Imam Luqman Ahmad Mosque Without Borders

It’s refreshing when I see someone call out the inherent biases in modern psychological frameworks. For too long, secular therapy culture has been treated as an infallible, neutral science, when in reality, it is deeply rooted in Western individualism, secularism, and often, a subtle yet pervasive misandry.

What’s even more concerning is how deeply this mindset has infiltrated the Muslim community. Over the last decade, we’ve witnessed a linguistic shift. Terms like toxic, gaslighting, narcissist, trauma response, boundaries, and emotional labor are no longer just clinical terms; they have become weapons used to pathologize normal human friction, marital struggles, and, most specifically, traditional masculinity.

Many Muslims, consciously or unconsciously, have been duped into adopting a framework that views men and traditional male leadership through an inherently adversarial lens. Instead of looking at marital discord through the Islamic paradigm of Rahma (mercy) and Mawaddah (love), or addressing issues with patience, accountability, and spiritual maturity, some have traded prophetic wisdom for pop-psychology slogans.

Under this influence:

Protection and provision are reframed as “control” or “financial abuse.”

Masculine assertiveness or emotional stoicism is pathologized as “toxic” or “emotionally unavailable.”

Disagreements are instantly labeled as psychological manipulation rather than standard human miscommunication.

The result? A growing culture of man-bashing where men are told that their very nature is defective unless it conforms to a sanitized, hypersensitive, and feminized ideal dictated by secular therapists. This completely ignores the Quranic model of complementarity, where men and women are created with distinct, honorable roles and responsibilities designed to support, not undermine, one another.

If the Muslim community wants to heal families and strengthen marriages, we need a massive detox from modern psychological jargon. We need to stop viewing every interpersonal challenge through the lens of victimhood and oppression, and instead return to the objective, balanced, and timeless wisdom of our deen, where both men and women are granted dignity, justice, and clarity in their duties. This is the balance of Islam. And Allah knows best. Imam Luqman Ahmad.

Shaykh Luqman Ahmad, born and raised in Philadelphia Pa, and son of American converts to Islam, is an American Muslim thinker, scholar, writer, educator, and community leader with more than four decades of service. A graduate of the Islamic University of Omdurman, with time spent at Umm al-Qura University, and in classes at the Haram in Mecca. Imam Luqman, was first introduced to Islamic learning by his parents. He studied with numerous scholars, most notably the late “Sayyid Sabiq”, author of the book “Fiqh as-Sunnah”.  For a list of his teachers, consult his blog at imamluqman.wordpress.com. He served as the Imam of Masjid Ibrahim Islamic Center in California for 20 years, guiding one of the region’s most diverse Muslim communities with a blend of classical Sunni scholarship and deep awareness of American social realities. Over the course of his career, he has also served as an Imam and or resident scholar at several masaajid across the country, including in Philadelphia, Toledo, Sacramento, and Folsom, California.