Haifaa Younis – The Islamic Legacy of Mental Health
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The speakers emphasize the need for acceptance and support from the Muslim community in addressing mental health issues, particularly those with mental health issues. They share stories about finding a doctor passionate about helping people and emphasize the importance of finding a doctor who is passionate about helping people. They stress the need for research labs and bringing faith into one's experiences and learning from history. They also emphasize the importance of stopping talking about past experiences and creating a "work" around them to prevent future negative consequences.
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so now my econ working with lava tubes hula will humble our salatu salam ala Rasulillah. While he was happy woman, Juana La Molina Ryan found our own family Habima LM Tina NACA semiology we do our almost traveling sub for us Cindy only wandered off the family Sandy of Cabo Polish Ramallah como everyone. Nice to be back again, just like hola here for joining us and Hamdi Lobel. And I mean, it's always good to have this program may Allah accept from all of us to be Amin, and may Allah pantalla make it pure for his sake to be me.
Today topic, as we have covered part of it in many of our Tuesday program, but today is special for many reasons. Basically, recently we have seen it's not only in the Muslim community in general, but we are seeing it also in the Muslim community. Mental health is becoming an issue, a phenomena and a problem that we Muslims not only we need to think and talk about it, but actually we need to address it and address it seriously. And the one thing that maybe is Nilla by Allah grace will help us to remove this taboo. This we don't want to talk about it. It doesn't happen to us, it's somebody else. Is that when we know the history of mental illness and we can we when we learn that it is there it
is part of our deen it is in there in our deen and it gives me a great pleasure without a lot of introduction to join. And to actually introduce our guests for tonight is Dr. aurania While joining us from California and you will probably don't need anybody need to introduction or to know about the Iranian because you probably know her. It's a great pleasure. She's a good friend of mine. I always smile when I see her and I love seeing her inshallah Sona Lita again, we met not too long in 100 line, a beautiful blessing, blessed gathering European. So before Ron is actually a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. She's actually the
director of the Stanford Muslim mental health and Islamic psychology lab and its community nonprofit non for profit, which is the marriage stand.org Associate Chief mashallah of the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences and CO chief of the diversity and culture or mental health. Maybe many of you know this part of her I don't know how many of you know that she before she pursue her career in psychiatry, she also pursued her career in Islamic studies have a lot of reading and this is my always passion that you can combine the dunya and Africa and so she actually studied in Syria has ijazah in many of the Islamic sciences and in Quran and currently she is also served as a
senior fellow at European Institute and ISP EU. And in addition, she also served as a director of the Rama Foundation which I had the pleasure of meeting its member and being a dear guest and in the honor of being their guest actually, last month that handler May Allah Subhana Allah accept all your work here, Anya, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here. And may Allah spawn Tada, us, you and me and everybody in His service. And
so I am going to leave it to you tell us about mental health Iran, how much well first first I have to say, you know, thank you so much Dr. Hayhoe mashallah for inviting me here and for all the work that you do with agenda Institute and the whole entire team Batticaloa if you can, it's so beautiful and wonderful initiative as any after my own heart mashallah, this idea of, you know, really focusing on women and their, their studies and scholarship and the dean and Batticaloa freaky, Michelle alum, and thank you and for the beautiful,
the beautiful time we've spent together, it's so short, Chela will have much, much more time in sha Allah Tada. come today. Now, this, this conversation today that's really on mental health is, as you said, it beautiful preface is really that we need to focus more on it. And the reason for this is not only because we as a Muslim community, communities, all the different communities we have within our diversity of Muslims are in need of this kind of support in this time and day. But especially for me, I think, how I'm very passionate about this point, that Muslims have always been at the forefront of the discussion of mental health, always in the past. This is I find this to be our,
it's our legacy. It's part of our heritage. It's something that we have to really understand. And when we do understand this, all of that stigma goes away. All of that all those barriers against seeking out help or feeling like it's very Western, and it's not part of us. All of this goes away once you start to understand that history. And that was that was my story. I mean, I was somebody who grew up who really did not, you know, I It's called internalized stigma. I had a lot of internal stigma against the whole entire field of mental health, anything called psychotic
Psychology To me this was backwards. It was something Muslims didn't need. This is my, this is my view. And I tell people this that even when I went to, you know, in college, I didn't even take a single psychology course. So Allah
you don't need it at all. And the reason and a lot of this a lot of last panel has a way of humbling you because I thought you know I really remember having this very clear thought in college of what good Muslim girl takes a psychology course this
good Muslim good
way.
Yeah. Right.
Where we come from to where we are now it's upon Allah, Allah. And so I really did not have this as part of my plans in any way. Like honestly, there's many people now Michelle led him to now we're really looking to this field and feeling like it's a very viable option. And it's a need, but in my my own going through education myself, as you mentioned, I'd studied kind of the Dean sciences first and how many now, and I was passionate about wanting to teach in the community doing whatever I can in service. And I thought, this is actually a very kind of funny story, Doctor, I don't know if you know this, but it connects with you mashallah, because, in in when I was going through my studies,
and I decided on medicine, I thought, you know, this is how I can serve people, I was very passionate about helping people. But what I was sure about was that I would become an OB, oh,
so
many so much. So this is a this is really, because you mashallah aren't obese, this is probably very funny for you. But so much so that I was dead set on becoming an OBGYN all the way through medical school. And it wasn't until the very, very end, and I was about to graduate from medical school, my letters of recommendation had already been written, I take in all my, you know, OB, higher level, you know, training and such.
So much so that when it flipped at the very end, and there was an incident actually, that that happened in our community that really made me think deeply about what is this mental health thing, and, you know, maybe we should be doing more with it.
And I can share a little bit more about that story. But it's so back to the OB that's really funny is that my letters of recommendation still said in them. And you know, Rania is going to be, you know, a wonderful OB usually.
I would.
And so the people interviewing me in the residency programs would say, are you trying to be a psychiatrist or an OB?
So this is actually if you don't mind that detail for privacy, but no, friends? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it speaks to how I didn't even have it. And part of my mind, yeah. And not because there wasn't interested in it. Because I really felt this was not a feel Muslims needed, I really had that same belief that I know many of the sisters and brothers or anybody who's listening here, probably has the same feelings about mental health. I did. And I'm not alone. And I know the whole community around me. And when I was raised in how the same thing, so what happens to a lot, you know, in teaching in the community, the Dean teaching, you know, you, you, you're teaching whatever subject
you're teaching, and then people ask questions. So they ask if it's a typical class, they're asking questions, and you're answering.
And then I found out, you know, in time over a few years that actually what happens is people ask the Yeah, the book of questions. But then after that, they start asking personal questions, things related to their home and their family and their background. And I realized very quickly, even though I can answer the halal haram, yes, no, of the background of the team, I did have the training to do this kind of interpersonal, really kind of therapy, essentially counseling, I didn't have the means to do this. And the incident that really flipped things for me is we had a, we were in them. We were teaching here in Northern California, Mashallah. And beautiful community setting lots of
wonderful classes happening, very dedicated students. And then one night, one of the students Subhan, Allah had what we today I now can call it I know, I understand that it was called a psychotic break. I didn't, I didn't have the language for this. None of us did. Nobody had this on the whole campus. Nobody had this in the language. And it was very strange. It was very difficult and you know, had um, she had these hallucinations, where she thought things were happening that weren't actually happening. And,
and nobody knew what to do. Everyone thought, do we just read put on her? Do we just, you know, help, like, how do we help her and nobody Subhanallah even thought, maybe this is a medical emergency. Maybe she needs to go to a doctor or to an ER and like, this is how much we didn't know anything about anything. And I remember that night. This is where my husband actually plays a very pivotal role because he kind of turns to me, and he made a phone call to actually Subhanallah a dentist in our community out of all of all professions. You
And this particularly Buddy was very someone who was very involved in our community and had been talking for a long time about different needs, our community has were lacking services, all kinds of services were lacking in our communities. And my husband called him and he described the situation and, and you know, Dr. Roger barley, who, incidentally is now the president of our board at Madison years, laters, Allah Subhan. Allah said to him, this is a mental health issue, and she needs to go to a, an emergency room, and she needs to have psychiatric care. And everybody else is trying to like, you know, read the nucleus on her and do the Quran readings, not, which is not problematic.
But on the other hand, it's not going to also solve a psychotic break as as, as an issue. Yes, as you know, serious is what was happening. And at that point, he turned, my husband turns to me and he says, Look, Ronnie, I know you want to be an OB, and you're very passionate about woman and women's health and women's wellness. But in sha, Allah and sha Allah, there are going to be other people in the community who can help with the deliveries of babies and do all the work that happens with OBGYN
But not everybody is trained in the deen. We need people who are trained with the deen to also help with the mental health considerations. So true. So true. Would you go into psychiatry, and I just looked at him and said, I like it's almost like this revolution happened of some sort. And the immediate thought I had is, oh, I'm going to disappoint my parents.
The end and you know, the first comment, and you know, we laugh with my parents now, but the first comment out of their mouth is, you're not going to be a surgeon. You know, like, it's just, you know, everybody's dreams and ideas of what it is to be a doctor, even. Even the idea of being a psychiatrist was, like, low on the totem. Yes. Are you your medical education? You're too smart. You know, you're right. Subhan Allah, may Allah forgive us. And we are opening our hearts to everybody, which I'm very open with my story, because this is my story. And I know I'm not alone. And I know people are listening to this wondering about mental health and thinking, Oh, no, no, no, no, we
don't need this, right. But the reality is, you know, as we study, and somehow this is where the humility comes in, as you studied. And you studied, of course, there's a range of psychiatric illnesses. Mental health is a big umbrella under which not just the serious illnesses, like we saw that night of psychosis. And of course, the ones that we are familiar with, especially after the pandemic, depression and anxiety, but it's a spectrum where even I tell people, everybody has a mental health consideration or like, really, because they're thinking of the more serious situations conditions, to think about, you know, people who are going through marital concerns and struggles,
think about parenting, and raising children and the difficulties that come with that. Think about people who are, you know, kind of just struggling with juggling various aspects of their life, the ups and downs of regular life, all of this is under the umbrella of mental health. And so when we say no, no, Muslims don't need this. It's almost like we're saying Muslims have no marital problems, and no parenting problems. They have no anxiety problems. This is not real. That's
not Yes.
Not yet, sha Allah.
So tell everybody, because I loved it is the history of it. You know, we talked about the last time we met we met very, very briefly, you know, the Mary, Stan, what does it mean? Can you tell us share it with us? It's the history of it. Because a lot of people absolutely don't know about this. Yes, yes. I'm very excited to share about this. And it's part of an I'll just wrap it back into my own journey. Because even when I thought, Okay, this panel, I'm going to shift into the psychiatry the first question I had in my head, was, well, what are the most What does Islam say about this? Like, what are the early Muslims say about this? I mean, I'd studied right, I'm 111, like I'm teaching
actively feel.
At this point, I, or soon thereafter, I was going to serve those years as a professor at zaytuna College, I'm teaching activities, these subjects, and I'm thinking to myself, well, we have 100 access to the primary sources, what was written by the private by the early Muslims in our primary resources about mental health, if anything, and I really wasn't even sure anything was there, because you see, very rarely this conversation. This is years ago. Now. I'm gonna know the literature has really progressed. But at that period of time, especially in English, there was very little, and even in Arabic, there was some, but not a lot. And so as we started to dig in, this is
one of the first things I said to my residency program director. When I went entered into the training I said, I'm only here because I want to help them. Well,
they're only interested in
we always thought I was kind of a little funny, mashallah, he said, Okay, that's fine. I said and my main they asked you to do a scholarly research project. So I said my scholarly research project
This is at Stanford, I said, I'm going to research what the early Muslims said about mental health because I can't figure it out anywhere, it's not really act, you know, accurately written from the primary sources. And so he said, Fine. And so, in my fellowship, basically, I collected all of the manuscripts that I could find between all the different libraries in our, you know, at Stanford, but also at Berkeley nearby, the beautiful Candyland, America with this wonderful interlibrary loan system where you can loan books from all over from libraries all over the US and even internationally. And when you walked into, during the spirit of library search, when you walked into
the office panel, there are more books than anything else, just piles and piles of books. And I was looking at specifically, what did the early Muslims say? And I thought maybe I'll start with medical manuscripts because at least they're in currently psychiatry is housed under medicine, under School of Medicine. So I thought, okay, maybe medical manuscripts, and Subhan Allah, I mean, you can't even go very far into the book. And immediately it becomes clear, not only did they work on mental health discussions, but it was very progressive in their thinking, and actually a lot of treatments and diagnoses and classifications I was blown away. Allahu, and that's only the medical manuscripts we
haven't even brought in the books of spirituality. Why are they sad at all. So if we haven't even brought in the books of philosophy, the books of you know, Kalam, all the different at every one of these contribute to what the Muslims called the field of Ireland, knifes suffering under understanding the next understanding the self. And it's very interdisciplinary. It's not just in the books of medicine, it's actually in all the different books that contribute to the understanding of the psyche. And and this is where I have a very, a story that I love so much Subhanallah, because it really opened my eyes and changed my tracks, honestly. And this is when we're looking at all these
manuscripts. I came across a ninth century scholar, Dr. Eva, his name is Abu Zaidan benefi. Yes. And now I was in Bethlehem there his name is known, but at the time you say this name to anybody, it's a very little known Dean, that will know, right, because he's most famous for geography.
And he has a whole school of geography named the Delphian School of Geography after him. But if you go into psychology or medicine, nobody really knew this name. And because he had only one book, in this medical book,
we know what that survives till today. And it's called Masada, Hill, Amazon will enforce and translated as sustenance of the body and soul. And the, and the book is beautiful. It half the book is all medical illnesses. The second half is all on psychiatric illnesses. And if you look at it chapter by chapter, he actually has it laid out, one on depression, one anxiety, one on fears and phobias, one on, you know, anger, and so on and so forth. And when I got to, I was just amazed by this when I got to the chapter, especially the one on obsessions, Subhan, Allah, I looked at it, and as a trained psychiatrist, I'm looking at this chapter and going, what era Am I reading this, and
it's the ninth century but he's writing basically a classification and diagnosis that matches today, the way we diagnose those CDs, and I thought to myself, wait a second, I looked into all of my, you know, history of psychology, when you look, when you study psychology, one on one, they give you the history of psychology, and it literally says in the books, OCD is a modern illness, it was discovered in the West is what they say. And the first reference in a medical case study is like the 16th century.
But only one case study not very developed, and then fully fleshed out in the 19th century.
So it's a new illness, according to them.
And I'm looking at infinity in the ninth century. Yani ninth century to 19th century is a millennium, right, a full millennium. And I took out this at this point, I took out the DSM, which is our diagnostic mystical manual psychiatry, where we diagnose illnesses from and I pulled out OCD. And I pulled that Benfleet.
aside, we published this paper, Dr. Eva, because it's phenomenal. point by point A Belfie. diagnosed in class, He classified first and then diagnosed it every single point what's in the DSM today, DSM is the psychiatric manual that you diagnose.
Aha, so I've had a lot of hand on my I mean, I was just, and the story gets better because you're to your point that people don't, that we don't know our own history. So therefore, we can't expect that non Muslims are going to know our history. So down the hall from me at Stanford was now retired, but at the time he was still there, a like the forefather of OCD. Somebody who's writing this story? Yes.
We're fathers of OCD. And he's written all the textbooks martial law. He's very famous. And I thought okay, let me ask him so I
went on a couple of doors. I knocked on his door.
I'm a resident here.
I think I discovered something about OCD. I think it was discovered in the ninth century, not not in the 19th. And he just looked at me and he said, he said, No, no, no, no, no. I said, No, no, but really like, here, it says, I'm trying to explain to him basically, and he starts pulling out all the papers he published, and he said, he's a very nice man, Michelle, but he's saying, look, look, here's what I said about the Greeks. And here's what I said about the Romans. And there's nothing after that until the modern day. And then I said to him,
but can you read Arabic?
And he stopped him and he said, No, can you? And I said, Yes. And that's what I'm trying to tell you. So he stopped, and he finally listened a little bit. And then he said, Okay, why don't you go translate it and then come back and show me, okay, I went to my office, took a few days came back, and I showed him, your Allah, he was so excited about this finding, he was jumping, and he jumped
up and down. He said, This must be published, this is going to change, how we just call the history of psychology, the history of psychiatry. Right. And, and I love to tell the story, because when people say, you know, he's not Muslim, Subhan Allah, but his name, his name is spelled K O ra n SubhanAllah. Or on Quran,
Allah, Allah, His ways of doing things, Subhan Allah.
And I wouldn't have thought to publish except that he insisted. And so we did. So pot a lot. And it's really beautiful and amazing, because you know, Dr. Hypo, when I look at the history of psychology and psychiatry, you find that sometimes people don't know anything about the Muslim, so they don't even discuss us in the history of psychology and psychiatry. And sometimes you find author's very kind of that very unfortunate kind of Oriental allistic view, where they discuss us, but they talk about it. They literally say one of the most famous people, Barrios, who writes about us, and history of psychiatry, psychology, he says, and the Greeks and Romans did all of this good
stuff. The Muslims came around and translated their works, but added nothing. Oh. And then he goes on to talk about the Europe and the flourishing of psychology there. And so you feel very, like purposeful, like we're being written out of history, you know. And, of course, everything I'm seeing, I'm seeing books and books and manuscripts and manuscripts to the roof about, you know, how much we contributed. And when this paper when we sent it to publication, they have to do you know, the blinded peer review. And when the reviews came back after months and months, because they said to us, this is too unorthodox, I wasn't trying to rewrite this story. So
unorthodox. So they said, We have to have, you know, historians of medicine review this. I said, fine. So they took many months before until they found the historians of medicine. When they came back with their review. They actually wrote and they said, This overturns Barrios. She shows that he was off and wrong. And actually the Muslims had a very rich contribution. And even the therapies that Bentley is talking about notch, the current therapies we do today for OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder a lot. Yeah. And he not only does he talk about talk therapy, he's talking about even a more specific kind of therapy called exposure therapy for obsessions and phobias. Can you imagine
Subhan Allah, may Allah forgive our ignorance, I mean, waiting, really, the ignorance is not bliss, Subhan Allah. So now, this is amazing. And it can you talk to us about your lab. Remember, you told me the story, how the lab, and this is how it started? This is exactly how the lab started Subhanallah I thought to myself, yeah, Allah, there's so much we don't know. Because I would ask all these other Muslims very learned people to scholars, teachers on my own. And many of them would say, No, we don't know, we don't even we don't know the story. We don't know anything much you know, about this. In fact, they had a lot of stigma like I did against the field. So I thought, no, no,
no, we need to, we need to really go back because it's in the primary sources. It's right here in the dust of time. And around this time, this is where an interesting important part of the story comes in. I in Arabic, Arabic works, I discovered a couple of scholars, one of whom, by the name of Dr. Malik Bedri, who passed away earlier this year actually let him Oh, but this was years ago. And I found that he was writing about benefi. But nothing was translated. This is all in the Arabic. And so I wrote to him, and I said, you know, I've written I'm writing this paper, and shall it's going to get published on benefi Are you doing anything more and he said, I'm translating the book. And
now mashallah, you can actually go to Amazon and buy a translation. Very nice, special. And then I realized that there aren't people kind of all throughout the world, almost like in pockets who were talking about Islamic psychology, kind of reviving something we used to have as Muslims. And I thought, you know, what, we need to have a research lab, where we do very dedicated
to work on what is the what are the Muslims do and say about psychology? What is our deen say about this the framework of psychology, and all the things related to Muslim mental health. So whether we're talking about depression or trauma, or whether we're talking about Islamophobia, all of these things require their own research studies. And that's how the lab started Subhanallah you know, and it's been handed running for many years now. And
with multiple people, and please pray for success in sha Allah, I saw one of your students just recently Masha Allah, again, a young woman psychiatry, the reason she went in is almost the same story without this amazing detail. But she said, there's a lot of need on finding out very few people, let alone woman, Muslims who want to go into that field. What I need you to chill with us? And I'm sure you've seen specially recently. Why do we think we Muslims are needing it? How, what is the psychiatric issues in the Muslim community? Our issues are subpanel not exactly the same as the communities and societies we live in?
I say that, because people often will say, No, no, we don't have divorce problems. Yes, we do. No, no, no, we don't have any drug problems. Yes, we do. No, no, Muslims don't deal with suicide. Yes, we do. In fact, sometimes, because it's so hush hush and hidden. It's sometimes it's even more, in fact, and I'm going to give my trigger warning right now, because I'm going to talk about something heavy. And that is the topic of suicide, just briefly, as a case example of this. And so if anybody needs to take a moment and take a step back, because it is a heavy part of the discussion, please do so.
But you know, we did the study just the summer to figure out, you know, how are American Muslims doing? Because you asked, like, what is it that's led us here. And there's many reasons why we're at a point where we and the whole society around us and every society we live inside, we have the same issues they're having, if in fact, we're not protecting ourselves and our children and our youth fully by Islamic principles, right. And even then, it's important to point out at some of these conditions, like the sister I said, at the very beginning, who had psychotic episode, some of this is also biological, or it's hormonal, or its genetic. It doesn't even matter the society we live in,
actually, these things are passed down, like a genetic hereditary disorder, just like any other hereditary disorder, we don't say, all you got diabetes, because you're American,
too, you know what I mean? Like there's medical conditions here as well. And so because they are unseen, they're invisible mostly they're invisible people kind of blame you for them. They say this is an issue of faith. Woman you're not a strong believer, pray more fast more, make for too hot. And maybe the actual issue that they're trying to tell them to make more drop for is a genetic issue or a hormonal issue that actually has medical treatments for it. Right? And so part of the really reliance on Allah subhanaw taala is to seek out the treatment and to seek out the people of knowledge right? And with its with it, obviously absolutely Opia for ask Allah for forgiveness, give
charity that's to be honest with you, that's what every single disease any only issue happens. This is what I tell people you know, even my patients I was like, Okay, you want an easy delivery, ask Allah spawn Tada, but we need to do 1234
natal care this this, but definitely ask Allah spawn Tada. So we don't want to separate they are together. But we don't want to do only this very few people, very few people as a rasanya sought wassalam. So then you know that very few who really DD don't need any of these treatments. You know, Elias the whole life director, but this is very few people. He says from this time, that is very few people, the general people, you and me and everybody else like we I have, this is what I tell my patients like I have a headache, and you take Tylenol or you take whatever medication you take, you have a psychiatric problem. We see it a lot in pregnancy, by the way around, we see it a lot
anxiety, fear, depression, postpartum depression, right.
And most of my patients I see are Muslims. And I say there's nothing wrong with it. We Muslims have the same Allah created on the same we are all human. Exactly. We are all woman we are not protected. But we have an extra that we need to use it which is our connection with Allah. So we have some statistics about the numbers and the woman community in the Muslim community. Like so what I can say what I can say in terms of levels, people say Do we have more, you know, depression or more anxiety than the people around there's no evidence of this. It's actually the similar numbers of where we are the similar there's more or less in the Muslim community. What I can say the one that I that I
that came out, but this is I'm starting to save on
The research we did this summer on the topic of suicide note was very alarming. That was very upsetting to me, because we thought it like I said, most of the conditions we find in parallel and parallel. But when we saw
this particular part about suicide attempts, I was very alarmed to see that it was actually more than other faith groups. Oh, and that's what we published in JAMA in the journal American Medical Association. And so it was a very important publication, because so many in our community deny this completely. Like, no, no, no. But then we hear headlines and you hear stories and a lot of hush hush. But I know because we do a lot of suicide postvention, which is basically taken care of, after the crisis happens, taking care of the grief of the community, and how do you heal? How do you train people? Properly? Yeah, a lot. And, and it's clear to us in the in the mental health world, we know
that this is happening a lot, but nobody really wants to talk about it. And so then next question is, well, why? Why is this happening? Why do people feel this way, and there's been a lot of stressors on Muslim communities in the last, especially here in the US, but really globally to in the last many years here now, because if you think about, you know, so many of them, American Muslims in the come to America, Muslims have come to America as immigrants, they're also coming from areas where there's a lot of trauma, there's been a lot of instability, a lot of war, they've seen a lot. They're carrying a lot with them. And then even if the chil their children, first generation,
second generation Muslims, they may not have seen the trauma themselves, but because there's intergenerational trauma from the parents who have not processed through and gotten help for this, it's carrying forward and other generations. Then you add to that, of course, social political climate of the last many years with Islamophobia, and bullying. And you add to that, of course, you know, anything already at baseline, like I mentioned, biology, genetics, you know, hormonal issues, you know, instability on a on a biological level. You bring all this together, then, of course, it makes sense why there's a lot of struggle that's happening at this moment. So to deny any of this is
really just to make it worse. How do you hoping it's more gender wise difference, age wise difference? What we're seeing definitely in it, let's let's take youth, for example, we're seeing that there's certain things that are happening stronger in youth today's apologists morning, I presented at the American Association of child in the Academy of Child and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, this today was their annual meeting. And we presented on COVID-19 and Muslim youth and how they've been doing. And it's very interesting study Subhanallah, you know, with European Institute actually bringing all the different, it was about 80,000 Muslims in the study. And then we
took the portion of youth to figure out what was happening for depression and anxiety. And like every other group, they're higher, they're higher than they used to be depression, anxiety is higher, because it's been really hard. But what's really interesting to me Subhanallah is I'm also seeing with Muslims populations, that they're also relying on religious coping.
So it's good in the fact that they're actually doing more prayer and doing more do and relying on Allah. Okay, I'm gonna, and that's protective, protective. And, and so in addition to, but here's where we say, it's very important that if a person truly has clinical depression, or anxiety that they also go to the professional care they do this together, doesn't separate science from religion. And it doesn't separate, you know, church and state, we don't have the separation, it's all one for us. So this is very important. So to the study, this is a beautiful study, one of the most important things out of the study was people who had more reliance on God,
more to what could be relied and understood that Allah subhanaw That is the only one that has certainty. And this pandemic has a lot of uncertainty. So if they could tolerate the uncertainty, and know that Allah is the only one with certainty, they had less of a chance of developing depression. So how Allah and those that had more uncertainty, intolerance, they couldn't handle the uncertainty. They weren't putting that faith in Allah. They had a 60% chance of developing MDD or major depressive disorder. So how to love that that's where faith comes in. Yes, that's exactly what faith come in Subhan, Allah Fidel or SaleCycle Salam said, Go and seek help. There is no disease
Allah created, but he created there'll be exactly except old age Subhan Allah. But this is very interesting, because that comes back to the relationship of faith. Yes, no, like, Yeah, but it's not the only that. But they but they still got treatment, right? Yeah, that's the thing. So what we're saying is that if you're, you don't sort of leave it at that. If you bring the two together. The thing with the ASVAB taking the actual means to get yourself or your family or loved ones better than having to do it now there's full treatment available. So what do you recommend because I'm sure we have a lot of fun
He's listening to us. What do you recommend for the families? Let's focus on the Youth First, because this is our future. Yes. If we lose them, we lose, we lose the future. What do you give like recommendations to parents? So my recommendations and love and honor but really, I feel very strongly. The first and foremost thing is that we don't stick our head in the sand. We don't say and we don't deny, we don't go into denial and say no, no, no. Or my kid is fine. Actually, I think what we need to understand is that we are as the Muslim community, we're actually not fine. Right now. There's a lot of stressors, there's a lot of struggles, and as a humanity as human beings in a
pandemic, we're not fine. There's a lot happening right now. So the first thing is not to stick our head in the sand and be in denial. Right? Do it admit it, it's okay to have it all say that. It's okay. It's not a stigma, the stigma needs to move.
Parents before the the youth themselves. So and number two, and honestly, we do find that parents sometimes are the barrier to the kids, the new generation, they're okay with mental health, mostly. Right? They're not like when I was a kid and other older generations than me, mostly they're okay with mental health, but they come to ask their parents, I want to see a therapist, what is the parents say? No, people are going to find out what if people knew you'll never get married, though, you know, all this stuff, right? And so they're denying the ability of the kid to actually get healthier, that one day, they will inshallah get married, and they will have their own family, but
they'll be healthier, and that keep repeating the same cycles that we keep seeing and families. Right. So that's, so identify the
number two, to take that step.
It's, it's, it takes courage, a person has to be brave to take that first step to find care. And there is 100 A lot, a lot of different people now in care. I know many people will say, but I only want to see a Muslim Alhamdulillah there's many Muslim scholars that are in the field. A lot. Yes. Yeah. In fact, we have on our website, a whole a page that has all the directories of all across the US of Muslims who are doing mental health, if people want to access that different directories. So there's actually many, many different people that are practicing. And honestly, I have to say, too, if there isn't a Muslim professional in the area, where a person lives, they should still seek out
even a non Muslim therapist, because they're professional. They've been trained, you know, maybe it's ideal to have the familiarity of culture and religion. But if not, then if there's still a professional, write, write, write, and then and third, is to then make sure that we're actually bringing in the faith into the discussion. And we have to have the two worlds together. Sometimes we see extremes, people who go only faith, I'm only going to read and pray and doodle Korea are one extreme of say, no, no, no, none of this matters, the faith part, I'm going to go, you know, give my start therapy, but then the therapy itself, because it's very secular, might actually turn a person
or turn that you this is what parents are very scared of that they'll turn them away from Islam.
Or they'll blame the religion, they'll tell them to take their hijab off, or their spheres like this.
This is where it's important to make sure that you kind of bring the two worlds together. And what do you come? And who do they go and see for bringing the faith? Because this is something we have talked about too, before, is not many of the Muslim leaders are trained in this. Am I correct? That's correct. That's correct. If a person is seeing a non Muslim professional, they should also be working with their their personal faith leader, you need someone who's either if it's an Imam was available, it was Stata, or somebody who is like, even their youth director or youth leader in the community, because you also want to make sure that everything that the therapist is saying, is
working also with the stuff I say even better, if they're all if they're actually in one person. Any therapist themself is able to bring Islam into the story that would be better and better.
That is actually the other thing that I'm seeing more, you probably are seeing even more than I am, especially young woman, they are going to say psychology
and hamdulillah Yeah, like you're seeing more psychiatrist, but I'm seeing more psychology counseling, like school counselor knows we see Muslim, I can our community in St. Louis, that Muslims, the counselor in our stomach school is actually a young girl who has is now she's working on her PhD. It makes shooting and martial law work a job and she's involved in the community, it really makes you happy because
she knows where this coming coming from. So let's assume somebody doesn't have this where do they go for the for the Islamic support? So
it's really important to to just point one thing, if anything Subhanallah the pandemic taught us is to do everything virtual like this.
Subhanallah and it's and it's
And so has mental health. It's gone virtual too. I say that because sometimes we think we're limited by physical boundaries. But actually with the teletherapy, it turns out that you're able to see Muslim counselors who maybe live a little further away from you. But they're within your same state, but they're Muslim. And so maybe that's an alternative.
Yes. Search. And you're right. I mean, a lot of teletherapy. I mean, the only thing is we can deliver babies yet.
That does
not have all the things in July like in gynecology follow up. And we are doing the tele therapy in patients loves it, actually, it's more convenient and less, less, less cumbersome. So definitely in psychiatry, it's still the human touch is a little it's not like you have not exactly the same but
but it's so it's a good alternative. What else you want to tell the Muslims these days? Well, I want I want Muslims to be very proud of that heritage. So one thing I didn't share yet, I talked a little bit about, you know, early Muslim scholars and their contributions and how they really, and it was actually the This is so beautiful Subhanallah it wasn't just theory for them. This is really what I want every Muslim listening to think about. It wasn't just theory, someone like invent. He didn't just write about it as a theory. They actually put it into practice. This is where you see your son come in. Right? Like perfection, like really put this a little commands us to give SN so what did
the Muslims do? They didn't just write theories, they actually created institutions of healing.
Healing, this is where I say the proof is in the pudding. Like how do they take the theory into actual practice? The B model stands the daughter she thought system that the base of the Muslim hospitals, healing centers, and it's so beautiful doctor, I fell because when you read this, this is what this for me. This is why we called our nor organization Madison. Madison is short for B Madison. And the reason we call it this is because I believe fully but this is one of the trademarks of Muslim civilization. And one of the most important things Muslims brought to the world inspired by Islam inspired by the very Hadith that you brought up earlier, Dr. Hayes, you know, if Allah
sends an illness, he promises basically to send with it, its cure. And so and we're told to seek out cures Tada worry about it, that cure is
an obligate murder. Exactly. What so like Sheila
does, oh, that's exactly what he said. SubhanAllah.
So what are the Muslim son do? They created institutions of healing, they took the theories like what he did, and others have been seen on Razia Rosie actually is very famous of creating, you know, what they created. They were the first in human history to our knowledge, but in their hospitals are hospitals before Muslims. But in their hospitals, they had a section for mental health.
They had a section in the hospital for psychiatric illnesses. I love this industry. Yes, yes. Actually eight century even before this show, and onward and everywhere Islam traveled as it sounds, the almost spread and expanded into more and more countries and areas. Everywhere. Islam wanted every major metropolitan city there, you found mountains, everywhere. It's a trademark. And why do they have mental health within the hospital system and later they had whole wing, a whole wing of the hospital dedicated to just mental health. Why? Because
in Islam, we have a very holistic understanding, Mind, Body Soul. You don't disconnect the mind from the body. You don't take the soul out. When you study on oneness. They're talking about the hunt. Right? Not the physical heart, but the metaphysical heart, Falcon, the cognition, and then you have the nuts, and little bit so I should translate the pilot or the kind of metaphysical heart balcony with the cognition, then you have the neffs the self, but the spirit, right? And then you have the SS that emotions. This is the model Imam Al Ghazali. I read it, you have this beautiful model of a holistic understanding of the human being the psyche. So when they there wasn't just theory, when
they actually made the institutions, they made sure that mind, body and soul were all treated.
There was a place to treat all of it. And there were treatments developed for it. Have a lovely look.
Since we can we've been talking today about bad failures, and many of them have the same thing even seen that Razi all of them. But when you look, for example, you spent even OCD the chapter I was telling you about when you look at his treatment section, he has things he says and this is beautiful, exactly mind body. So he says you have to be able to
addressing the problem, but here it's let's say obsessions OCD, with talk therapy, Muslims created talk therapy. So people are so no, no, this is a Western thing. It's not belonging to us, we create, we developed it
to talk therapies as Muslims. And then he says, then you must take the medications forth. And he gives whole recipes on these books and books. I was reading whole recipes, concoctions of medications, for different illnesses. And third, he says he must pray to Allah subhanaw taala to cure you. A gulf. That's it. Jamal haber Kula, exactly gathered the whole higher acknowledge, take the treatment, Ella autoworker. And then and I will say no, then meaning after it's actually the same time. It's all together. I have a problem. I'm going to see the specialist and I'm going to ask the most specialist unless punctured.
Lung. Yeah, this is exactly what we almost. And I will say in everything that specifically in a psychiatric problem, because we don't see it as a disease. When I should brush it. I see it all the time. I'm much smaller. I
feel the new but I see it in pregnancy. Oh, yeah. Law. It's the hardest thing to tell though. The Muslim patient was like, you need the medication. Literally. May Allah forgive me. Sometimes I was like, Listen, I don't worry about you now. But I will be very much about your afternoon delivery will be people you have to worry about it's you and the baby. And it's real, it's going to help is not going to harm the baby. It's going to be effective. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me. I was like, I'm sorry. There is. So I think acknowledge if anything comes from today is that we Muslims should not look at psychiatric problem as a deficiency as a stigma, as I won't have it and
denial I remember very well. In there actually, I remember was one of the first times I contacted you, because I was like how do I send them remember? Right. And this family? I mean, she was talking to me about her son. And immediately I was like he has an issue is a major issue is probably was bullied in this in the school. And no, no, no. I said, What do you mean? No, no, no, this is a very smart young man suddenly becomes all F.
And then he doesn't scream. Well, so no. So here you go, what else you want to give our viewers to remember? Yes, this piece about the I think we were starting to say about the, you know, the pride and the heritage. But at the very beginning, I was saying, if we just knew our history and our heritage, if we knew that Muslims, and this is so beautiful, Dr. Hayes, I want people to really know this point.
It should be like this on the top of our tongues, tip of our tongues. If we talk about who are the first in history to really create psychiatric institutions, psychiatric wards, Muslims were known for humane medicine, humane medicine.
Well lucky. And it's not like this in the Muslim world today, it needs to come back because we've inherited so much of that colonial backwardness, will Mali, and those stigmas and barriers that we didn't have as Muslims you know, we had we had the amount of stones with flowing water fountains and greenery with talk therapy and music lessons created music therapy tones in donations using them a combat using avant using put on to help with calming a person down if they're too anxious, or bringing them up if they're too depressed, any we have a whole science on this right that the Muslims created it we used art therapies we used meat we use color and sound beautiful, beautifully
any very humane and clean. And and we use the off the endowment system. I hope somebody is listening to this and one day says, I want my endowment one day to be a medicine in the future. This is my goal and Shall I make to offer me a
reality
for education and for medicine? Yes, a Western apples there was competition between the people who were wealthy families where they would put their endowment, and they would compete with each other to put it in the hospital systems because they wanted the budget of the southern Nigeria the the reward and the ongoing charity of healing the ill tongue the law because our Dean announces to take care of the ill and to visit the ill so you know where they would put the Nevada stones they wouldn't put them in some faraway place. They put them in the center of town a lot because then you have to do with the Hadith says and visit the Modi the visit.
In fact, in Damascus upon Allah the door of the old city of Damascus was the door of the medicine
and to that extent, it was in the center it
So hello, blah, are Muslim and we have such progressive. And nobody was nobody had to pay. Because there was the old off the endowment system. They went from bits and men and use the cat money, look how progressive we were to treat this. Nobody had any problem and getting care, there were no barriers to care.
SubhanAllah. So where we come from? Where are we? No, no, it was like, where do we start?
What do we learn? We start with, with six minutes, unfortunately, what do you want to leave us with your detour around, I want people to be proud of this heritage, to bring down the stigma because sometimes it may not be you, that's having the issue. But it could be one of your loved ones, a family member or somebody else. And you when you have this knowledge, and you have this, you let go of this internal barriers that are keeping us from actually getting the kind of care that we need. Or you're somebody who was in the sciences instead. Or you may have somebody who's a businessman, for that matter, or woman and says, I'm going to dedicate my time, energy and efforts into
furthering this field, the system that the Muslims had done so much work in revival, it's literally a revival. When we start to lower the stigma zone, Dr. Haifa, we're able to actually have our community members get healthier and better and our loved ones that ourselves were able to heal our communities. Right. And then by extension, we do what we as Muslims have always done, heal, everywhere we go that make it worse, make it so much better. Like the medicines, the trademark everywhere and assembly went even to Spain, there's so many medicines, right? Like, this is where we need to this pride in our heritage, and this lack of denial and stigma, and actually contributing
being productive members of the society to be not just our communities, it's all people because these medicines, for example, had Muslims and non Muslims.
He wasn't just treatment for Muslims, everybody was welcomed, you know, as you said, this the DUA obsolete now, he said when he said, which Allah Nemo Baraka enema couldn't but he was introducing himself say nice and solid money and he said who I am and he said Allah made me move out rock and one of them I remember one of my teachers use always to tell us she was a she actually it was like,
the meaning of May Allah be Kuma Baraka, you know, McEntee May Allah make you Blissett wherever you are, and this is whether maybe I am not affected, maybe enough my family, but maybe I can help my neighbor, maybe I can help my coworker. Even just talking about it. I think the first step, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's your field you're determining, but I think number one, we need to stop talking about it. Just talking about our communities, in our masajid that, you know, we have programs about this and that and that, which is all very important, as you said, and all these things, it's important, but also we need to have this part of it our youth specifically, but now
you're even seeing it with the adult, that specifically the youth more, let's talk about it. Let's accept it. It's it's an affliction from Allah pantalla. He's the only one who cures it. But he also told us how what measures we need to take. I loved it. Yeah, Vitara Rania, but we have to stop, unfortunately. But this is not good. Dinner, it's already beginning of the conversation.
Exactly, exactly. Know who may allow you already there was one question only if you can translate it, because it looks like the system doesn't know English. Well, she said, What is OCD in Arabic?
Oh, in Belize book he called it was a waste to sober. So what's wasa? And not just the regular West was that all of us have me and you all of us have was presented to a certain level. This is what we call pathological West WISA. Yeah, it was for somebody. Right? But that's it's kind of like a pathological obsession and compulsion, which today we call obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD. And there's a question if you see it on the screen, children who grew up without parents, may Allah protect them have their own mental issues? What often are visible, which is often visible in behavior? There must be some pattern in development.
Yes, this is true. Definitely. In fact, one of the things we say often in therapy is we've talked about the long arm of childhood. Why is that? Because there's so much that happens in the beginning of child development. And whether a person actually with a child has parents or not, or had you know, the reality is all of us have some level of
difficulties that happened in our development and some much more than others. And so a lot of the work we actually do in therapy, we actually call it work, because it takes a lot of work, to be able to go backwards and figure out what were those pieces because they do then develop affect your behaviors and affect you how you interact with the society around you. But there is this is a most important point and we didn't say this yet. Some panelists. I'll say it now that so many of these conditions are treatable. I won't say curable
Because only almost Fantana cures fully full cures she fights only with Allah subhanaw taala but they're treatable, so we must treat and that's what the profession doesn't show
me Allah subhanaw taala cure everyone may or must pantalla allows there was peace shall be under Ceramica sunnah. Hey you know, but I've said, You are the peace, peace originates from you suppress the peace on this earth and everything and the peace inside our hearts as an individual and may Allah pantalla show us the truth is truth and help us to follow it and falsehood is false, and help us to stay away from the total Rania again it's a pleasure always in person and virtual and may Allah allow us to meet again soon evening How's
Subhanak Alomar behind the kitchen one Yeah, yeah, I stopped we will go on to bully so Allah Allah say no Muhammad Ali. He