Men’s Authenticity

As men, we play many different characters throughout the day. As a father, son, brother, husband, co-worker or employer or business owner, perhaps as an imam or teacher, or as a mentor, as a friend, as an enemy, and as someone you don’t want to bother when we walk down the street at night. And for each of these roles, there are multiple duties, functions, requirements, skills, talents, even personalities that must be convincingly portrayed. And as Muslims, we have to be cognizant of fulfilling these roles in a way that conforms to and affirms our religion.

There is a lot to talk about on this subject; like how men excel in compartmentalization; being sensitive to the needs and expectations of others; and the forethought required to anticipate the consequences and ramifications of how we do or do not play our roles. We have to assess risks and dangers, set priorities, and responsibly allocate adequate time to each part we have to play. But these are not the aspects I want to talk about now.

My topic today is this: when we have to be so many things to so many people, behave differently in so many different situations; how do we remain authentic? We are playing a part so much of the time, so how can we avoid being fake?

For this, I think it is useful to think about how in Islam we are taught to segregate our private life from our public life. You know, in psychology, there is this concept that the healthy person is one with a unified personality — they are the same publicly and privately. This is not what we believe. We believe that you should show society only the best in you, and conceal your sins as much as possible. We do not believe that, for instance, publicly condemning a sin you have yourself committed is in any way hypocritical. Committing a sin is not the same as condoning it, and even if you do wrong privately, you must publicly uphold what is right — because it is right, and because you still know that it is right. And because society does not benefit or improve by normalizing sin. So, to some extent, public righteousness is an act, and it is a good deed in and of itself. We all know, or should know, that the Muslim public figures we all admire for their apparent piety, are not as good as we think; just as we are not as good as people who know us think we are. But we try. And we stand for what is right, as much as we can, to affirm that it is right, and privately, we hope to more fully align our hearts and actions to that. The idea of having a unified personality, quite frankly, has been disastrous for the West — it has destroyed adab and akhlaq, and self-restraint, and shame, and unleashed onto society all of the worst characteristics of its members.

So, this principle of the multivariate personality can help with the question of authenticity. Who are you? You are the person who plays all the roles, and all the roles are you, and any qualities or characteristics you possess outside of any given role are appropriately subdued. No one in your life will ever, or should ever, see every side of you — they should only ever see what you are to them. That maintains order, and it is your responsibility as a man. Only Allah sees every side, and living in this way brings you closer to Him, because you realize that only Allah can understand. You are being authentic, not by revealing every side of you to everyone, but by doing your duty, fulfilling your roles towards each person in your life with a sincere desire to do it well, and by hiding whatever may interfere with that. And when you need to be understood, you turn to Allah.