Fatimah Abdullah

Department of IRKHS International Islamic University Malaysia Malaysia

Abstract

The development of good character in Islam is mostly a process of dealing with one’s emotions. It helps to build and support good emotions like mercy, love, generosity and courage and to fight and suppress negative emotions such as jealousy, anger, selfishness and cowardice. Character building would therefore, have much to do with patience and perseverance in controlling emotions leading to negative aspects and reinforcement of emotions leading to positive ethics. Manipulation of emotions leading to good ethics would also lead one to have a spiritually and psychologically healthy life. Modern research tells us that in management and industry, those who reinforce themselves with spiritual motivation and who are emotionally intelligent tend to attain a greater competitive edge over others who are not so inclined. The main aim of this research is to investigate the new area in modern psychology namely, emotional and spiritual intelligence to try to discover whether the new psychological approach and findings of positively studying human emotions can be of help in Islamic ethical training; this is of value because the development of good character in Islam is mostly a process of dealing with one’s emotions and with the emotions of others.

By: Mohammad Taufik Bin Mohammad

Projection is a term applied by Sigmund Freud for the act of projecting one’s feelings, attitudes, etc. onto other people. Projection is one of many defense mechanisms, another term for the strategies people use to cope with situations which arouse anxiety. To make this clearer, let us consider an example. A person who always lies, according to Freud, is more likely to see others as liars too. The same is true for a thief; he might feel vigilant about the safety of his own property because he projects his bad deeds onto other people, thinking that other people may have higher tendencies to steal.

How does Islam view the idea of psychological projection developed by Freud? First of all, it is appropriate to highlight the writings of Said Nursi in which he tells the story of two travelers with different states in their hearts. One was serene and optimistic and viewed the world in positive ways while the other one was anxious and pessimistic, seeing the world as all negative. Both went to similar places, where ordinary lifestyles could be observed. The former one saw the place as beautiful with many good things existing there. However, it was different for the latter; wherever he looked he saw negative things.