Category Archives: Psychology

Modern Living, Politics, Psychology

The Mueller Report-The Obsessive vs. the Psychopath

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The Mueller Report is out today..Fascinating politics and gamesmanship! Two major points;1) As I stated in my original article”The Modern Institution as Obsessional Personality”(soon to be published in my new book) the Obsessional Personality(Mueller in this case) systematically gets it wrong! His obsessive preoccupation with details regularly leads him to” mistake the forest for the trees” and miss the big picture.Theory proved once again!

2) Trump owes us another book entitled: “The Psychopath’s Guide to Doing Wrong without Getting Criminally Prosecuted”. I’m sure it will be a big hit in the prisons and simultaneously in the Boardrooms of American Corporations including of course the Banks and Wall Street.Way to go,Donald.You are truly the incarnation of the American dream,for some, and the American nightmare for many others!

Modern Living, Politics, Psychology

The Notre Dame Fire-An Alternative Reaction

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After the terrible fire at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris the chorus of voices in reaction came out in unison:”Oh mon Dieu(good start lol) C’est une tragédie.How are we going to rebuild?”and condolences and sympathies were offered from around the world.Politicians and journalists oblige,of course.

Let’s try another approach.What if the French instead said:”This is a sign from our Lord.What have we done wrong?” Maybe this is about our treatment of North Africans in our country.Maybe this is about how we are treating the refugees showing up at our shores from around the world and us not showing them enough compassion.Maybe God is not happy about us abandoning our own religion.Or maybe we should be putting more energy and value into being God-fearing instead of putting so much store in hedonism and pleasure-seeking? Wouldn’t that be amazing?! And isn’t that what we should be doing,not only the French but all of us?!

It is interesting to observe that individuals,often enough but by no means always ,do exactly that! It is called ‘tauba’ in our tradition(turning back to God, repentance).But nations seem to be incapable of such a gesture.Why is that? The individuals in the collective seem to be reinforcing the illusion and supporting the lie instead of the Truth(remember Nazi Germany and the Serbian massacres and the Burmese persecution of the Rohingya just to mention a few relatively recent events) .Collectivities appear to be even more perverse than individuals.So beware of the social influences around you.They are more likely to be corrupting than salutary.

All that being said,my sympathies go out to the French nation.They are so intelligent in their heedlessness lol Salaams,Ibrahim

Metaphysics, Modern Living, Psychology

How Can They Possibly Get It Right?!

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How can they possibly get it right?!(Directed to the majority of humanity lol)
1) They have no basirat (inner sight)
2) They have no trust in the real people of basirat
3) Their emotional reactions of attachment and aversion make it so that they cannot even properly register the facts that could  allow them to perform a rational analysis and
4)no one has taught them the proper art of dream interpretation
How can they  possibly get it right?! It would veritably be a miracle!
Salaams,Ibrahim

Modern Living, Psychology

Democratic Illusions-Always Respecting Other Peoples’ Wishes

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( A piece of copyrighted material from my upcoming book called: Understanding Life)

 I had an experience with a similar-themed experience in Mecca when I made my hajj(pilgrimage) in 1984. Fortunately that one turned out well,but not because of me.Let us continue and you will see why.As I was preparing to do my tawaf(circumambulation of the Kaaba)I noticed a man in the second balcony a few hundetred meters away struggling to breathe.Fresh out of my latest residency medical training,I rushed up,Dr. Wellby-style, to see what I could do.Not having even a stethoscope with me I began by examining the man for dehydration which sure enough was complicating his problem.There was a wiry Bedouin man standing 50 meters away with a full container of Zemzem water(holy water from the well of Zemzem).It should be noted here that, at the time, the well was open to all visitors so it would have been no problem for him to refill his jug if we emptied it.

Instead, he refused to give us any.I tried through several translators to convince him-to no avail .Finally a Saudi soldier who I had not even noticed but had surely noticed us, was watching the event unfold.At one point, out of the blue,he entered the scene,took the back side of his bayonet and gave the Bedouin man a shove that sent him flying for a short distance.He then took the jug, gave it to me and said”Dr. Give your patient what he needs”(I feel moved recounting this story more than 30 years later).

The story ended well! An ambulance arrived,we went to the local emergency room,and he was seen by some well-trained(I believe in America,actually) Saudi doctors.They diagnosed asthma(his first episode I believe) ,gave him the necessary meds and he left the emergrency room feeling fine! This was truly the best-case scenario as I had been suspecting a heart-attack or pulmonary embolus which would have been much more problematic.

For a long time I reflected on this incident doing some serious self-reflection and serious self-reproaching”You’re the fool,Ibrahim,I told myself.You always believe you can talk people into the truth.(Still do lol)The Saudi soldier was the clever one” A dose of humility and Reality once again. Alhumdulillah.

Islam, Politics, Psychology

Ilhan Omar and the problem of anti-Semitism in the Muslim community

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The Ilhan Omar case.(A young Muslim Democrat in the U.S. House of representative spouting hateful stereotypes of Jews in a public forum).I am not usually a big fan of Fareed Zakariah who is another example of elite Ivy League American University education but this time he is right on.I quote him:“But I believe that Muslims should be particularly thoughtful when speaking about these issues because anti-Semitism has spread through the Islamic world like a cancer.Antisemitism”, he added, “is now routine discourse in Muslim populations in the Middle East and also far beyond.”Yes! As a Muslim convert I have seen it over and over again! And it is pathological- a paranoid conspiratorial mind-set that is definitely not to our advantage.So this is NOT an individual problem of Ilhan Omar who seems nice enough(I like her presence actually.A cut above most politicians I would say). it is a collective problem of the Muslim Ummat.And i dare say this is a major factor in Muslims not playing their rightful part in American politics and, in fact,being outplayed regularly by the Zionist supporters.
Zachariah goes on to say(again I couldn’t agree more)” Israel was guilty of bigoted policies towards Palestinians and that AIPAC exerts considerable political influence over elected officials.These are legitimate issues to vigorously debate and discuss in the United States, just as in Israel,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, by phrasing the issue as the two new representatives sometimes have, they have squandered an opportunity to further that important debate.”
So,to his credit,Zachariah is NOT a black and white thinker.And nor should we,as Muslims, be so.What always astonishes me about the Muslims on this question is that they don’t realize that WE HAVE WON!There are 1.4 billion Muslims and the Jewish population is less than 25 million.Why do Muslims feel so victimized?! The vast majority of our problems are self-inflicted ,if you analyze the situations properly.

P.S. I think this subject is finally being opened up for discussion.During the back and forth dialogue on my Facebook page I brought up the fact that I have NEVER heard an Imam at jumaa praying for peace in the Middle East! That is a problem and an anachronism.It is a carry-over from the vulnerable state of the Muslims at the very beginnings of our tradition when they were surrounded and vastly outnumbered by their enemies.We are now 1,4 billion strong.But it’s as if the Muslim ummat has not caught up with the times and still wants to blame others(Israel,U.S.A.,C.I.A., Freemasons etc.) for its failures.Sad,really!