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I grew up completely non practising, borderline agnostic. However as of late I have came to Islam with full certainty. Looking back, it has been beautiful.

I’m aware that my question is rather black and white, but hear me out.

I literally can’t love anyone fully. I have extremely shallow emotions, I am cold and uncaring of other people in general, and have a ridiculous hunger for power. Religion detracts me from these things but it is still innate within myself. I am aware this life is a test but why is it in my nature to be everything Islam goes against?

I don’t understand. Will I get punished in the hearafter for traits I was born with?

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  • All these are symptoms are just trivial i.e. they are not even sins. Apr 15, 2019 at 0:51

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We all make our choice in life. If a person is hungry while fasting and he wants to eat, he can't blame Allah for it. Similarly in life we can't blame the creator for anything. The book of destiny contains whats going to happen. It is because Allah is not bound in time. He knows what we will do. But the decisions are in our hands. Allah knows the best.

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  • But Psychopathy is a genetic predisposition, not a choice. Apr 14, 2019 at 19:12
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I once read a book entitled, "Thick Face, Black Heart". In this book, the author (a Chinese woman) was talking about the virtues of being callous and ruthless when dealing with certain situations that life throws at us, and she advocated that ANYONE who wants to be effective in the living of life must develop a certain measure of Thick Face, Black Heart (callous ruthlessness). When I first read the book I was in absolute opposition to her message, but, before I got even a quarter of the way through it, I found myself compelled to agree wholeheartedly with what she was saying.

You may be wondering, "well, what does that have to do with my question?" Everything.

What you describe as psychopathy (and view as inherently bad) is really an aptitude for the virtue of ruthlessness. It is NOT an inherently bad thing, brother. Stay with me here...

I remember reading a Hadith where the Prophet (alaihi salaam) said, "Even if Fatima hint Muhammad (his own beloved daughter) came to me guilty of stealing I would cut off her hand." After the Battle of the Trench, the Prophet ordered over 700 Jews who had been plotting treachery with the Meccans killed. In 24:2 of the Qur'an Allah orders that anyone found guilty of Zina (adultery/fornication) should be publicly beaten with 100 stripes. In the middle of the ayat Allah says, "do not let compassion move you in their case."

My point in citing the above references is to say that there are instances where the proper practice of Islam requires ruthlessness, which is lack of mercy and compassion.

Not only that, a lot of vocations call for the ability to remain objective and unemotional. Generals have to knowingly send their men into the teeth of death for the sake of good strategy. If he can't make the hard (ruthless) decision to lose those men he might end up losing the war, which is the much bigger loss.

Judges also must administer justice, and that sometimes means inflicting harsh punishments on people. Law enforcement, at times of major civil unrest, will have to be willing to drop the hammer on malcontents to quell the fitnat and restore order.

You might excell at these vocations and others like them.

But, yes, we also need the capacity for love, mercy, generosity, kindness -- all of that, BECAUSE THAT'S A HUGE PART OF BEING A GOOD MUSLIM TOO. These virtues can all be cultivated. If they don't come naturally, just work at them. Just like war can turn a soft-hearted person into a cold-hearted killer, actively being kind to others can AND WILL develop within you stronger feelings of love, compassion, etc.

Dear brother! I spent much of my life fighting wars. I am a killer. But I believe in Allah and the Last Day so I do not inflict death of every person I encounter who I think needs it. I must be just. I must control the rage that sometimes threatens to break free. I must not allow that rage to control me. Likewise with you and your emotional inclinations. Control them. Allow Allah to guide you and He will make you whole in those areas of your personality where you think you are lacking. Our Lord does that.

"O' mankind! There has come to you a direction from your Lord, AND A HEALING FOR THE (DISEASES) IN YOUR HEARTS -- and, for those who believe, a Guidance and a Mercy." Qur'an 10:57

May Allah have mercy on us all, and help us turn our perceived minuses into plusses. As'salaamu alaikum akhi.

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Assalamualaikum I crossed paths with a muslim man (An Ustaz) 6 months ago, we were trying to get to know each other and considering marriage. During that phase, I saw many weird things about him, he was always self-centred, it has to be what he wanted, no empathy to the feeling of others, very sensitive to words, didnt take criticisms well, he gets nasty when I express my feelings about things to improve, suicidal thoughts, he doesnt sleep at night and a couple others which didnt sit well with me. He kept on stringing me along without a date for nikah. Always have some new excuses. He also never had a job and relying on health pension because he claimed that he is legally blind and has auto-immune disease.

I was told that he was divorced twice and his first wife died of brain cancer (three marriages). He was very charming though. Outside people think that he is so nice and a good catch as he is an Ustaz. That was why the mosque people introduced me to him.

After 6 month. I decided to do some investigations and found out a few things about him. I spoke with the third wife. He treated her really bad. She went through a year of emotional abuse and they only get together as husband & wife whenever he wants to. Very controlling He wont let her enter his room (living with parents after 2nd wife died) They didnt have a civil wedding.

I did sone research on his character and what could be the problem. My conclusion, he is a sociopath. Sociopath is created by environment and psychopath is from birth. Sociopath people are prone to depression but Psychopath are prone to anger.

Everyone has some flaws. However, my issue is that he acted on his sociopathic tendencies by abusing women and not practicing what he preaches. I suspect he use religion to get admiration & recognition. I also dont think he is really sick. He may claim he is sick to get Government benefits. Sociopaths are like that. Manipulative.

So the question is whether you are causing problems to others or not? If its just a question of you not being a feeling person, I think its not too alarming. We need some people who can make hard decisions. Dont be too hard on yourself.

However, when one start causing problems to others, thats when the line has been crossed. Then please get help immediately. Its not something that can be cured by yourself in your own head. You need help by a professional. It will get worse over time.

May Allah help you, ease your affairs dunia and alhirat. May Allah grant you Firdaws. - Amin!

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  • This hardly looks like an answer, but mainly as a personal experience.
    – Jamila
    Jan 10, 2021 at 15:42
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Assalamosaalaikum

I understand the post is really old but I hope that you are still able to read this.

I cannot really comment in psychopathy as I am not a psychopath, however I do suffer from severe depression. I have attempted suicide more times than I can remember and after every few weeks or even after certain months I get really bad episodes of depression and they always bring out my suicidal tendencies.

This is something I was born with; Allah put this inside me and I have had to deal with it since I was 14 (when it first started I am currently 21).

In my opinion such things can be taken as a blessing. I am currently in university and hope to accomplish major goals. Without my disorder I would not be this person. This disorder is one of the things that drives me to be a better man, Muslim, son, brother , friend, etc.

It’s certainly difficult living this disease but I learned to take it as a blessing instead of a curse. You see Allah puts certain difficulties in your life that may seem like an obstacle at first but later on you realize you can use them to be a better person.

You must remember that this world is only a test. The actual life is the hereafter. A test is always meant to challenge you. It is always going to be difficult. You pass the test by overcoming difficulty.

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A fairly old question by a left user but since I know many people who have this exact problem I decided to answer this.

Well, Allah makes all sorts of creatures but the responsibility correlates with the degree of our God-given talents.

Allah does not charge a soul except with that within its capacity (2:286)

But as for this particular problem, I have seen people who have a good knowledge of Islam and do their best to adhere to Islamic rules and values, but there's no passion and emotion involved in their religious observance and life.

My understanding is that if the intellectual requisites for a lively religious practice (knowledge and faith) are really there, then the only source to look for problem would be lifestyle and psychological health.

So I would recommend reading three of my answers that I have written on psychology-related problems for religious observance where I make many notes on importance of mental health and life-style balance.

Then, as I have explained sins of all sort impact our physiological and psychological health. The impact by majors sins can be adverse and long-lasting. Now given the OP's agnostic background this might be a responsible factor unless it is really due to genetic makeup that they suspect. Now depending on the nature of the sin there can be specific remedies. The spiritual remedy, i.e. repentance is common to all but it is meant to eliminate the desire for sin in our being and inspire us to make up for the past, not directly addressing psychological and even physiological conditions caused by sin in our being. Therefore for specific remedies we need specific knowledge of the person, his life and health record.

Now since the OP has specifically suspected to have psychopathic traits and suggested it to be from his/her genetic makeup, there are bad and good news. Modern medicine doesn't reportedly have effective treatments for psychopathy. But then it has been recently proven that our genes change during our life. So we can say if a psychopathy case has genetic causes, there are chances that it can change and improve.

Further good-news though comes from my knowledge of the traditional humoral medicine, widely practiced today as an alternative medicine in my country. Based on the principles of the tradition Greek-Iranian humoral medicine, psychopathy can be explained in terms of black bile or yellow bile dominance in the entire bodily complexion or the brain.

For each complexion and humor dominance there are physical and psychological signs in humans. Both black bile and yellow bile dominance are associated with skinny and dry looks. They are also associated with a very poor emotional life. This artistic depiction can give an idea of the general physical and psychological traits of the four typical complexions. The yellow and black bile complexion are the two men on the right even though the yellow complexion guy (the upper right) is depicted as more dry than skinny which detracts from an archetypal yellow bile.

The four complexions

Yellow bile dominant individuals though are more likely to display psychopathic traits, with black bile individuals being quite the opposite: they tend to be submissive and meek but still having little emotions.

But like I said, there can be that the dominance only affects a certain organ of the body, here, the brain in which case the physical signs associated with general complexions would be absent.

In either cases, apart from life-style recommendations of an emotionally and spiritually balanced lifestyle (see my second linked answer), medial treatments include dietary reforms and central to that would be a substantial increase in one's routine fruit intake, specially sweet watery fruits like apples, grapes and carrot juice.

This type of food help with improved blood production and circulation in the body which positively enhance both mental functioning and emotional vibrancy.

So by knowledge of human nature, we can treat even many of the negative traits that we attribute to our inherited build or genetics and not think we are condemned to some "inherent" traits.

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I have the same problem, if it wasn't for Islam I would've done a lot of bad things, the only line that's holding me back is the Allah, I don't know if I was born like this or became like this, I can try sometimes to "feel", it's like a "choice" but it's not fully like that, I know the feelings are fake, I just can't feel remorse for other people, especially real people, I mean I know it doesn't sound logical but I prefer "feeling" something for people that aren't real, per example From movies or more often anime, where I don't have to associate it with real human beings. I know it sounds stupid and weird to you, but it's just how it is with me. I can't love normally, I'm just living. I'm aware of Allah, and that is the only form of love that i'm attached to, and can "feel". I don't know if i "try" i can know what's going on, but is feeling like this bad? is not feeling remorse bad? Am I just running from reality? I have no idea, if i look too much into it it gets too dark, and i don't think i'm prepared to loose myself and "forget" Allah.

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