Thursday, March 22, 2007

The concept of Islamic Psychology
The mentioning of “insan” (human) in Al Quran denotes human as a psychological creature. Insan is derived from word “nasiya” which means “to forget”, from word “…uns” (tidak terbaca) which means “harmonious and intimate”, and from words “nasa yanusu” which means “to flare up”. Therefore, human psychology exists from aware to forget areas, from intimate to hate areas, and from flaring up to quiet areas. According to Al Quran, God had created design of human soul very perfectly, containing soul capacities: thinking, feeling, and wishing.

Soul is a system (called system of nafsani) consisting of Aql, Qalb, Bashirah, Syahwat, and Hawa:

1. Aql (reason) has a problem solving capacity. Its function is to think and it may differ good ones from bad ones. Reason can find truth but cannot determine whether a thing is a truth or not, therefore truth of reason is relative.

2. Qalb (mind) is the Prime Minister of the system of nafsani. It leads activities of a human’ soul. It can understand reality, a thing that is not easily done by reason. An irrational thing still can be understood by the qalb. In the qalb there are good things and bad things such as faith, love, envy, courage, angriness, arrogance, peacefulness, and disbelief. Qalb has the authority to decide to do an action. Therefore, everything that is realised by qalb implies rewards and sins. Things had been forgotten by qalb would enter memory of nafs (unconscious world), and some times things had been forgotten emerge in dreams. In accordance with its name, qalb is often inconsistent.

3. Bashirah “conscience”, is view of inner eyes in contrast with view of the head’s eyes. Different to the inconsistent qalb, bashirah is always consistent with truth and honesty. It can’t compromise to deviate from to the truth. Bashirah is also called nuraniy from wod “nur”, which becomes hati nurani in Indonesian. According to tasawwuf, bashira is the divine light that exists in the mind, nurun yaqdzifuhullah fi al qalb. Introspection, cry of contemplation, religiosity, god spot comes from this bashirah.

4. Syahwat (desire) is motive to behaviours. Almost all human have desires to the other sex (sexual desire), while almost all of us are proud of children and interested in valuable goods and things, such as good vehicles (due to their prestige and comfort), livestock, and gardens. Having the things that are desired rightly and legally according to Islam may be of religious services. Indulging desires may lead to sins and crimes

5. Hawa (lust) is motive to low and disgrace objects. Crime, angry, frustration, arrogance, irresponsible behaviours, corruption, despotism, and so on have this lust as their source. One characteristic of lust is interested to enjoy things wanted by ignoring moral values. One who indulge himself/herself with lust tends to carry out destructive actions. Hawa in is “hawa nafsu” in Indonesian, or “id” according to Freud.

Materials of Islamic Psychology are found in classic literatures of middle age. Processing materials with psychological nuance into Islamic Psychology requires hard works. If there is a person who still think that Islamic Psychology is not exist, it is due to he/she still doesn’t know yet Islamic Psychology. This can be compared to the situation when Islamic banking (banking without rate) was firstly introduced in Indonesia, in which the banking society negated without-rate banking. At present, however, all conventional banks open Islamic bank (or syari’ah bank in Indonesia)—the first Islamic bank in Indonesia is Bank Muamalat—mainly after it has been proved that syariah banks are the most strongest ones in facing monetary crisis (compared to conventional banks)