As we entered 2021, and with the COVID-19 pandemic still preoccupying us, we are also approaching the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.
Looking back, it is clear that towards the end of the 20th century, and as we progress further into the 21st century, people at large have been concerned with skills which are necessary for navigating this century successfully.
Much discussions and deliberations have thus been conducted since then and among those that have attracted people’s attention are the lists of skills suggested by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Interestingly, comparing the two lists WEF offered in 2015 and 2020, skills which relate to the human mind not only constitute half of the skills enlisted but also occupy the lists’ some topmost positions.
Are such mental skills deemed indispensable for contemporary Muslims too?
How should they deal with this question?
In a way, they need to be convinced first about the importance of Mind before they could fully appreciate the significance of developing and refining such skills which are associated with it.
Nevertheless, “mind” as a term, together with the concept it projects, has a long history in the West, most probably beginning from as early as the late 17th century.
As a number of studies have shown, its proliferation is concurrent with the secularisation process in the West during which such terms and concepts as “soul” and “spirit” became less favoured, if not entirely be dispensed with.
As a result, the term is now widely understood to mean something physical (i.e. the brain) or, at best, something epiphenomenal—that is to say, something emerging out of a physical entity and yet is neither physical nor spiritual.
The question therefore arises whether the aforementioned is exactly what “mind” means in Islam?
In this respect, it serves our present purpose well to learn from similar discourse in the past among learned and outstanding Muslim personalities.
We thus find that a significant number of them like Imam al-Ghazzali (d. 1111) and al-Sayyid al-Sharif Ali al-Jurjani (d. 1413) were cognisant of the fact that there are a number of terms employed in the Islamic Intellectual Tradition to point to what is spiritual in man, of which the prevalent four are: al-ʻaql (intellect or mind), al-qalb (heart), al-nafs (soul or self) and al-ruh (spirit).
Because of such difference in terms, and recognising that this might bring about confusions, such scholars find it necessary to emphasise that all the terms, despite being different, actually refer to the same spiritual entity or being.
Yet, even though the referent of the terms is one and the same being, each of the terms signifies something specific or special about the referent which is not captured by the rest of the terms.
In this way, it is explained that the referent is called “spirit” when considered in its essential reality as something belonging to and originating from the Realm of Divine Command.
It is called “soul or self” when considered as something forming a mysterious union with the human body, acting as the latter’s governor and thus giving rise to human character and personhood.
It is called “heart” because, in line with the original meaning of the term in Arabic, it revolves and is dynamic, bordering at times on instability, although when it is able—by God’s leave—to prepare itself to become the locus of divine guidance, it could attain to the station of tranquillity and serenity.
Lastly, it is referred to as “intellect or mind” because it is involved in the act or activity which the term ʻaql basically connotes.
What then is the act or activity which the word ʿa-q-l signifies?
Actually, the act meant is that of tying or binding, yet not physically but rather non-physically, not always outwardly but certainly inwardly.
It has to do with one’s tying or relating on two levels, which are interrelated.
The first level involves the tying and associating of (1) words with words, (2) words with ideas, as well as (3) ideas with ideas, all these occurring in one’s inner self and relating to a reality either external to or part of oneself.
In fact, such acts of tying are what “thinking” (fikr and tafakkur) essentially involves.
The second level involves the tying or binding which pertains to ethics and morality, and in this regard, it boils down to the idea of self-control and character-building, particularly when one is able to foresee the consequence of one’s own act or situation and in accordance with such foresight, one takes actions which are deemed appropriate.
This foresight constitutes another form of thinking which is termed tadbir or tadabbur.
It is important to realise that the act of tying, relating and associating performed by and in the human self almost always leads to the self having a certain framework which then informs its view.
As such, the human mind is also spoken of as being possessed of view or vision (basirah and ru’yah) which may not be in line with his ocular vision or eyesight (basar).
When such vision concerns fundamental matters of utmost significance, it is now widely held in contemporary parlance to be “worldview” or “mindset.”
In fact, another term which has been widely used in the Islamic Intellectual Tradition to point to thinking and reflection is nazar which, dependent on contexts, may also mean optical vision or view.
Since the two visions—the spiritual or intellectual vision vis-à-vis the physical sight—might be confused, Muslim scholars had attempted to delineate their differences.
The aforementioned Imam al-Ghazzali, for instance, had enumerated seven stark contrasts between the two visions in his work, Mishkat al-Anwar (The Niche of Light), with the primary aim of demonstrating the superiority of the intellectual vision.
It is to be noted that further analysis of the imports of the two aforesaid terms for thinking—that is, tadbir and tadabbur—reveals an intellectual perspective that is so comprehensive as to be retrospective, inspective, introspective, and prospective.
No wonder why the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once declared: “No mind is as good as tadbir.”
Furthermore, such vision as formed in the human mind is intimately connected with knowledge (ʻilm), which is actually another meaning of the term ʻaql in Arabic, as explained by many authoritative scholars of Islam and Arabic Language such as al-Raghib al-Isfahani (d. 1108), Imam al-Ghazzali, and Majd al-Din Muhammad al-Firuzabadi (d. 1413/4).
The relation of knowledge with mind in Islam is so pronounced that a person’s progress in knowledge is regarded as being synonymous with a person’s advancement in intelligence.
As mentioned earlier, present-day Muslims have to relearn all the aforementioned if they are really serious about appreciating the human mind and nursing as well as polishing skills deriving from it.