Heya there!

Umm Hafsa here…

It is a pleasure to introduce you to the first blogpost on this website!

Welcome to the world within a world a.k.a my own mind.My mind is constantly whirring with ideas on how we can bring together Islam and psychology, two topics which are admittedly quite different.

Self efficacy judgements

So let’s get it going….. this very first one is all about living to your true potential

Our self-concepts, as defined by the psychologist Carl Rogers, are ‘a collection of thoughts we have about our self-image, self-esteem and our ideal self’.  The development of this concept of our ‘self’ is at the core of who we think we are and influences the ways in which we behave and live our lives, as well as impacts our wellbeing.

In childhood we start to compartmentalise ourselves into simple categories like age and gender, but we make further evaluations of ourselves as we grow and use descriptions based on internal and external traits like physical attributes, personalities and roles.

Self-esteem refers to how much we like, accept or approve ourselves, and this can link closely to our self-efficacy. What is self-efficacy? When a person has a high sense of self- efficacy they think to themselves, “I am capable of completing tasks and attaining my goals”, and this positivity increases their ability to face stress and take on the challenges in their attempts to achieve their goals. An individual is only willing to work towards something if they trust in their own ability to do it.

The Quran and sunnah as our compass

Putting our energy into understanding how we think is very useful, but in reality it isn’t something we give much thought and attention to. Each one of us has a number of unconscious thought patterns about our potential based on what we absorb, filter and retain from our environment.

The important question to ask ourselves once we have brought our thoughts into the foreground is;  do my internal thoughts need some adjustments? Are these beliefs empowering or disempowering me?

As a Muslim, our beliefs about ourself should be rooted in the fact that our worth, greatness and honour are all from Allah, and that He hears our prayers. We should have the inner conviction that all things are under Allah’s perfect control and that our ability to succeed will only happen if it is aligned with Allah’s Will.

At the same time, we should balance this approach by taking action, rather than believing that Allah will do for us what we are not willing to get up and attempt for ourselves. In a prophetic hadith, the Prophet is narrated to have said “Perform good deeds, for everyone is facilitated in that for which he has been created” (Sahih Muslim).

Another important aspect of our identity is, locus of control. Locus of control is all about whether we are inclined to interpret the cause of events as internal or external. Those who believe that they are in control over the course of events in their lives take ownership and responsibility whereas those who believe things are due to haphazard outside forces have an external locus of control.

As believers we actually take a moderate approach in our belief of how much control we can exercise.

Allah’s divine plan ultimately determines our fate, but we have the freedom to make choices that help us perform to the best of our abilities. In fact, Allah can even send His divine intervention to enact a particular decree, and give the believers a strong sense of control and tranquility amidst the stormy uncertainties they face in life.

From a Quranic perspective, Allah reconstructs the events at the Battle of Badr in (Surah Al-Anfaal:44), “Then when your armies met, Allah made them appear as few in your eyes, and made you appear as few in theirs, so Allah may establish what He had destined. And to Allah ˹all˺ matters will be returned ˹for judgment”.

Without Allah’s help, the Muslims who were ill equipped and small in number would have wavered and become psychologically defeated, anticipating defeat in the near future given the huge number of their opponents . However, because Allah covered the size of the army, they became highly self-efficacious, adopted a winning mindset and were steadfast until they were victorious in the battle.

To summarise and bring this first blogpost to a close, our sense of self-worth and self-efficacy can be enhanced by taking a deep look into what we are telling ourselves about our own competencies. It may well be that we are standing in own our path of greatness. Secondly, our attitude towards Qadr should be one of placing our ultimate trust in Allah while asking ourselves profound questions, ‘What if Allah has written this for me?’ or ‘Do I have any reason to believe that Allah is preventing me from achieving this?’.

Allah has given us all amazing inner resources; it is all about harnessing these and fostering a mindset of growth and optimism, In sha Allah.

---