My Personality is Incompatible with the General Ummah

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

I have had to take many personality tests and psychological profiles over the years, mainly due to work requirements.  And my personality is the rare sort, especially in Singapore.  I am a form of disemphatetic sociopath.  I am a hyper aggressive dominant type personality.  In summary, I like animals better than people.  I can empathise with people I am close with, but treat others as objects or pieces to be moved.  I have far above normal intelligence, an almost eidetic memory and do not lack self-belief.  I do not believe there is anything wrong with me; I like what I am. 

On the other hand, I think people are strange, weak.  I never understood, for example, sentimentality.   People stay in relationships longer than they are worth, for example.  If someone is not worth the investment in time and intimacy, get rid of them.  If people are dishonest, disloyal or incompetent, discount them.  There are always replacements. 

I never understood jingoism and exceptionalism.  Why should we treat someone better simply because we happen to be related?  This is the lottery of genetics.  If they have no values, if they betray, get rid of them.  Even if it is a sibling or a child.  In the same vein, why should we support someone solely on the basis of religion, ethnicity or nationality?  If they are wrong, oppose them. 

Another thing, particularly prevalent in social media, is this need to be popular or liked.  Why is it important for people to like us?  “Like” is ephemeral and unstable.  It is preferable for people to respect or fear us.  People who depend on popularity are slaves to a segment of society and bound by their expectations.  We do not need to belong to anyone.  What we need is a network of people with capabilities we can benefit from, and values we are congruent with. 

In large groups, humanity becomes more emotional and less rational.  People are easily manipulated by feelings.  This is how nations go to war, and communities justify genocide.  This is the basis of sectarianism and racism, of prejudice and conflict.  I think people are far too easily moved by emotions. 

Islam is unusual among modern faith traditions in that there is this persistent belief in some sort of global ummah.  This is a dangerous illusion.  It ignores the fact that there are over a billion adherents with over a billion levels of understanding.  This belief in an ummah compels Muslims to defend other Muslims even when they are wrong, and justify oppression of non-Muslims.  It diminishes the intellectual traditions of Islam, and subsumes it into some sort of emotive prison. 

Since I am not an emotional man, I am not bound by the historical baggage of looking back at our history and believing that Muslims were the best civilisation and perpetual victims of non-Muslim powers.  I see it as it is: the same politicking, conspiracies, aggression and failings of any civilisation.  We all had triumphs and achievements.  But Muslims also participated in genocides, colonialisation, oppression, occupation and the global slave trade.  And this, from the time of the Salaf; they were not all sinless. 

I certainly do not believe that Islam is simply “submission”; I am not here to submit and follow.  Submission is to God Alone, not the interpretations of men, whether saint or sinner, unless I can subscribe to it.  Our scholars have also said some ridiculous things; they were humans with human mistakes. 

The future of Islam is not found in following the remnants of dead civilisations but in learning lessons from their failures and successes, and taking it further.  The future of Islam is not found in the heritage Muslim community but with the converts, the independent thinkers, the rebels, the progressives.  It is time more Muslims are less emotional about everything, and more discerning and rationally brutal.