What is in fact being tease by the woman and the life of this world is something that cannot be touched or held. It is the peace and pleasure of God. We as men are fooled by the notion that if you smoke this substance, if you lay with this woman, if you own this much stuff, then you will obtain that. This is completely false. So why do most of our brothers go along with this charade? It is a lack of spiritual sight. Everything in masculinity comes from the first stage of the Masculine Development Model: Principles. When a man holds certain principles then it gives the foundation for you to see the truth. Most of us have experienced that the truth of Allah is not as it seems to us. When we lack principles, then it takes away our vision and our spiritual foresight. We are no longer aware of things that make sense and start to rationalize things that do not make common sense. This is when we know we are being tantalized.
 

Life is just a tease. We make it a tease because we tease ourselves into this irrational thinking that if we indulge in something physical, then spiritual pleasure will be the result. Most people are conviced if you give them enoough money then, they will be happy in their heart. Muhammad S said that 'contentment is true wealth'. Contentment is the spiritual state of being pleased with what Allah has given us as human beings.  So no matter what we have as individuals, we should do our utmost to be happy with it, especially when God blesses us with abundance.  If we keep buying into the phony power of the almighty dollar, sexual encounter, drug, or power, then we will be in eternal tantalization and will never get the carrot at the end of the rope.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

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 God speaks of certain things happening to men, He, many times gives us a story. What we must understand is that this story is an indicator of what will happen to people who are like those men he speaks about. In other words, that is a sign for our destiny. The word of God is alive. But it is not alive in the manner that we percieve life. It is alive in an infinitely deeper way than we can perceive. The word of God is our destiny. However, destiny is infinite, so how does that apply to us as men?

God has given us the ability to choose which category of destiny that we want to be in. If you think about it, there are formulas in science. The purpose of a formula is to show the relationship between different things through symbols.  Thus, if you combine 2 and 2, then on the other side, you get 4.  Destiny works in a similar fashion. God says in the Quran "Is there any reward for good, other than good?" So if one does good on one side, then good will happen to him on the other side. Now we all hear this saying, "why to bad things happen to good people?" My question would be, why do we perceive it as such? Nothing bad ever happens to those who do good. The 'bad' things that we pereive happening are a test from Allah to bring that person closer or it may be a cleansing of previous sins out of God's love for us, or it can be people with corruption in their hearts acting with ill will. I would not say bad things happen to good people. I would say bad people happen to good people. This is because bad people have to the choice to be bad, but no matter what they do, it still elevates the good people closer to God.

The examples of bad people acting upon the best of people are endless. In fact, the better you are, the more malice comes at you. This is apart of destiny. As men, we must develop to put ourselves in the best of categories. Then we will be given our responsibility as human beings to maintain and care for the creation as Allah told us. Let us look at the five greatest people and what bad people tried to do to them. Imagine being mocked and ridiculed by your own people for over 900 years. Thats what Noah went through in trying to bring the truth. Imagine your own father and family along with your own people in your village making a fire so big, that it burned the birds flying in the air. Imagine if they made that fire just to throw you in because you told your people there is one God. This is what happened to Abraham.

Imagine your whole country trying to kill you because you stopped a man from beating up a poor man. Imagine having to walk, yes walk from Cairo to Jerusalem. This is what Moses had to do. Imagine after curing people and telling them the truth, your people try to crucify you, and you have evil people trying to infultrate your disciples. This is what Christ Jesus went through. Imagine going through all the above and losing your father before you were born and your mother when you were six, your true love and your father figure in the same year, lose ALL of your sons, your brave uncle. Imagine losing all of those people and risking your life constantly through onslaughts of your enemies because you tell the people there is one God. This and so much more is what Muhammad (peace be on him) went through. People who were not prophets, but were elevated in their faith went through the same things. The french threw Amadou Bamba (one of the greatest scholars in W. African history)  in a fire, but it did not kill him. Nor did it kill him when they threw him at lions and other predators (they miraculously became tame for him). They firebombed Malcolm X's home. They whipped chunks of skin off of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (r).  Bad people poison, jail, blackmail, assassinate, and whatever else it takes so good cannot exist in the world.

This is destinty. Allah has certain things happen to us because it is his word and his promise. Our choice comes into play by choosing which category (or 'adventure' we want to have) through developing our selves and our masculinity.  The adventure we choose is up to us. How it plays out and wheather or not we choose to stay in that adventure is also up to us. The elevation and supremacy over the creation that we will have, and the status in the garden of Eden with all other elevated men and women, we will let God take care of that. Do know that if we try as hard as we can, Allah and destiny will have our backs.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

Why males and not females? It is because of our nature. The nature of man is to protect the spirit, mind and body of a woman. The nature of the woman is to support man and inject beauty and life into the relationship between male and female, and into the world. Most of the problems you see in females are direct or strongly connected effect of corrupt males. For example, our perception of beauty in western cultures. The male perception of beauty and attractiveness is corrupted by the undying lusts within our carnal desire. We want women to show more skin. Once they show us all their skin we want them to fulfill our every fantasy. Once that is done enough times, we have no use for them anymore and repeat the same process with another woman, and another after that. The women buy in because their nature is the need to be seen as beautiful and inject beauty in the world. The males buy in because out of their lust, they want to see more and more. There are billions of dollars in this cycle and people are greedy, which then leads to more evils. This started because males did not control themselves.

If you are a man, and you have a corrupt woman in your life, then first, stop whining about her and change yourself! I used to be of those who whined. Then I talked to another man and he put some things in perspective for me on this issue. I came to realize that if you want to make things better in your relationship, then you need to change yourself for the better. If the woman is still full of malice, then you need to part ways. Not everyone in love needs to spend their whole life together. Not everyone in love needs to be together.

Though the source of all problems with the world are with corrupt males, women can do something to change this situation as well. The most important thing a woman can do is choose a man that respects her. That means if he does things that make you feel uncomfortable and worthless, then do know that in some way he is corrupting your spirit. As for the males, to change the situation of the world to be better, you simply need to show another male how to be a man. If you do not know how, then seek out another real man and learn from him. We have defined in previous entries what a real man is. So seek that out, perpetuate it and you will begin to see change throughout the world.

A final example that embodies why males are the source of all problems. Imagine Fort Knox, or some huge place where locked inside of it are treasures of the world (gold, silver, platinum, etc.) If someone were to break into the place and take some of the treasures or corrupt it or damage it, then what would you place fault upon? No one in their right mind would blame the gold. You would say there was a lack of security or a hole in the protection system. The treasure is the woman and is not to be blamed for the corruptions in the world. The security system is the male and deserves the blame. Proper development will fend off all types of corruptions. Thus, Males developed into real men will obliterate the source of most world problems.

©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.

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 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.

We must be less selfish and more giving. We must be less arrogant and more humble. We bond in harmony with Allah’s creation through developing ourselves towards submitting to Allah. The angels and all the positive unseen forces will support the believers as will the rest of creation when we strive together to hold the rope of Allah. Perhaps we will experience unity in brotherhood and sisterhood that provides a sweetness in our being unlike anything the creation can offer. Perhaps we can experience this before we stand before Allah.

The Prophet (s) gave the clear and profound solution: Anas relates that the Prophet (s) said: “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” [Sahîh al-Bukhari and Sahîh Muslim]. When we follow that in every facet of our life, we will achieve the unity we seek. How does that unity look? The Prophet (s) shows that unity in his a profound portion of his last sermon. “All humankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab. Also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Know that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing should be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves. “ This is the vision for our community from the Prophet (s). When we work on ourselves to be capable of embodying that statement, then we will find our whole community united.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

Mu’minoon are those who have attained faith, which is different than a Muslim. Allah says in the 49th chapter (Hujarat) verse 14: The desert Arabs say, "We believe." Say, "Ye have no faith; but ye (only) say, 'We have submitted our wills to Allah.' For not yet has Faith entered your hearts. But if ye obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not belittle aught of your deeds: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." Mu’minoon is in a much higher league than a Muslim. There are characteristics of spiritual development in a Mu’min that is different from a Muslim’s. One of those characteristics we have already discussed in that a believer never backbites. However, Muslims do backbite. It is a sin and we should ask forgiveness, but we are still Muslim if we do it. A believer stops being a believer if he does such an act. Lying is an act that a believer cannot perform. A Muslim however, can stay Muslim and lie. It is a sin, but again we are still Muslim. The list goes on. What you have are two different types of people.

There are two different levels of submissions to Allah. When we submit to Allah at the level of a Mu’min, then we automatically have the characteristics and requirements fulfilled to enter the house clean and pure. Further, we will speak of the good things in the house and remain silent about the bad since the Iman in our heart is thankful that Allah has put us in such a situation. Thus, the believers are united as Allah has said many times. We should pray that we join the community of the believers.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.

Our males who act tough yet have little esteem and confidence in themselves and their lord can perpetuate astronomical amounts of division and destruction. This is because the method of filling the void inside ourselves has no blessing in it. It goes against what the way Allah told us to change our condition. The women become an expression of our own wishes. If we do not keep ourselves modest and chaste, then our women will reflect that condition. People make their own decisions, but most choose to follow their own desires. One of the signs of following our own desires is leaving the way of the Prophet (s) and point the finger by spewing negativity into the world. It does not unite us, further it leaves us in a spiritually stagnant state, which is where Shaytan would like us to remain for eternity.

The solution to become united is clear. We get rid of our own filth inside ourselves. That means leave the sins that we know we do. We need to perform our five pillars to the utmost perfection we can give it. We then should leave that which Allah and his Prophet emphatically forbade. If that stage is reached, then we should begin doing the acts that Allah and his prophet believed desirable. Always remember, the strength of a building, like our pillars we have in Islam is not in the outside, it is the strength built within. Verily (as the Prophet (s) is oft quoted) our actions are judged based on our intentions (Bukhari & Muslim). So whoever goes on this journey to please Allah, then he will get what he wants. Whoever goes on this journey for a woman, he will get what he wants. Make sure the intents are pure before going down the path of development. Remember, we cannot reach our potential without the help of Allah.

This development takes time and it takes a tremendous amount of humility because we find out how much dirt is inside. This is why Allah said in the first chapter (Al Fatihah) and fifth verse: “You alone we worship and you alone we come to for help.” He also said in the 103rd chapter (Al Asr) in the first and second verse: “By time; verily mankind is at a loss.” My brothers and sisters, we are at a loss. This is our nature: to be at a loss without Allah. So do not be discouraged and feel too bad to come back to Allah for Allah is ever and infinitely merciful and He wants you to need Him. He created us to be united in our need of Him. When we feel like we do not need others and can sit on our so-called stools of piety and point fingers, it will only corrupt ourselves. We must rise above that, men and women to something better.

©2010 Halim Naeem.com. All Rights Reserved.