Tariq Ramadan – Islamic Ethics How we Know Right and Wrong #6A
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Assalamu
alaykum. So
the last session.
As it was said, we'll try to
just come with introductory
remarks
and come and try to tackle the issues
through your questions and the way we are
or you are looking at the issue.
As I was
saying this morning when it comes to the
overall
understanding
of
our concept of human being,
the relationship with
God, the relationship with nature, the relationship with
fellow human beings
This is all part of our understanding of
being a human being, and then it has
to do with what we understand as the
psychological
stability
that, you might
talk about it. You might you might refer
to it when it comes to
our concept
of, well-being
and psychological
stability.
From an Islamic understanding
and and when it comes to this, there
are two dimensions that are important here.
Is this the way our,
psyche and the way our so first, the
way our brain,
the way our psyche, and the way
we are dealing with the surrounding culture
is part
of what the way we construct
the
psychological
field. So we have to take this into
account.
But once again,
there are things that are
from
a medical
objective way of how the brain
works.
So, for example, in our discussion in the
center when we were talking about psychology, we
had a psychiatrist
Who? Psychiatrist?
Psychiatrist.
How do you say that? Psychiatrist.
Psychiatrist. So it's when I when I'm starting,
to be tired, it's,
Arabic and French coming together. So it's
a, it's a mixture.
Anyway, you will find your way. So the
psychiatrist,
who was there, who was a Muslim,
who was saying, in fact,
there is nothing to add in in the
discussion that we had before. We don't have
to add Islamic here because it's the way
the brain and
the neurons and
your,
nerve system is working. So
at one point, this is the objective dimension
that we have to deal. This is medicine.
And we had
psychologists saying that's not true. If you are
telling us that there is no ideology
behind the scientific approach, that's a problem, because
there is something which has to do with
the way you understand,
human being in itself.
So the way you are going to deal
in science or so called scientific terms with
the human brain
is connected to your understanding of the human
being and and the cultural environment,
and what it means to be to have
a stable,
personality.
That's the first question, because there are things
that you cannot deny that
sometimes
it's a psychiatric
reality which has to do with
a medical
take that you need with the brain and
the way it works.
And when it comes, for example, with some
psychological
disease when it comes to what I was
talking about, the true schizophrenia,
for example,
or
a psychotic
attitude that you may have,
or
psychopathology,
this has to be dealt with in a
way which we need to be equipped scientifically.
And this should not be
dealt with in the way sometimes
Muslim scholars and
our
cultures of origin are ending up saying, oh,
it has to do with jinns and junun,
and,
rakia is the answer.
And some and and no. But this is
serious because this is we have it everywhere
in some countries more than other.
And today, we have so called scholars
just traveling around African countries or North African
countries or even in Asia and playing with
this, which is a way where
it has an impact on the way we
even deal with psychology
and deal with,
mental diseases,
in a way which is about superstition and
the fact that there is a superstition in
the whole thing.
Superstition is not only the wrong way of
dealing with
mental disease. It's also
nurturing and sense of
no responsibility,
victimhood. I'm the victim, so I have nothing
to do. I cannot do anything. It's coming
from outside.
So
this nurturing
mentality, which is,
I'm not responsible,
I cannot do anything, and the medical
treatment, it's coming from the West. In fact,
it's deeply rooted in the Islamic tradition,
that you have to come to the what
is
an Islamic treatment. It's problematic,
because
it means that you don't get
the scientific approach, so at least you have
an understanding of what is happening. And sometimes
it's just
a real mental disease, and you need a
treatment. You need people to know how to
deal with it. Because with some people, you
know, there is one situation where you are
making voodoo,
and when you end,
you you repeat it. It's as if it
was not done.
So this is something which is known,
also as a disease. And it's not, oh,
elaine
and then gin,
and then at the end, you make it
as
morally
guilty,
while it's
just
mentally
sick.
So this, once again, is exactly what we
are talking about, shifting towards
a moral condemnation or moral assessment of something
that needs to be treated.
This is one, and this is one side
of the equation.
The other side of the equation, it has
to do not with
psychiatry, it's not as the
medical way. It's something which is in between
medical sciences
and human sciences when it comes to psychology.
And this is where there is a great
deal of mistrust
towards psychology
among Muslims.
And you ask yourself, why? Because, oh,
the reductionist
approach.
Very often psychology is psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis
is Freud.
Freud is a catastrophe.
That's the reality.
And we went I'm not talking it's not
a joke. We came with
the big chuyeurs that we had,
And we had this discussion
8 people coming from all over the world
with very high profile psychologists
listening to scholars
share,
saying, oh,
no, Freud was wrong.
It's not all about sexuality.
Even Freud is not all about that.
And then the way to reduce
psychology to a distorted understanding of psychoanalysis,
that's not going to work.
So here we also have to study much
more things that are very important in the
all the theories that are coming from
psychologists
and
the way they are dealing with therapies,
we have to learn more about this. 1st,
to never accept reducing
psychoanalysis
and fraud to sexuality
and
the incontinence and everything has to do with
the driving force of
he might have said things like this, but
this is not the only thing that he
said. 2nd,
his
student who became, afterward,
competing with him,
Jung,
is saying about the religious framework and about
the way our psyche is working, things that
are very deep and very close to we
might think as Muslims, if only we study.
But we don't.
Psychoanalysis.
Chaitoni.
Not scientific.
That's unacceptable.
It's not acceptable because it's also something which
is very interesting in the Jungian theory, is
the way he go from
the
individual psyche to the collective and historical psyche,
saying there is a connection between the
collective,
how do you call this in English?
Unconsciousness.
No. Unconsciousness.
Sap? Sap no. Not Sap. No. No. No.
Be careful.
It's not. Unconsciousness,
is it right? Is it? Yes. So, saying
that this is there is a collective historical,
so meaning that the individual is connected to
a history,
is connected to a culture,
is connected to symbols.
And we say, yes. Even in our concept
of human being, we are connected to something
which is beyond our individual
by saying, There's things that is al fitra
in everyone. So there is a connection here.
And the symbol is here. And so we
need to study this.
And to take from this. So there are
in human sciences, and there are parts that
could be relying on scientific discovery
and other things and all what we know
about the way the brain is working.
For example, in
neurosciences
today, there are lots of things that are
very interesting. We
don't
agree
about
in
we don't agree about
in the Arab culture and the Asian culture.
Even in Bangladesh and in Pakistan, you don't
like that.
Which is in fact to say that, apparently
what we have been repeating is that women
are more sensitive
than men,
which is wrong.
The discoveries today, and this has been repeated,
is in fact
the men are much more emotionally driven than
women by the way their brain works.
But they have one distinction:
it's that they speak less, and they are
introverted.
While the women are stronger,
but they speak more.
And for some men, they speak too much.
But that's not the question. The question is
that they're expressing
more, which is very important. Very important is
that the way you express what you feel
doesn't say anything about the power that you
have under your emotions.
And very often, because of,
the brain constitution, there are differences between the
brains of men and women
and the way it works. So this is
very interesting.
And I kept on repeating this, but thank
you so much.
So
neurosciences
are telling are things that are interesting.
And I'm saying, even for myself, when I
was dealing with some tafasir,
trying to understand the Koran, you have some
verses starting with men
or starting with women,
telling you something which is quite interesting.
So when it comes to,
you have to protect yourself,
it starts with men.
After that.
Okay?
And then when it comes to the first
is protect yourself and then the women are
It's equal, but we start with men as
to the need for protection.
In the other verse, in Surat Al Baqarah,
It starts with women.
So they protect you first.
You can't say now,
oh, by accident. This is the Koran.
This is the Koran.
So it's not by accident that you have
this link to protection, which is quite interesting.
Why is it put that way?
Why?
So they are first your own protection.
And anyone who is
transparent and sincere
in what it means to
live with
his wife
know how much this is true,
that some sometimes are looking anyway, I don't
want to enter into this discussion
because it's it's it's a bit too deep,
and I am going to miss my point.
And some will say, yes. Yes, Karen. No.
No. That's fine.
Forget about psychology. No, this is psychology.
So what I wanted to say here is
that
in
the medical
dimension
with science and scientific approach we have to
deal with this and to get more understanding
how our brains are working,
how this is connected to the environment. So
this is one. Then you have the human
science center. In psychology you have theories that
are quite interesting.
So you have psychoanalysis.
You have behaviorists. These are very important things.
So telling you the way you are going
to behave
is going to have, on the long term,
impact in the way you are thinking. This
is something which is essential even in our
way of dealing with our practice as Muslims,
the way
in fact,
because you have faith,
you fast and you pray.
Like, because you are praying, it has an
impact on your faith.
So there is a connection between the action,
not in the way that my faith is
the source of my action, but my action
has an impact on the nature of my
face.
So this is something which has to do
with psychology, and it's helping me to get
this stability.
And then also
this understanding of, human being, when you have
in the Quran
those were, when they
remember
God, they get this
inner peace.
This tranquility that we are talking about is
a very important psychological factor. It's not only
spiritual.
Saying that your spiritual peace
means
psychological stability.
Your spiritual peace
means
psychological stability. So it means that you enter
into the world of psychology with this paradigm
that it's not only a question of
my brain and the way I deal with
my emotions, it's the way I deal with
my heart, it's the way I deal with
my spiritual answer
to the reality of my life.
So we need to enter into this and
to deal with
what it means for us to have
this well-being in psychological terms.
In our discussion,
at the end,
it's we have one psychologist
with a sister. She's coming from Britain, she
was with us,
and she was saying, you know, I am
dealing with young teenagers
and young Muslims
in Britain.
It's quite clear that in psychological terms there
is many there are many problems.
One of the problems is communication.
So the fact that you are coming from
a second generation, the way you communicate with
your parents
in a context which is not their context,
where you are more equipped than your parent
to speak, is going to have an impact
on your psychology, in the way you define
yourself.
So the fact that
which type of legacy
are you bearing coming from them.
This means that you have always a psychological
approach which has to take into account the
context and the environment. You have to be
equipped. No psychology without knowing the environment.
This is, by the way, what, ethno, psychiatry
was all about. You have to take into
account the cultural
background of the people you are treating.
So if you come and you say, you
know what?
You go to some atheist psychologist
and say, the angels are talking to me.'
And say, 'Okay,
that's a mental disease.'
This could end up with this.
On the other side, the only thing that
you have from the Muslims is
a jinn.
Where is this
adapted
understanding
in the environment, in psychological
terms, helping you to come with your background
and to be also able to be listened
to and get a better picture of what
it is all about, the way your brain
can work, the way your psychology,
and the way you deal with all the
factors,
all the factors that you have, your relationship
to your parents, your relationship to your society,
the way you are looking at the whole
thing. This is
psychology. And sometimes
some of the theories that are coming, that
were brought about
and developed by people who have nothing to
do with Islam, but could have lots to
do with spirituality.
So we need to so if you look
at what we are providing,
if you feel bad in this community
and for me, 80%
of the question that I get within the
community
has to do with
psychological crisis.
And when I'm talking about psychological crisis, I
think that this minority or the victim mentality
is a psychological problem.
Lack of affection and communication within our families
and within our community. Lack of communication
has to do with
unstable
psychological
state. That's the reality of it. So how
are we going to deal with this?
Judgmental.
We keep on many people, when they I'm
coming here and saying, my brother, salaamu alaykum,
brother, salaamu alaykum, sister.' Okay, are you sure?
Are you sure we are talking about sisters
and brothers,
or are we too judgmental within the community?
Which means that we need also to have
something which is, in spiritual term how do
we deal with being judgmental, but in psychological
term what does it mean?
What type of impact do you have
in, in the way you are looking? Because
at the end,
even when we speak about
being somewhere and feeling good, there is something
that you cannot avoid. To feel good, you
have to feel that you have a value,
that
you count for somebody, and you have a
value in this society. Educating is giving me
value. Give me the instruments
of my own value, meaning my own independence.
If you are not dealing with this,
if you don't feel that you have a
value somewhere,
you are going to have this psychological
reaction which is
rejecting,
isolating,
or judging.
Or even, by the way, feeling bad, not
feeling at home, not having, what, the sense
of belonging.
The most critical question of Western Muslims is
not about you abiding by the law.
It's you belonging to the society, and this
is psychological.
When I'm saying to Muslims, are you able
to say, 'Yakaumi'
to the British people?
I say,
Sorry? Yeah, Caume. You are my people. You
go out from here and out of East
London, you go in the middle
of the white middle cliche, Yeah, Raumee,
Oxfords Street.
Can you?
Some can, and others I have I'm doubting.
It depends who is around.
So,
the question here always has to do with
the big question of the psychological factor, and
you have to deal with this. And to
be able also to come to,
how do you define human being and how
do you find
for us, it has to do look,
we have something to say about El Fitra.
We have something to say about the relationship
between our heart and our mind.
We have something to say about our body.
If the prophet, I say salami, is telling
you
in his time what you have to do
to have a healthy life, it means yes,
Socrates was right, and this was repeated by
all the spirituality:
If you want to have a sound
soul and spirit,
you need to have a sound
body
and in a healthy
situation.
So we are not here. You cannot neglect.
The middle path here is: take care of
your heart, take care of your mind, take
care of your body.
So your body has fights, and it has
a psychological
impact.
So this is something which is part of
the whole thing. What are we providing?
Tell me today.
What is coming from the Muslims
as something which is a psychological framework and
a psychological theory
taking from all we say, 'il hikmatullah
tal Muslim,
the wisdom is the lost property of the
Muslim.' What are we taking from others?
Superstition
or rejection or reduction or ignorance?
And and one imam, once we were in
Geneva, we brought
a psychologist just to talk about the deep
problems that she
met within the community. Lots
of, you know, lack of communication,
lack of affection,
lack of,
you know, the main problem that they have
within the family between husband and wife?
Lack of communication.
Something which is essential for kids,
the absent
father. Exactly the same as we have in
the West.
All the crisis is this is why I'm
saying this in the books, and I repeat
this.
We have much more problems with men than
we have with women,
contrary to what is said to us.
The reality is this: so the old traditional
state is creating a psychological
crisis
within
man.
And this is what the psychologists are saying
when they are treated.
And we are taking
say, the way we were talking about this
and the imam was here saying, you know
what?
I don't think that this is good, what
we are doing now. Because in fact, we
are creating the problems.
What we have to say to the Muslims,
there is one way
to find
the right relationship to God. You have to
pray.
Sorry?
I know I have to pray. Is this
going to solve the problem that I'm not
communicating with my wife, that my son are
is this pretty? You know the simplistic,
dangerous answer that you have?
So it's even worse than that, because he
dared to speak.
The thing is that in our community, we
are in a state of denial.
We all know what is happening. Nobody
talks about it.
So this is something which is essential. How
are we going to be at the forefront
of this contribution is something which is important.
Having said that,
I think that we have to study much
more
about this,
and even about everything which has to do
with psychology and education.
That's also something which is important. It has
to do
with
the way you are getting knowledge. It's very
important
in the
whole
discussion.
Now,
last point, and I will stop with this,
has to do with arts.
You know,
in the book about
the Arab awakening,
are saying that, beyond this crisis between secularists
and Islamists in the Muslim majority countries, there
are 5 fields
where we need to have an answer,
and that
the political actors are not coming with
the nature of the state, economics,
social justice,
education,
the relationship between
men and women. This is within social justice.
And there is one which is important,
which is culture and arts.
Today,
when we speak about globalization,
we are speaking about 3 types of globalizations
or 3 dimensions.
The first one is,
economic
globalization.
It's the global finance.
The second is
communications.
Internet this is the globalized world is globalized
global
connection.
The third one
is
world culture, is the global culture.
Wherever you go in the world now, in
Muslim majority countries, in capitals, what you see
is the Westernization
of everything.
So we have to deal with this.
Do we have,
do you have,
at the center of this world culture, being
in London, in Britain,
what is your take on culture?
Do we have an alternative way of dealing
with the world culture? Are we do we
have some other priorities in the way we
deal with culture
and arts,
especially arts?
What is arts for you?
It is entertainment that are somehow reducing arts
to entertainment,
which is not this.
When we are talking about beauty,
beauty is at the center and the Prophet
was
loving
el Adhan because of its beauty,
which means that
at the very essence of Islam there is
this reconciliation
between substance and form.
If you have studied literature, you know that
there is something called substance
and something which is called form.
And poetry,
and even the Koran. Some
are listening to the Koran,
listening to the Koran. They don't know anything
about Arabic, but there is something which is
beautiful. So many people going to Muslim majority
countries saying, this adhan is just amazing.
I don't know what he's saying,
but it's beautiful.
Beauty,
God is beautiful, he likes beauty.
Today,
in the world
of world culture and world communication,
you need to know that this culture has
an impact on your psychology,
it has an impact on our spiritual
stability. It has an impact in the way
we look at ourselves.
So we need to have an alternative
way of dealing with arts.
And arts for us, it's exactly what happened.
When people were using poetry
to attack the prophet, Al Salaam, they'd say:
ban it.
When the same poet came to celebrate the
prophet, to celebrate the truth,
he welcomed him.
The question is not about art it's about
the way you use art to celebrate what?
To elevate?
Welcome. To destroy?
Remove.
So this means that we have to be
selective
in the world of entertainment and in the
world
of arts.
This is what we need.
If you look at what we are saying
now, Islamic art, Islamic songs,
it's against the same.
Qualify it, it's Islamic.
And we look at the great majority of
it's now becoming a bit better.
But for a
while, what was called Islamic songs were songs
for
children.
You are talking to the children as if
they are 8 years old:
I'm Muslim. I'm happy.
Okay, thank you. And you want this to
compete with
the professional
highest level of production
in arts and entertainment,
to the point that we are not really
producing
arts. We are we are thinking about
competing with Islamic entertainment, with Islamic al Hashid.
For some, and once again,
you know the 3 main positions among the
scholars.
Music is haram or
drums are okay, or music is halal.
Depends how it's going to be used. You
have the 3.
And anyone here who is saying music is
haram is one opinion. And you know what
I'm doing on my Facebook page sometimes? I'm
provoking a bit by by
by putting some of the songs I like.
And this is why I have all this
shuyuk and mufti going, say, a'uzu billah, this
is haram. And say, I'm sorry, this is
one opinion.
One opinion.
And,
and for example, this discussion that I had
with at the time, it was in 'ninety
four, with
Yousef Islam, Cat Stevens. When I told him
at that moment,
why have you left?
Allah gave you the skills,
just what you were doing. And I wrote
an article for about him saying,
now that he's coming mainstream again, not in
the same way as he was before, but
he's coming, coming mainstream,
I'm saying, you know, at one point,
there was
Yousef
in the previous cat.
And this is cat now coming back to
Yousef.
And Yusuf coming back to Kat, sorry,
by saying if you listen to some of
the songs that he had before,
it's completely Islamic. If you think that music
is halal,
so it's halal music.
With the lyrics, what he was trying to
do, It's a quest for an answer. He
stopped this because he heard Muslims. And, by
the way, he needed this. He told me
and this is also something which is in
the psychological side. He said: I needed to
cut
from that past. Now I'm strong enough to
come back to it. We have to respect
that,
not to be a fatwa, but to be
a personal experience.
Now when it comes to arts and the
way we deal with entertainment,
I'm sorry, what we are doing is an
alternative,
imitative
way of dealing with culture and arts.
Imitative.
We are so, for example,
I keep on you know, in Islam,
if you look at the global picture that
I was talking about this morning,
don't you have a very personal way of
dealing with day and night?
Day and
night. The way you deal because art has
to do with time it has to do
with space, isn't it?
Night is very important.
When you pray
at night,
you raise your voice.
When you pray during the day,
you are inward,
meaning that your attention is inward when you
can be distracted
your attention is opened up when the night
is around.
Meaning that there is a spiritual take on
this, isn't it? The way we are with
space.
You have to think about that when it
comes to art, when it comes to expression,
and imagination.
We need to give space to culture
and imagination to be much more creative. There
is a lack of creativity.
And it starts with this relationship that we
have with night and day. Look at what
the Muslim organizations are doing.
We have
conferences,
isn't it? Muslims are coming together. They are
going to listen to lectures, masha'Allah.
And we finish the lecture at 8 o'clock,
and then start the Islamic evening.
And the Islamic evening is Islamic and Hashid.
And if you look at the way the
people are behaving with the night coming, it's
exactly the same as Saturday night, but it's
a halal Saturday night.
It's very dangerous
because you are imitating the relationship you have
with night.
The last thing that you have to do
when night is coming,
when you gather Muslims,
is
introspection,
is du'a.
Now you can put the entertainment during the
day, in the afternoon,
not during the night. Why are you imitating
the way it's dealt with? Because
in this world is
less
light
and more
freedom.
You know that.
Don't pretend, oh, I have no idea about
that. You know how it is. You know
what it means, Saturday nights.
The way we deal with time and space,
we have to be creative in this. Can't
we do something else? Instead of saying
music haram,
to integrate this dimension
in the way and when you gather
thousands of Muslims, the last thing that you
have today before
sleeping is not to tell them, you know
what? We can do as good as they
do. We have our
party.
It's not going to work.
This is completely
alienating the way we deal with art, the
way we deal with beauty.
And I said this so many times. Please,
you know, you finish a lecture about spirituality,
you want to finish with the Dua, and
say, Hurry up.
The al Nasheed are coming.
It happens so many times. They say, what's
the point?
What's the point to gather all these Muslims?
This is where there is a spiritual revolution
if during just before sleeping,
you end the conference by saying, This is
the time now we have a spiritual elevation.
And you know that is going to be
beauty.
This is the beauty of us. There is
elevation. This is art.
In fact,
have you heard sometimes Mohammed Jibril and others
when they are doing the making the supplication?
Don't you find it so beautiful and so
moving?
And with this,
give me this. I want to sleep with
that.
Not I am a Muslim, I am happy.
I don't want that.
This is why we have to deal with
this.
And this is within the global, within the
overall understanding, with the the what do you
want with art is this liberating
factor, giving space to emotions to be able
to reach spiritual dimension,
the well-being,
being feeling good.
I need Muslims.
With you, we need Muslims. We all need
Muslims.
Is there something that we can produce, which
is taking seriously the fact that I want
to feel good?
Ariah Nabiha.
So
give us something which is smelling something nice,
smelling something good, hearing something good. Beauty.
Beauty.
Because I feel good. Because Masha'Allah,
because I acknowledge that he loves me through
this, that I love him through that?
Through that process, where are the skills? Where
are the Muslims who are skilled, who are
able to do this, coming with an alternative,
and not repeating
through qualifying
arts and entertainment in doing something
which is not what
should be. We need also to have once
again we need novels.
It's not written.
You know my dream, by the way. One
day I will do that.
I'm working on this manifesto, but one day
I'm going to write a novel,
Charla Before Die.
I've
been dreaming of this since
I'm 20,
So it's a long time.
But
I'm serious. I'm serious. I want to write
a novel.
Don't laugh at me. Anyway, here.
The thing is, really this,
is is poetry,
novels, literature,
something liches. And not to be obsessed, you
know what? Because we are Muslims, we have
to put Islamic names, Arab names,
Urdu names.
No.
Just to be you are in a specific
environment.
You need to deal with this creativity
and to push the people and to make
them clear. To make it clear, and I
would stop with this, you are not successful
in life
if you are a medical doctor or an
engineer
or a computer scientist.
You can be successful
if you are using your skills in anything
which has to do with creativity.
Creativity, your imagination. You have this go for
it, do
it. Because we are,
we are, you know.
Anyway, I will stop with that. Okay. That's
fine. We can start with the question.