Muslim Alpha Males?

Okay. Let's get this out of the way right off the bat. The term alpha male has no place in our understanding of masculinity. It is an un Islamic concept. The man who coined the term, doctor David Mesh, used it to describe the lead male in a wolf pack and has since repudiated the concept, realizing later that the leader of most wolf packs is just the father of the other wolves.

Simple. But using the term to understand men is both contrary to common sense and to religion. If you use the term alpha male, you are implicitly upholding the theory of evolution, implying that men are just evolved animals. And therefore, studying animal behavior can tell us something about human behavior. This is not Islamically acceptable.

Humans are Bani Adam, not Bani ape. This is a very western, secular, confused concept that by no means can help guide men to understand how to behave. Being alpha, the way it's used is it basically just means being obnoxious, being overbearing, being aggressive, being loud, pretty much an intolerable jerk. Look. There are men who are natural leaders, and they come in all different personality types.

Some are brash and dominant. Some are quiet and diplomatic. And any given man can behave differently in different situations, sometimes like a stereotypical alpha, sometimes like a beta. It's just a dumb concept to apply to humans. What men are, according to their creator, is qawam.

And that doesn't mean being the center of attention. It doesn't mean being the loudest guy in the room. It doesn't mean being the biggest guy in the room. It doesn't mean being the guy on the motorcycle with the leather jacket. It's not a personality type.

It's a description of the reality of the fundamental nature of men and their role vis a vis women. Any and every man is. There's not an alpha version and a beta version. You either fulfill it or you don't. You're either good at it or you're not.

You either live up to it or you don't. But that has nothing to do with Western stereotypes about manly men. In fact, I think most guys who sort of fixate on being alpha are privately very insecure, self loathing, and envious of other personality types that they think are more assertive, more attractive, whatever, more dominant, they have issues. And all of that just interferes with fulfilling the responsibilities of being Kowam. So let's just eject this concept from our discussion, shall we?

It's a wrong concept, and it has no place in understanding masculinity in the context of Islam.