My professor was telling me a story of an extreme case of this entitlement. He was at the gas station and there were a couple young guys. There was also a young lady. They all were around college aged. the young lady walks by the young man. As most people do in this society, we walk by many people without greeting them or acknowledging them especially when we are in the middle of doing something. This young lady did the same thing to the guy, just simply walked by. I guess since the young lady was attractive to the young man, the man got really angry. In fact, he was enfuriated. When I first heard this, it baffled me . It confused me so much that I honestly did not know what the guy was angry about. This guy was so angry that when he, his friend and the young lady were outside, he started yelling at her in public! He admonished her about walking by without any acknowledgement. She graciously deflected him, but after hearing that story, I am overwhelmed with negative emotions concerning our state of masculinity in this generation.

The level of immaturity that stemmed from entitlement is astronomical! These ideas that any woman who looks good is required to talk to a dude is absolutely obsurd. When I grew up, men earned attention from women. If someone walked by without saying anything, then nothing personal or negative was interpreted. It seems that these poisons from the media are injecting these ideas into male and female minds. So let us set the record straight using Halim's Masculine Development model. Men, males, my brothers, you are not entitled to crap! This is your first principle. The only thing a male is entitled to is basic human respect and decency. That is on the condition that you show it to other members of the human family.

This is the principle that needs to be instilled into our males rather than exploding when someone attractive does not give you the attention you deserve. If a male stays down that road in life, then they will surely spell their own demise sooner than later. True Islamic Masculinity is living your life knowing everything is a blessing from God. You know that everything good that happens to you is something that you do not deserve. You feel as if it is a manifestation of Allah's love for you. When something bad happens to you, then you know that it is a situation that God is using that will make you stronger. Either way, you continually develop in your manhood. Do not feel entitled to stuff, even though you may do a lot to help the people. Do know that God is entitled to infinitely more you we can ever imagine. All he wants from us my brothers is to live in servitude to Him, not feel entitled to his services. Our submission to the creator is what gives us a power and bounties that supercede the imagination of anyone. This all occurs when we rid ourselves of the entitilement in our hearts.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

When we do our proper acts of worship, such as the prayer, then Allah gives our soul a different perspective of life. We start to feel differently about things. We start to believe the reality that we have more control over our lives. Things start to have a rhythm and flow in a certain direction. When situations occur, we do not see them as disconnected or mere anomalies of nature. We start to see the events in our life as a theme of our development. Let us remember Halim's Masculine Development model. Certain things happen to people who are developing the first stage which is our principles. Different events will occur when we are in the next phase being Fortitude. Self Control is about the third stage, which is Composure.

Composure is complete self control. It is the ability to control all things within ourself. In doing so, wer are given more responsibility towards the other creation including people. The most important thing we must control is the spritiual desire within ourselves. This part of ourself is called the Nafs. The Nafs is the part of ourselves that has an infinite level of greed and desire. It is the 'monster' within us. It is the source of our lust, our sloth, our gluttony, and our arrogance which will lead to hate of all things and ultimately, hatred of ourselves. It also seats the baser emotions like anger, jealousy, our malice, violent imagery. The pure emotions come from the pure and good part of ourselves like pure joy and happiness, sadness, fear, pain, love, etc.

The more that we sin, the less control we will have in our lives. This is because our Nafs will gain more power over ourselves. We will start to have a corrupted lens of the world and its people. We will then start to feel that the world hates us or is out to get us when in fact it is we who hate ourselves. This is where distorted displays of manhood start to show themselves. It is because we do not know how to show power, strength, and control with humility. We buy in to the society's definition of strength and masculine. Through the sinning of others, they influence the definitions that we have of ourselves. In fact, it should be ourselves that influence others. The anger, the anxiety, and other manifestations of fear are signs that we possess little control over ourselves. The way to acheive this is to worship, pray, and look at all things as connected. Once we put our faith in Allah, our situation will change for the better. We will experience a deeper level of calm. Others will have that experience when they are around us. When we gain more control of ourselves, we will have control over everything.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

There is a tremendous amount of wisdom and lessons that can be taken from this statement. There are things that happen inside of us that lead us to say bad things or useless things. In this statement the Prophet S guided us to have control over the gateway of emitting the tests that we have inside ourselves. That is to say, we may get angry or feel wronged or slighted. We may even be right, but the Prophet S instructed us to guard the tongue that conveys and spreads that negativity all over. This shows us that Allah will test us on the inside. That is inevitable. However, it is what we do with the tests that we have on the inside that we are judged for.

The same goes for our private parts. The Prophet S did not say "do not be attracted to women." He said to guard our genitals. Its not the attraction that is the sin. It is act we do because of our attraction. This puts the owership of salvation into our hands which is very healthy for us as men as we want to possess as much control over our destiny as possible. Sometimes the urge may seem unstoppable and impossible to resist. For some of us, it may approach that status, but most of us know deep down, there is something deeper. The proof is this: after you are done having satisfying sex, then what do you think about? Is your mind revolving around the next time you will have sex or does your mind wander to other matters? For most of us, we mentally move on from that act until the next time we are in a state of sexual arousal.

The control over these two simple pieces of flesh will guarantee us paradise. This is for a reason. It is not easy to contain the urges that flow out of these two parts of our anatomy.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

We are taught to do four things to maintain our self control. In the next entry we will speak in detail about how controlling these four things will unlock ourselves to self control. These four things are making sure we eat less, sleep less, talk less (frivolously), and socialize less (frivolously). When a man can control these four things, then he is well on his way to total self control.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

We blame our primitive behavior on our anger which does no good towards our personal and masculine development. Many of our males say that they have a short temper or are quick to be angered as if it is some type of strength. It most certainly is not a strength to be angered almost instantly. The Prophet (s) was approached by a man. The man asked the Prophet (s) for some advice to develop his faith. The Prophet (s) said "do not get angry." Then the man asked for some other advice, the Prophet (s) again said "do not get angry." The same thing happened for a third time as well. Many lessons come out of this. I can name a few.

The Prophet (s) got angry many times in his life. His (s) anger and the anger of most males in this day are completely different. The Prophet (s) was not angered on his own accord. His (s) anger was coming from someone knowing violating the faith that Allah set out for the world. Most of us get angry because of something selfish such as our own feelings or whims. Anger is not bad, it is a very good and useful tool to fire up the soul towards something good, be it defending the people, the religion, and under proper circumstances, defending the self. Anger should be used in the proper portions. A human being cannot thrive and be angry continuously. A human being can love, hope, appreciate, care and be happy continuously and thrive.

These are emotions which connect us to the creation. Anger is an emotion that isolates. Be it that we isolate ourselves from others or a small group or band of people towards others. The point of anger is a disconnect between one thing and the other. A man who can have control of the internal fire that is his anger can control many other aspects of his life. Since most men cannot control themselves, we compensate our lack of control for showing how much tangible power and ownership over things we possess in the world. The need for compensating means that there is something missing. What is missing is that naturally as Human Beings we have to have a control over our internal system. Failure to do so results in an imbalance in the person's nature and the nature of things around the person.

We must do as the prophet (s) said when we get angry. The first thing is to perform abolution as water can wipe out the fire that is our anger. If we are still angry, then we are to sit down. If we are still angry, we then are to lay down. Stupid things happen when a man is standing up and active while being angred. The Prophet (s) brilliantly shows to the constant act of trying to control oneself by making abolution, sitting and laying. While those acts in themselves may not completely rid us of our anger, we have demonstrated some level of self control within our physical actions. Hopefully from that first step towards the control that we are supposed to demonstrate as properly developed men.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

We have been placed on this planet as representatives of Allah towards the creation. Every position of leadership is to represent and serve a certain contingency of other people. All leaders represent something or someone. What happens to most leaders is that leaders let their position get to their corrupted part of their soul. Leaders begin to think that they are in no need of the people or contingencies that they in fact are supposed to represent. We do the same thing towards God. We are placed here to represent what Allah does to the creation which is unconditionally benefit and prosper all that is around us. We have capabilities that enable us to conquer what is around us, and since we can do so, we engage in that behavior. We fall further into that corruption to a point where we neither are concious of God, nor do we even think that we are in need of Him. This is what we call arrogance.

Confidence functions like hope or faith in oneself and the abilities that are bestowed onto us. This proper context of confidence is not outside the realm of dependency on God. We still need Allah. We still look to him for help. At the same time, we still have faith that we can accomplish a task set out for us. For example, when I was younger (about 10 years old) I played on a football team. Every Saturday for two mothns I would go out with my team and compete against another team. Allah bestowed upon me and many of my other teammates a high level of talent in football for kids that age. So I would pray to God before each game to aid us in victory. At the same time, I also had a high level of confidence going into each game that we were going to win. This confidence was not without Allah's help, but it was a faith that my team and I were given something by God to defeat the opposing team. Arrogance is different in that a person would feel that they do not need the help of God or anyone else to win. They would feel that their ability was their own and is inherently better than most or even all others. Real men are confident, not arrogant.

We as men get pushed, urged, and seduced into being arrogant seemingly by every form or media (including people). Nearly all of us fall into it because in our distorted perception of manhood, we have fallen into thinking that this is a form of strength. Let us remember from the Masculine Development Model that the second step after having principles is possessing the fortitude to withstand all the forces that aim to diminish the principles we have. Ultimate strength is the control over self. When one can completely control the self, then no one can control him save God. This is because the only principles that can withstand the natural deviants and poisons of our Human Nature are the Principles of Allah. The higher the level and more developed one becomes on this path to masculinity, the more of the world that will be subjugated to him. It will be subjugated to him to spread mercy and not oppression.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

Islam gives the ability to the person should they chose to do what Allah said and change the condition of their own hearts. Let us remember Islam is a peaceful submission to Allah, thus we bear witness there is No God but Allah and Muhammad (s) is his messenger. If we do not come in willing to submit to Allah and his will on us, then we will never reach the potential Islam can offer us. We bring in too much baggage and corruption. It’s like a person who has not bathed and wears musty clothes going into a neighbor’s house. Further, the person with the repulsive stench begins to say how bad the house smells in the house and chastises the owners for not taking care of the house! This is what we do every day when we speak ill of our community with low development. We bring our own baggage, deny there are smelly things inside ourselves, and then we speak about the corrupted affairs of a community we have the privilege of belonging to.

We submit to either one of two categories: the Creator or the created. Either way, everyone you see walking has submitted to something. It is our nature as humanity and as the creation of Allah to submit. The Prophet Muhammad said, "No babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist." (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426). This is why we are Muslims when we are born. If we do not submit to Allah and become his representatives on this planet, then nothing in the creation submits and cooperates with us. Both male and female unite in their submission to the creator. When we cause division within ourselves as men, we deviate in our nature. Further, everything in nature deviates in how it attaches to us. There is no longer any blessing or unity in the system of creation. Thus we have women now showing some skin and conquering males’ physical whims. On the other side, we have men violating female innocence to fulfill carnal wants by expressing whatever levels of intimacy with females necessary. We men have no right to talk about the failings of others and the community when we have not conquered our own demons. Anas bin Malik (r) narrated that the Prophet (s) said, "Make things easy for the people, and do not make it difficult for them, and make them calm (with glad tidings) and do not repulse (them).” (Bukhari, 8/146).

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

I was tested a couple weeks back. I had to propose my study for my dissertation. I am a doctoral student going for my Ph. D. in Counseling Psychology. After a student has taken all the classes and taken the comprehensive exams that test your knowledge of the field in general, you then have two things left: 1. write your dissertation and 2. go on a year long internship. A big step in the dissertation and towards the internship is passing what is called a proposal. This is when you propose to your selected committee of professors what you will do for your study. They sign when they are completely satisfied. A year ago when I first tried, they did not sign. This year, I was nearly positive they would. They actually were about to, but there was an oversight on my part. I thought I printed out papers for some professors prior to the meeting, and apparently they did not get them. This was a critical oversight. Alas, the papers did not get signed again. The good news is that my professor said I am fine to go out on internship and keep progressing towards my Ph. D. However, the bad news was that I got rejected a second time and felt like feces.

It is at this point when a man begins to lose hope. When a man does not get what he really wants, he gets extremely angry. If there are no principles ingrained in that man, then the results are pretty destructive to himself and others. This is the power of fortitude. Fortitude is the ability to fend off forces that try to tear you away from your principles. It does not matter who you are or what you do as a man, your principles will be tested. So the test was laying there in a bed of corruption trying to seduce me away from my principles. I could have taken the easier path and be negative and angry towards everyone and walked down a fiery path of self sorrow. I could have done these things because of arrogance. The arrogance being that I just being me, deserves whatever I want. Thats a dangerous road, and an easy one to follow.

What I also could have done, was take the advice and feedback from the professors, pick myself up and get dusted off and keep working on perfecting my papers. I could move forward and look at this situation as the test it indeed was, and take it with as big a smile as I could muster up. That is what I chose to do. I had the principles of the three levels of respect: 1. Respect for self 2. respect for others 3. most Importantly, respect for God. I was not going to be torn away from those principles. That force, that bond that kept me and my principles attached in this very trying situation was fortitude. Incessantly fighting off urges to spiral downward can weather the soul if not fought off tactfully. This is where composure comes in. We will speak of composure soon.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

This conversation was extremely therapeutic to me because it is always helpful especially to someone like myself to know that other people are goign through similar struggles or that they are not so far ahead of you in the road to happiness and contentment. It is also very helpful to get advice and feedback from men who are both older and younger than you about some situations you are going through. This is a habit of many women in their sharing and intimate comradery that I believe helps them live longer and cope with more internal pain than most men. Brothers of mankind do need to bond at some level or else it will lead to our spiritual and eventually our physical destruction.

Now this perception is coming from a Muslim Male perspective and it does not imply that brothers do not put sisters through their own personal hell either, however this is a Muslim Male blog. So we started talking about how the wives and women know exactly what to say to get you into extreme anger. We talked about this a little deeper and discussed how women either consciously or unconsciously try to gain emotional control. Sisters control most men through Male emotion and pride in their manhood. Nothing makes a man feel more masculine than power over someone else, especially a woman who the man has multiple levels of attraction towards (spiritual, emotional, and physical).

On the other end, nothing threatens a man's masculinity than someone calling out or questioning a male's manhood. I think that most women know this, and the ones who are twisted in their functioning know that you can control a man through diminishing their self worth to a point of stress and depression. Most women, by nature take these transgressing shots at brothers they even say that they love dearly, whether knowingly or unknowingly. This happens because women do not know what masculinity is. I say that because they may read or hear or have seen a functionaly example of it, but they have never experienced it. Even though they may tell you that they know what you are talking about, but they do not.

One example of this is my wife. My wife came from an extremely positive background witha great male role model in her father and her older brother. Furthermore, she has had many positive interactions with males. Many times I will tell my three year old son something when I am leaving. I tell him, "Make sure you take care of mommy when I am gone." If there are other women in the house, I tell him to take care of them as well. On multiple occasions my wife will ask, "he's just three, what is he going to do? Why do you keep telling him that?" That question right there showed me that she never experienced manhood, just saw it and felt it through a woman's mind and body. Most men reading this should have picked up why I said such a thing to my son. I do not expect all the women reading this to catch it. What I am doing is injecting the quality of protecting family, and responsibility for the home and the women and other children in the home at a very early age. I am doing it from a male perspective which is why a woman like my wife did not catch it. It is interactions and bonds like these between males that are necessary to pass down and perpetuate the journey to the completion of manhood.

We talked about instilling our secure form of masculinity. One of the best ways that this is done is by having interactions that bond males to a level of trust and support that reinforce what we already know. What we already know is that most of us are on our way to completing our manhood and being the best men that we can be. The Prophet (s) said in a very authentic narration that "Women are like a rib, if you try to straighten them out, then they will snap, so leave them be." I know it seems like it we take any more from our women, than we're gonna be the ones who are snapping, but that is where the model of masculinity comes in. That is the true strength. The strength of security to endure the emotional tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes, that women can unleash upon us. Remember the third phase of the Masculine Development Model which is composure.

Most of the time, women, like many people project and dump their internal strife upon males and males get emotionally constipated because they deal with their own issues and whatever is dumped upon him without having a postive outlet to vent, express his concerns, or even get some advice about a trying situation. Many women on the other hand have some outlets and it is more socially acceptable for women to cry and express emotions that scientifically relieve the body of the stress and pain of many situations. Males on the other hand must maintain society's definition of masculinity and hold everything in and not show any sign of weakness. The only acceptable way to show emotion for most men in this society is anger. Anger is not supposed to be a common and consistent emotion. Anger is a defense mechanism that protects something. Anger is described by the Prophet (s) as a fire inside of us and that we must cool it down. If we are walking around 24 hours a day most days out of the year angry at some level about something, we are slowly (and sometimes quickly) killing ourselves. We must not internalize the strife of other people. We must be strong enough to ask for help from other brothers and seek advice and get along with give reinforcement to our fellow brothers in Islam and in Mankind. If we know that we can support one another and help each other then, we can be better even for our wives and our women in the community.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

I found this saying to be one of the most profound statements that I have heard in a long time. Like many of us, I come from a family line that has a quick temper. Anger is something that I deal with and try to control to the best of my ability on a daily basis. The Muslim and Non Muslim men nowadays see anger as something very masculine, like it is a strength. I beg to differ. As stated in the masculine development model, the epitome of strength is self control. People can and do control others when they know what emotional buttons to push. It is arguably one of the most prominent ways that women with bad intent control men in detrimental ways.

The Prophet Muhammad (s) said that if a person gets angry, that they should make abolution as the water can cool down the fire that is burning inside. He further said for people to sit down. If a person is still angry, then he said for the person to lay down until calm. The Prophet (s) also said that for a long term treatment of anger, that a person should take one spoonful of honey everyday. I am sure that there are physical and metaphysical effects of these actions in regards to anger. There most certainly needs to be a serious effort to control one's anger as it jumbles our normal judgement as we say and do things that we usually regret in that temporary fit of emotion. We usually do these things to hurt the target person as much or perhaps more than we ourselves feel that we have been hurt.

Anger is not a pure emotion. A pure emotion can be something like fear, joy, sadness, guilt and so on. Anger is a reactionary emotion. Anger comes about when a pure emotion is emitted. It is usually used as a defense mechanism to guard the hurt or sadness that has occured. Men are socialized to show the strength needed, which in many societies usually show as anger. We brothers want people to respect our manhood and many times and with many brothers we are taught and trained in this society that if respect is not shown to us, then it is usually beaten either physically or emotionally out of the person who performs the disrespect. We must be careful of where this anger is coming from, because it becomes a very selfish thing that makes everything and everyone revolve around our deserving the utmost happiness, respect and honor. That is only given to us by Allah.

We must control ourselves as much as possible and see anger on a consistent basis as something that puts us out of control and not in it. There is a anger for good reasons, however most of the time that we men get angry, it is not about something that is in line with our proper principles in the Masculine Development Model. Always remember, a man without principles is no Man at all. If our anger is engineered by something outside of the principles that we have laid forth to attain positive male development, than that is a useless anger that we need not give time towards. I myself work on this everyday and perhaps the reader is better at controlling oneself than the writer. Nonetheless we cannot be a complete Muslim Men if our anger and tempers have control over our hearts.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.