
08/08/2025
🔁 1. Heart as the Seat of Understanding –
Spiritual vs Scientific
📌 Islamic View:
The heart (qalb) is the seat of intellect, intention, emotion, and moral consciousness.
It's spiritually alive or dead depending on a person's connection to Almighty Allah.
Purity or corruption of the heart defines the quality of a person’s actions.
📌 Modern Neuroscience View:
Cognition, memory, decision-making, and moral judgment are all based in the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex.
The heart and brain are connected through the autonomic nervous system.
❤️🧠 2. Heart-Brain Communication in Science
✦ Scientific Insight:
Modern research in neurocardiology shows that:
The heart and brain are in constant communication via electrical, hormonal, and neurological signals.
The heart has a “little brain” (intrinsic cardiac nervous system) with ~40,000 neurons.
Emotions like stress, anger, and love affect heart rate variability, which in turn affects brain function.
🔹 This has led to discoveries in heart-brain coherence (like in HeartMath research), showing:
> Emotional regulation in the heart can positively influence the brain, mood, focus, and overall well-being.
✦ Parallel with Islam:
Islam teaches that a sound heart leads to righteous actions, inner peace, and divine closeness.
Emotional and spiritual states (e.g. envy, arrogance, love, gratitude) deeply affect one’s spiritual and physical health.
📌 Bridge: Modern science confirms that the heart influences mental health, and Islam goes further by placing the heart at the center of moral and spiritual well-being.
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🧠🕊 3. Mind, Self, and Soul (Nafs) in Islam vs Psychology
✦ Islam:
The nafs is the inner self, subject to desires and ego.
The qalb (heart) can either guide or be misled by the nafs.
Through tazkiyah (purification), one aligns the self with divine guidance.
Both systems recognize inner conflict, moral conscience, and the importance of self-discipline, but Islam brings in a God-centered purpose, while psychology often stops at self-actualization or mental wellness.