Finally, I must say the father of social psychology Floyd basis all his knowledge on one thing that human is born with defects and needs fixing. However, Allah says, Human are born with Fitra (Muslim) but they get corrupted by society and cultures. In order for a person to stay with his Fitra (nature) there are general directions in Quran that includes prayers and all five pillars and then the restraints. That makes one content and self satisfied with his life. Have you ever felt serenity in your heart after helping someone in need (monetarily or physically)?

Although, human are created submissive to God (literal meaning of Muslim), but there are certain negative aspects that exist in all human beings:
The very word Insaan in Arabic came for Nassia means forgetful. And human are Ujoola (hasteful).
Hence being a practicing muslim makes you overcome those deficiencies.

To majority of muslim: Ask yourself a Question. When was the last time you read Quran and ponder upon its meaning and tried to discover why this Ayat or Sura was revealed?

We in south asia read quran to earn good deeds, or send reward to our deads, or in marriages placing above the head of a newly wed couple, or read to cure diseases or read to make the shaitan run. Ask yourself a question. Is this really what Allah would want you to do with Quran?

Why take only a sip from an ocean when the whole ocean of knowledge is in your hand?

Have you ever pondered why Abu Jehl the staunch enemy of Islam ended up prostrating after listening the Quran with Sajda Aya?

Are we worse than Abu Jehl? At least, he paid attention what was being read?

Very Alarming for all of us.

Azhar

spot on… and although my earlier post was just a reminder not to shun the interesting findings and techniques nothing can fill the void of of the heart except One

It is interesting how the active minds got caught up in interpreting the meaning of the first paragraph and the rest of the article was read in that frame of mind. This article is an invitation to explore the human psyche and to learn more and more about all forms of sciences but again when you shed a light of faith on it, it makes more sense and gives the heart serenity.
Let me explain, when I was an undergrad doing my bachelors in Biology I was taught by professors that were pretty much all atheists. So when they look under the microscope they see the works of the cell and say that this explains life and there is no need for a God because we have a system in place and 1+1= 2. They are fooling their minds and souls.
When I looked under the microscope I saw the intricacy of the creation that led me to say SubhnAllah there is a creator and it is amazing what He has put in place. I search even more exploring His might and His creation.
Now I have been grappling with the whole sense of purpose and questions about my life over the past couple of decades and I have read and tried to read a lot of books that should help but was still left with a void that is being filled by reading this material in the light of Islamic teachings.
Nomad78

1. IS there an islamic way of thinking?
2. is there AN islamic way of thinking?
3. is there an ISLAMIC way of thinking?
4. is there an islamic way of THINKING?

Do muslims still think like they did in the past? Have not muslims evolved (not in a darwininan sense) intellectually with knowledge, technology and change? Ofcourse they have. Then to consider that Islamic thinking, if there are any such knowledge-making convention, works for the rhetorical purpose of a community bound by a rigors of domain specificity is akin to separate al khawarizmi’s mathmetical models, from al haitham’s treatise on optics and imagine a leap to the information age.

The second question hints at the possibility of multiple voices at work that subvert the notion that whatever that way is, it is not singular, at least not semantically. there are as many interpretations of what is an authentic islamic experience, outside of the fold as there are inside. There may be arab, american, bengali, malaysian ways of thinking but to call them as islamic is an cultural impossibility.

Some might even argue that what we are looking at is a marxist, freudian, foucaultian explanation of societal formations which have an economic, cognitive or linguistic explanations of meaning-making transforming their moral, cultural or political capitals into benefit, profit or goods depending on to which school they belong. They might posit the need to understand the ethnographic meaning of islamic, borrowing from a wide range of foundational theories (from radical feminism to post-modernist) or even agreeing to go beyond that.

The last question may allude to what we have are christian, confucius, buddhist or hindu theological practices that are different from one another. philosophically speaking there are distinct “sciences” of hermenutical practices or discursive strategies that have developed their own linguistic or historical explanations of “difference”. in that way we have scriptural patterns of thinking that help us link our present with our past, so a commonly agreeable future can be negotiated. in other words we are “storied” differently, intellectually so that we can “live” in unity.

However I discovered many beneficial researches and models related to understanding human nature. After all empirical research is simply the interpretation of observation of events. There are two main problems; firstly the interpretation always has some element of bias as one of my professors said all research is biased, some more than others. Secondly observation of behaviour cannot always accurately reveal the reality of the psychological realm. This is where the definitive knowledge from the Quran and Sunnah can give you a foundation upon which to develop and test theories or analyse and criticise them.

However I think overall there are many aspects of these sciences that are clearly proven as true due to many decades of research and studies. I believe our role is to study these sciences and to be able to synthesise the proven aspects of these sciences with the Quranic paradigm so as to bring about a meaningful discourse that is both beneficial and acknowledging of truth wherever it may be found. In this approach we improve and expand our own understanding of the Quran / Sunnah as well demonstrate the relevancy of our texts.