Excerpts

from the book;

" O my uncle, I swear to God that, should they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand in order for me to abandon this cause, I would not abandon it before He [God] had made it triumph or I had perished for its sake! "

" God had revealed His presence to him, and in the course of those long empty weeks of His word, He was fostering the need for Him in his heart. "


" Deep and intense spiritual training determined the most significant characteristics of the first believers: pious, discreet, and determined, they prayed to the God of mercy and peace; kept reciting His Revelation, which is a reminder (dhikr) and a light (nur) and followed the example and teachings of the Last Prophet. "

Source

Checkpoint (II)

Fundamental Attribution Error

* People have a bias to attribute another person's behavior to internal causes to a much greater extent than they should. 
* People fail to take into account the external factors that are operating on the person.


Explanations For F.A.E

* Limited processing capacity (People are mentally lazy)
* Behavior is more salient than situational factors.
* People assign situational causes less weight.
* Language is richer in trait-like terms to "explain" behavior than in situational terms.


Most explanations for behavior fall into two major categories: 

Ø Internal / personal / dispositional

Ø External / situational / environmental

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Challenge:

# Try applying these stuffs in your daily life & analyze how you judge yourself and others when making mistakes.

Example: 

1) When you make bad choices, do you blame yourself or God?

2) A person is thrown to jail. Do you blame him/her instantly or do you weigh the external factors too while making that judgment?

Good luck! :)

Read this UP!! : Psychological Approach towards Acceptance & Serenity via MuslimMatters

What We Had

in OSU last week was the Discover Islam Week (DIW), which was organized by the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Alhamdulillah, many of us got the chance to attend to the sessions they had.

They had talks or lectures about different topics for every day of the week.

1st day: What's the Deal with Islam? (by Peter Abdul Malik Casey)
2nd     : Islam & USA Common Values for the Common Good (by Dr Alauddin Alauddin)
3rd     : Women In Islam The Light of Life (by Dr Asma)
4th     :  Shariah 101 (by Mufri Abdullah Nana)
5th     :  What Would Jesus Do? (by Dr Abukar Amran)

So basically, the talks they did were successful to raise questions and awareness in Muslims and non-Muslim alike.

There were a lot of good questions were asked to the speakers, especially on the last topic of the week regarding Jesus a.s.

Subhanallah, you cannot be not awed by Dr Abukar Amran when he answered all the questions thrown to him!

He explained his answers to the audience(who were mostly of non-Muslims)with such confidence, calmness and eloquence that I have yet to see anyone have ever done in my life!

Thinking about this matter of being among the people who shares knowledge about Islam, I cannot help but feel inspired to be one of them too.

Just think of how YOU can clear up misunderstandings and misconceptions of Islam when you talk or blog or vlog and whatever it might be, to the people out there.

You know, there are still people in this world who aren't privileged to know Islam as we do.

So now that we have knowledge about it, why don't we share it to others?

If you can't still work out the thoughts as to why we should share something about Islam to others, you should really check this Youtube guy's videos (who apparently, was one of the speakers).

Just by noticing the name of his account (dawahaddict), you can't turn blind eyes on the fact that it directly translates to the fact that he can't stop doin' dawah to share to EVERYONE about Islam.

Confusing much?

Well to simplify it, he testified during his talk that he is obsessed with da'wah!

Man, doesn't that make you feel so inspired and and small when you think of it?

Subhanallah, he's a revert, yet he's getting all worked up to do all this stuff to bring people back to Allah's path!

I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way about this kind of stuffs (reverts doing their best to learn more about Islam and share it with others kinda-thingy).

But you know what? I truly believe that every single good deed you do here in this world, you'll get rewarded for it from Allah in the Hereafter.

Okay, I think I've been off the topic way too much.

In brief, I'm grateful to Allah for this nikmat of knowledge He's blessed to all of us. Alhamdulillah!

I'm PROUD to be part of the Buckeyes!

I'm PROUD of the MSA in OSU for being able to pull this off successfully.

Truly, I feel very grateful to ALLAH for being able to get involved in the DIW by the MSA of OSU(the best MSA ever in USA! :D) .

Jazakallahu khairan kathira to all the speakers too!

May Allah bless all the souls in this world who do good deeds for the sake of pleasing Allah. :)

اللهم مقلب القلوب ثبّت قلبي على دينك

Allahumma muqallibul Qulub thabit qalbi ‘ala deenek.

“O turner of the hearts! Establish my heart upon Your religion.” 

p/s: I'm gonna put up some pictures later inshaAllah.

Checkpoint (I)

Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities

Moral agency is manifested in both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and the proactive power to behave humanely. 

Moral agency is embedded in a broader sociocognitive self theory encompassing self-organizing, proactive, self-reflective, and self-regulatory mechanisms rooted in personal standards linked to self-sanctions. 

The self-regulatory mechanisms governing moral conduct do not come into play unless they are activated, and there are many psychosocial maneuvers by which moral self-sanctions are selectively disengaged from inhumane conduct. 

The moral disengagement may center on the cognitive restructuring of inhumane conduct into a benign or worthy one by moral justification, sanitizing language, and advantageous comparison; disavowal of a sense of personal agency by diffusion or displacement of responsibility; disregarding or minimizing the injurious effects of one 's actions; and attribution of blame to, and dehumanization of those who are victimized. 

Many inhumanities operate through a supportive network of legitimate enterprises run by otherwise considerate people who contribute to destructive activities by disconnected subdivision of functions and diffusion of responsibility. 

Given the many mechanisms for disengaging moral control, civilized life requires, in addition to humane personal standards, safeguards built into social systems that uphold compassionate behavior and renounce cruelty.

References

Bandura, Albert (1999) Moral disengagement in the perpetration of

inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review 3(3): 193–20

Light's ON!

When all things seem too complex or disorganized, we(I) just need to take a step back and look at the big picture.

Life ain't about just getting good grades or going to classes or making sure that I got all things correctly done.

It's BIGGER than that, you know?

Random FIREFLIES pic! 

Sometimes when we get too busy, we tend to forget that we have neglected our rights to the people close to us.

And to our fellow Muslim brothers and sisters who live across the world.

And of course, to Allah S.W.T as well.

These rights that we forget to fulfill are going to cost us A LOT.

That is, by creating void in ourselves.

Void that make our hearts restless and make life feels empty.

Like there's something not enough just yet. You know what I'm sayin'? I know you do.

The void....that can only be filled by the remembrance of Allah, and by serving your mankind.

If you start distancing yourselves from the community and/or Allah, at some point of your life, you're gonna feel there's something wrong somewhere.

Been there, done that. ;)

Soooo....I just want to remind myself and others to try our best to fulfill our rights, no matter who you are, where you live or even who you associate with.

"And whoever does evil,or wrongs his own soul, but afterwards seeks Allah’s forgiveness, will find Allah is Forgiving, Compassionate." (An-Nisa' :110)

P/S: After being long separated with psychology, I'm going through psychological theories and terms again this quarter. Alhamdulillah!! Dual major, maybe? .....Naaaah. :D