participating in the replacement of the science of the heart, which is a superior system based on divine guidance. In a way, we are contributing to our own predicament. This is what has encouraged me to write about this.

Lack of an Absolute Moral Compass

The noble trait of Hayaa’ (dignified bashfulness) can easily be diagnosed in modern psychology as a form of social anxiety and a lack of confidence. In self-development, a practitioner would seek to coach you out of it. Many forms of humility, generosity, and forgiveness can be framed within modern psychology as disorders.

Self-development has identified a set of personal traits as its highest values. It does not have a proper moral compass. It obviously denies the Divine and the unseen, and thus has no basis for an absolute morality. Consequently, the definition of psychological health and well-being does not include morality. Conversely, a strong moral character in Islam is a main feature of a healthy heart and sound demeanour. It is the ideal that Islam aims to help us attain.

These points are enough for now to make an initial case for this argument.

What Should We Do?

If you think I am calling us to abandon the social sciences altogether, know this is not my message.

A Nuanced Approach

Psychology and its sister sciences are an umbrella under which diverse matters fall. It is unfair to reject social sciences and relevant practical models altogether. There are universal facts and tools that are not unique to psychology. Although psychology has hijacked universal tools and claimed them for itself by providing new packaging, these elements remain universal and are considered the inherent right of every human being.

There are a lot of transferable ideas, tools, and skills that can be retained and utilized. 

However, the problematic elements in modern psychology are seriously misleading and can lead to severe consequences.

The question is: What makes me believe psychology has done more harm than good in our Ummah, and why do we need to recover Muslim sciences in this regard and revive them?

The Science of The Heart

We have a comprehensive model of the human experience, inner and outer, which is part of the overall system of Islam and is thus compatible with it. There is no dissonance! Psychology holds us back from this because it offers convenience, but this convenience is deceptive!

For a long time, my impression was that it was only recently that we came to understand the human psyche, and that before modernity, people knew little about the inner dimension of the human being compared to what we know today. I later came to understand that this was a common delusion. 

Modernity has a subtle tendency to erase conventional knowledge and look down upon it, while at the same time stealing from it. Scholars in the Muslim tradition knew more about the inner dimension than modern specialists do. If you think that the knowledge contained in psychology and the social sciences is mostly a new discovery, this is the result of the propaganda machine built into the modern science project. Most of the topics studied in psychology today were the subject matter of a different science, one that slowly slipped into the darker corners of public interest.

The human inner experience and the study of behaviour have always been the subject matter of Tazkiyah and one of its main areas: the Science of the Heart. 

These sciences are rich and elaborate, but in recent times, we have been educated out of their terminology. We read texts on these subjects, but we walk away with only a fraction of their teachings. We have been severed from that language, while the language itself has been allowed to survive only as a hollow souvenir. In other words, we have been semantically locked out of our tradition!

The Sciences of the Heart conveyed such an understanding of human behaviour and the inner workings of human nature that those trained in them developed a remarkable sense of intuition, one that no amount of body language training could convey nowadays.

We tend to assume that psychology came to fill a void in our understanding of human nature and human behaviour, just as advances in physics, chemistry, and technology added to existing human knowledge. Social sciences were not advances that added to previous knowledge of human behaviour. They were essentially a disruption of an already existing, superior field of knowledge. However, the glare of modern formulations, combined with our sense of inferiority toward everything Western, led us to assume that the social sciences represented breakthrough advances compared to our supposedly primitive knowledge of human nature!

This distinction between hard sciences and social sciences is essential, yet seemingly missing. We seem to exercise a sweeping attitude of unquestionable acceptance and adoption of whatever modern civilization offers, without any degree of critical thinking.

Understanding History

We cannot understand these subtle shifts without carefully tracing the history of those ideas and how they unfolded within the broader history of political environments. Colonial projects were not only about political and military hegemony. They were also about intellectual and civilizational hegemony and the replacement of native worldviews and religions.

One of the biggest flaws in the attempts to Islamize the social sciences is that their proponents have skimmed over the history of how psychology developed within a specific political environment. They have also overlooked how traditional sciences—we are speaking here about the Muslim tradition—stagnated for various reasons, creating the perfect storm for Western social sciences to dominate and replace original sciences.

To assume that modern psychology is a natural progression of accumulative wisdom in the field of humanities, that it has built on their findings, that it is largely consistent with their principles, and that it only needs a little tweaking to make it Islamic reflects a serious lack of basic knowledge regarding the history of those ideas.

Our advice to those passionate about Islamic psychology is to invest in understanding this history. The historical context encapsulates the factors and forces that shaped the sciences we have today. A factual appreciation of history will help you catch consequential transitions and points of departure that you would otherwise miss, especially if your efforts are based mainly on the works of Imam al-Ghazali and comparing them to modern psychology. Such a historical backdrop is gravely inadequate and will inevitably lead to inaccurate conclusions.

The disparity between the Muslim tradition and modern psychology lies at a point deeper than you have assumed. Your original idea is valid, but the breaking point between the two worlds you are trying to bridge exists at the level of deeper assumptions and foundations. If you locate such fault lines accurately, your efforts will be more precise and fruitful.

Modern Muslims think of the Muslim tradition more like orientalists did and less like their predecessors did. Our minds have been shaped by modernity, which is a European product. Public educational institutions in the Muslim world teach Western ways of thinking and the Western worldview. We have been Westernized to the core. We cannot just go and read our tradition with such minds. We need to learn the native language of Muslim thought and tradition in order to read our heritage correctly, rather than reading into it what the West has taught us.

Read More Than Al-Ghazali, Rumi, and Tabrizi

My personal observation is that most of the voices in Islamic psychology have a Sufi leaning. They largely depend on the writings of Al-Ghazali as the standard Muslim view on matters related to psychology. Reading Al-Ghazali with a Westernized mind is one limitation, which we addressed in the previous paragraphs, but depending almost solely on Al-Ghazali is also not the best strategy.

There are Muslim thinkers who have captured and disseminated comprehensive content on human nature and behaviour in religious matters and beyond. Earlier personalities produced a wealth of insights in the field, but here is a short list of scholars who produced multiple comprehensive frameworks: Ibn Khaldun, Ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn Taymiyyah, and Ibn al-Qayyim.

Don’t Be a Copycat

Western psychology has power and resources. But this does not make it objectively superior. In fact, the inconsistencies, the amount of speculation, and the political influences on this field are serious enough to make a great deal of it questionable. It troubles me when I see Muslim Imams and speakers vehemently advocate for psychology and mental health, believing in them seemingly more than they believe in religious texts. If we are to advocate something to the Muslim public, we have to do our thorough research before we give advice.

Corruption in academia and the scientific community has been seeping into public attention recently. Manipulation of research topics and results has been shown by insiders to be widespread in the industry. Books on the subject have been recently published, providing firsthand accounts and evidence. We should not believe in something before we have full confidence that it is worthy of our trust. This is not to mention internal debates and controversies among specialists in the field that are often settled through political power or financial influence.

The social sciences are a human project that is prone to all the flaws and corruption that come with any human endeavour. We should not sanctify them beyond their true merit. We should not grant modern psychology center stage and make it the reference point for our understanding of the Muslim tradition regarding human nature. Psychology, as it stands today, does not qualify as the starting point of a serious effort to recover and revive the Muslim tradition on human behaviour. Due to its mixed nature, we can still consult modern psychology as an element and examine it with curiosity. This is the most it deserves.

Modern social sciences do not deserve to be the north star for inquiry in this area. Yes, this will make the project more challenging, but it will prevent a huge waste of time, effort, and resources.

P.S. For those interested in understanding the history of modern thought in the social sciences, it is important to note that much of the literature on this subject is more of a glossy narrative rather than an accurate, critical history. This is part of the ideological bias in modern social sciences. They look at that history with pride, and little is done to study it objectively. However, there have been recent waves of critical historical studies examining the social sciences and how they developed, especially in the field of the history of emotions. This is a good starting point for your research.

~ Moutasem alHameedy