A summary of the Happy in Islam project
Reflecting on Gretchen Rubin's book
I have finished Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project" (Harper Collins). It is impossible to summarise in one paragraph what I feel about the book. Gretchen Rubin spends one year doing a happiness project. She chooses a theme for a specific month and uses goals to explore how to increase her happiness. She reviews her goals everyday before going to sleep. The book has been well researched so there are many insightful and valuable lessons. However, it just seems so much hard-work. Everything is so goal-orientated that it ends up being depressing. So, here is my summary
Western perspective: Happiness is a process which requires constant goal-setting and self-evaluation. The basic assumption is that God does not exist and therefore we need to create our own happiness.
The Islamic perspective: God created us with a purpose. By learning about Islam, we can understand our purpose in life and build a strong and relationship with God, based on gratefulness. One of the benefits is that we develop a sense of contentment (happiness) which arises from the fact that our life is in tune with our real purpose.
Let me make an analogy. In a famous story, a group of people were lost in the jungle. They started going in a direction. Any direction was good enough. But one of them decided to climb a tree to see where they were going. From the top of the tree, he pointed out to the group below that there is a better and safer way. The response from the people below, "It's OK. We are making good progress." That is why Gretchen's book is both fascinating and frustrating. There is a sense of futility because "every way is okay". In reality, there are only two roads. One leads to Paradise and one leads to the other place. Being on the right road is therefore crucial. It is important that the road that leads to Paradise CAN be enjoyable. Although people like to stress on difficult that road is, that is one interpretation. There is another interpretation which states that Muslims can have all the comforts of a modern life while being engaged in ibadah. It is not always about sacrifices. in fact, in one of the most famous hadith, the Prophet SAW said, "Make things easy for people and do not make it difficult. Give people glad news and don't make them run away."
In this project, my conclusion is that 80% of students do benefit from seeking knowledge, getting to know Allah better, understanding al qadar better and re-connecting with the Qur'an by listening to good tafsir. That develops a sweetness of faith which we often call happiness. However, the process of improving yourself is a comfortable process that is done in front of a computer or in group-discussions. And Allah knows best.
Lessons from surah al Inshirah
I know that I often take my literature from non-Muslim sources. This is because I feel that as Muslims, we need to understand any topic fully, by exploring the ideas of Muslims and non-Muslims. At the end of the day though, it is clear that Allah's Word gives us the complete and comprehensive perspective. In the 94th surah of the Qur'an, Allah tells us that He gives us some difficulties but these difficulties will always be followed by ease and that the ease is greater than the difficulty people face. In any case, the difficulty we experience is almost always a way for us to learn from our mistakes and a means for us to increase in our Iman and to get closer to Allah SWT. Anybody who reflects on this surah and relates to his or her experiences will always be able to face difficulties with an optimistic and resilient frame of mind.
Why are Muslims happy?
In previous postings, I have shared the data that I have collected so far. In this posting, I want to re-organize the theory behind the project using the UPM format (understand, predict and modify).In terms of understanding, the theory behind the state of happiness is well documented. I have already quoted the big names - Seligman, Snyder and others - but there are many easy-to-read and fun books like Gretchen's Rubin's "The happiness project." From an Islamic perspective, our understanding is similar but slightly different. First and foremost,we need to build a relationship with Allah by understanding Islam and practicing it. That will give us immediate psychological benefits (i.e. we become happy). However, everybody is different and everybody starts with different levels of iman. The mindset is not to "force" students to cover specific topics but to let them explore whatever topics they are concerned with.
In terms of predicting, I am working with various groups of students. I am now testing their level of spiritual intelligence at the beginning of the semester. I then ask them to do the following exercises:
a) Learn more about Islam by surfing reliable Islamic websites and listening to one Islamic talk a week
b) Re-connect with the Qur'an by listening to some good tafsir of Qur'an
c) Explore the topic of Qada wa Qadar by doing a project paper. This includes trying to count Allah's blessings in one day
d) Getting to know Allah better by exploring His Names and Attributes
At the end of the semester, I measure their spiritual intelligence a second time. Insha'Allah, on average 80% of my students report an improvement of both their iman and their level of happiness. At the moment, my data is qualitative. However, I am shifting towards more quantitative ways of measuring the effect. Generally, the following causal relationship seems to exist: The more people have relevant knowledge about Islam, the happier they are. The happier they are, the easier they can practice Islam.
What do I mean by relevant knowledge? Everybody has problems and we seek the solutions to these problems in Islam. For Muslims going through a divorce, the main answer they want is what is the Islamic position regarding divorce. For parents who have problems with their children, the main thing they want to know is how to educate their children in a manner that is consistent with Islam. For business people, how do they do business and respect Islamic business principles. My research shows that the relevancy of knowledge is critical to help people implement Islam in their lives.
In terms of modifying people's behaviour, it is critical to 'kick-start' two things: i) praying five times a day and ii) seeking more relevant knowledge about Islam. In class, I have the power to give marks so many students are "forced" to start seeking knowledge. However, at the end of the semester, 50% of them continue seeking Islamic knowledge. Outside the classroom, it is more difficult. People generally understand the need to pray but they under-estimate the need to learn more about Islam. They assume that their existing knowledge is good enough. In practice, most people have Islamic knowledge that is too general combined with some serious mis-understandings. Seeking knowledge often involves clarifying the mis-understandings or acquiring knowledge that is more detailed. I am experimenting with Aaron Beck's Cognitive Behaviour Theory (CBT) as a tool to help Muslims who are far away from Islam to start praying and seeking knowledge.
Latest update on the Happy in Islam project
I am presenting an overall summary of this project to date.
The aim of the project is to understand the psychological dynamics that leads to happiness, from an Islamic perspective. This is based on the ayat in the Qur'an that says that 'hearts only find rest by the remembering of Allah.'
The first stage was a literature review of mainly Western psychological theories. This is an on-going effort. I am currently reading Newberg and Waldam (2009) "How God changes your brain", which documents the latest in neuroscience in relation to spirituality and religiosity. Generally though, the conclusion is that the more Muslims know about Islam, the happier they become (no real surprise....)
The second stage was developing and testing intervention techniques. An intervention technique is a documented way of changing people's state in the majority of the cases. Imagine a company that would like to develop a corporate culture that is based on Islamic values. What could we do to help? Well, I would argue that with the intervention techniques below, you could probably influence 80% of your employees .....
The first intervention is to get participants to listen to 1 Islamic talk on the Internet per week for 12 weeks. So far, 348 people have done this exercise:
- 75% says that this helps them to become happier
- 3.4% says that this helps them to become more calm
- 6.6% says that this does not make any difference
The rest gave different answers. So far, I have two lessons learned from this intervention. First, it is essential that participants have some freedom to choose talks that are relevant to them. One sister listen to 12 talks related to wearing the hijab. I was surprised at first, but that is what she needed. Generally, if there are 100 people doing this intervention, everybody needs something unique that reflects their spiritual, emotional and physical development. Second, it is essential that Muslims connect with the Qur'an by listening to good tafsir of those chapters of the Qur'an that they recite in their daily prayers.
The second intervention is to explore the concept of al qadar. Very few people understand in detail what al qadar is about and why it is so important. Typically, people only think of al qadar when something bad happens to them. Yet, in the hadith of Jibrael, the Prophet (SAW) made it clear that Muslims had to, "believe in al qadar, the good and the bad". This intervention combines doing a project paper on al qadar with an attempt of counting Allah's blessings in a typical day. So far, only 99 students did this intervention. The data though is as follows:
- 76% said that before doing this assignment, they didn't really understand the details of believing in al qadar
- 76% said that as a consequences of doing this assignment, they are better at handling problems compared to before
- 91% said that counting Allah's blessings really helped them to flip problems
With my students in organisational behaviour, I am now exploring ways to create a 3rd intervention technique. I have some ideas but I want to test them before I discuss them in this blog. I am also testing whether a greater understanding of Islamic principles enables employees to become better employees .... but I will talk about that later.
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