(Muslim Mental Health Explained)
The Deen Show – INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY in Psychology by Muslim Woman
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and use of mental health, including the definition of Islam and the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people. They emphasize the importance of finding support and finding personal and professional responsibility, as well as acknowledging the challenges of the current pandemic and the potential impact on the economy. The speakers also emphasize the need for people to be prepared for the worst possible times ahead and finding support and understanding their own history.
AI: Summary ©
Because I have patients come often within their families and they'll say, but it's definitely gin because we're so dissented types of witchcraft which is actually going into supermarkets in broad daylight and putting purses on food. Look at this right now.
One modern psychology today it actually says modern psychology today has quote, lost its soul the songs that are out there with the 50 says the Lady Gaga has and stuff can you sit with a psychiatrist he'll tell you like you need to stop listening to Chris Brown
May
Allah
and His final messengers Muhammad peace be upon him? This is our religion Islam Miss Love this sister dijo.
Explaining how much respect I have for the faith of Islam show Welcome to the deen show. The Deen show
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salam aleikum. I'm here with Dr. Rania Awad, who's a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where she is the director of the Stanford Muslim mental health and Islamic psychology lab, as well as Stanford University's affiliate chaplain. She also serves as the Associate Division Chief for public mental health and public sciences, as well as the section co chief faculty member of the bassia program in Islamic Studies and training and I can go on we're gonna get right into the first question, but before I do that, so long they come. They come and sit down after live but I got to how are you? And hamdulillah
doing? Well, thank you for joining us here Shala what a more basic place and I can't wait to see what all of this is going to become soon inshallah Salam alikoum rahmatullah wa barakato. This is so gorgeous. I've known brother Eddie and the deen show for many many years. And as a matter of fact, I was one of the original people who showed up on this show and I'm the lab has been doing a great job but hamdulillah and spreading the deen of Allah Subhana Allah to his show was activities and Dawa right now their work and handle on a great project. The dean center which has now taken this data from such a small show to become life cello data and mega program with millennia xojo propagate the
deen of Allah subhanho wa Taala larger audience and they need your support and I give them my support to shallow data for the deal center. Hopefully inshallah you can look into it and put some running charity and work for yourself inshallah This project brings you continuous charity for the rest of your life until the day of support the dissenter, Saramonic Mahakala. Where
people are maybe saying watch these things rolled up. We haven't got the carpets yet but these other carpets shall gonna be laid down.
Bless this effort along the Amin, Amin, Amin, amin. So I want to ask you we often hear some very ignorant people or just you know, people might have good intentions but and some people would not so good intentions make statements like what have Muslims ever contributed to humanity? And similar words, or sentiment? How would you respond to that? Because you recently talked about Muslims creating the first hospitals in human history amongst other things, mashallah the first few hospitals in human history to have psychiatric sections or wards within those hospitals, which is truly an amazing things, not only think about it,
other civilizations have definitely had their caring health care systems, hospitals and care centers. But what you don't find what's very much missing in those is psychiatric, mental health treatments, which meant that the Muslims really understood that you had to be able to treat mind body and soul together, you couldn't actually separate them out. So they're healing institutions literally in Arabic We say daughter she felt or in Persian Farsi, and any of the other doulas speaking languages you'll know that the word be mod is illness, Stan is location so the term was be modest stands. They have these mental health sections within their hospitals. And that is unique.
There's something there that essentially inspires the Muslims to say there's no discrimination between physical health and mental health. And so that is a major contributions non Muslims have written about how the hospitals we have today, their blueprints are literally owed to the Muslim daughter, she feels it'd be very stones that were created by the Muslims. That actually those were the blueprints for the modern hospital today. So this is the first in human history of saying, We can't find any proof of this and other civilizations.
Not the Romans or Greeks, not the Chinese or Indian civilizations, where they're actually, here in the Muslim civilizations you find the first of these hospitals being created. And the psychiatric sections within them are jumping into this term mental health. And I'll give a very simple definition you tell me is this simple enough mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well being. It affects how we think, feel and act, it also helps determine how we handle stress related to others. excetera is simple enough. Is it simple enough? MashAllah answer? It's it's a very big umbrella term. If people think mental health symptoms, they go straight to a
clinical diagnosis, they think depression, anxiety, trauma, but actually mental health is this very big umbrella under which you find anything related to interactions between other people. So parenting, marriage, things related to kind of how we deal with and communicate with individuals in our life. All of this can be helped by mental health and by counseling through mental health. If there's issues or disruptions in any of those interactions. Can you unpackage the term Muslim mental health Islamic psychology course? Yes. Yeah. So Muslim mental health and Islamic psychology are two terms that are connected, they're adjacent to each other, I would say that their difference. So
Muslim mental health is really the mental health of Muslim populations. Whereas Islamic psychology is, anytime you put the word Islam before something, it means that you have to start with Islam first. So the foundation is Islam. And from there, you build a psychology. So it's really a ground up versus a Muslim until there's much more we say, kind of a top down approach. So you might take the field of mental health today, and see how it fits with Muslims, you might filter things out and kind of make it customize it for Muslims. Whereas Islamic psychology is different. You actually start with the Shetty off first, the foundation, first of Islam, and build on it an understanding of
the human psyche. And that was something that the our noble predecessors from centuries ago had actually written about extensively. What is the human soul? What is the human mind? What is the human connection to all of these things that how do you better oneself in terms of wellness? And what are the ways in which you do so? So that is an Islamic psychology. So they're connected fields, but different from one another? When you brought some of your research to your professor, did they feel like they reached the maximum now that they were like, Okay, we discovered it all. We got all the labels, everything. But then now, what was the reaction from was a UTG? Professor, when you
brought some of your research, and you had shared this with him? Right. Yeah, that's an interesting story. And, and certainly his first reaction was No, no, we've we've already figured all of this out, as in to say, and it was really interesting to you. I mean, he's a great person, don't get me wrong, but he was absolutely saying, but we've published everything there is to publish about this already. And he even historically, he was saying, when he pulled off papers from a shelf about here's what the Greek said, Here's what the Romans said, here's what you know. And my question very simply to him was, but can you read an Arabic? And he kind of took a step back and said, No, can you
and I think that's what kind of unfolded this whole understanding of often what you find in the books related to most things, not just health, and psychology, but most things you find the Greeks and Romans mentioned. And it's almost like this complete skipping over all the way to the modern era. And in psychology, especially skip straight to the 19th century Europe, you're talking about, you know, essentially, as though they were the forefathers of psychology, completely ignoring anything happening in the Muslim world. And most of that is still untranslated. It's not actually available in English. And so I think when he saw the translation, or asked me to go translate it,
and I came back with a translation, he was very excited, he realized the scientific potential of what we were seeing that something like in this case, it was OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. And we have another paper on phobias, very similarly, he realized that actually, it's going to rewrite history, it's going to rewrite medical history. And that this wasn't something that was discovered in the 19th century, like they were thinking and had always taught us in school this way. But actually, these symptoms, these constellation of symptoms existed for humans, probably since the dawn of time. And that in itself, rewrites history. And so you know, I was really thankful that he
saw that and even encouraged me to publish. And that's kind of how a lot of the work even in my lab started. Tell me, here's, here's one thing help me understand this. Help us understand this, you would think because we're so advanced, as a society, we think with technology. You have so many academics, so many psychologists, psychiatrists in these fields of study, in mental health, so much money being spent so much money being made, so many drugs being prescribed, but we have more mental health, health, mental health as a crisis like never before. What is it like what are the statistics like every two and five people something like that, depending on what you're reading, you would
think now that it would be on the decline? I mean, but it's on the rise. It seems like a contradiction here, how and why and especially after the pandemic, the numbers are kind of astronomical.
One comparison, I really think the pandemic did something, I think when we all went into isolation. And it's almost like the truth was told, if you will. And so it's almost like we say, like, like a cover was, like, ripped off with the truth kind of unfolding of how people were really doing. And I think there's a lot of distractions in the modern world, right? A lot of we're plugged in almost constantly. And to really deal with the matters that are really at hand like how are you really doing with the people in your life interactions, human interactions? How are you actually dealing with how you fit into the world and your role? Like, what's your purpose here? We're always so
distracted by the modern world and everything that has to give that one people were in isolation and a lockdown. I think that kind of a lot of the realization came, and also mortality. So many people were dying. And there was no real cure or solution to something like COVID in the early months. And so there was really a sense of like, what is the purpose of life, and I think a lot of people went into that existential kind of like crisis, as well as isolation really did a number on so many people. So we're seeing a whole lot more mental health. But that's continued. That trend has continued since. And to me Subhanallah, I'm not so surprised. Because when we understand from an
Islamic perspective, a wellness, right and mental health being one part of the wellness formula, you realize that unless you're kind of spiritually sound, physically, sound, mentally sound, you're not actually sound altogether. And ignoring any one of these, you end up being imbalanced, in a sense of, you know, lack of balance. And so to me, it's not just a mental health crisis that have a crisis of balance on together, this term mental health, what was it labeled before? This is an English term, obviously, in Arabic, what would you call it? And is there a rich Islamic history? I mean, obviously, if there was the first mental health or clinics or hospitals in hospital dealing with
this, there has to be a very rich history and then given the to your professors about the rewrite history today. We don't know it was this stuff suppressed, like many other things that are suppressed and
lost translation Lost in Translation time. So talk to us how how did the Muslim thinkers a psychologist, what would they call that a time? Yeah, the term psychology doesn't show up in Islamic, traditional Islamic history. But what you do find is this word called islandwood, knifes, the science of the neffs, or the self, and science of the self. Exactly. And it's really interesting, the Salomon knifes was very different than today, today, you find most people writing about psychology are scientists, they're in the medical or scientific professions. But in traditional Islamic history, it was very interdisciplinary. You had the scientists writing about
this, but you also had the folks who were writing from an Islamic perspective. So all those who are theologians, those who are writing on the betterment of the self, so it has said, basically, or SN, sciences, we're all Tescan s, and we're all actually writing on our own wind ups as well. And then you have your philosophers, interestingly enough, also contributing. So it was very interdisciplinary, because they came at it from this interconnected understanding of the human psyche, Mind, Body Soul. So you have those who are writing about the ocular cognition, those who are writing about the heart, the metaphysical heart, those who are writing about little, the basically
your soul or spirit, and those who are writing about the neffs, as understood in the Quran. And so all four of these aspects are very much interconnected in the Muslim version of this. And so their science was much richer than what you currently have in Psychology Today. So are you seeing now a conflict here, because you might be sitting in a psychology seminar or whatnot. And you see Hola, we have the solution here. But you guys don't want to even acknowledge a soul or you don't want to these terms that we have, we can actually cure a lot of these things. And now you've seen a dilemma here with this. It's so interesting. I mean, there is actually there's a modern criticism of
psychology, modern psychology today. It actually says modern psychology today has, quote, lost its soul. They don't believe in a soul, they lost their say, lost their soul. Here's why. Because if you look at 18th century, 19th century writings on psychology in the beginnings of kind of a call modern Western psychology, a lot of the writings were actually interested in the soul. There was a lot of writings on the soul. And on interpreting what is the soul? What is this ephemeral kind of, you know, thing that you can't really touch but it you know, is there a lot of writing on dreams, for example, in modern today, like modern Clinical Psychology Today, what you find is anything you can't
reproduce in a lab, anything that you can't see under fMRI, or our kind of MRI machine that you can't touch or reproduce, is invalid, scientifically speaking. So they stopped studying the soul. So literally, the plan here is actually intended that psychology quote, lost its soul. And with that, you find a lot of people, not just Muslims, I have a lot of colleagues throughout the nation actually who are doing work on kind of a religious and spiritual aspects of psychology kind of tried to bring that back into the story saying, you can't be a well run
rounded and balanced human being, if you don't have spirituality connected to it. And so there's a whole group of folks where, you know, Christians or Jewish folks or people in other faith traditions actually tried to bring spirituality back to psychology, and the Muslims are right there with them. In doing that, take us back in time in history, what could something like that look like? If somebody how would someone get diagnosed at that time? Would you think? Would you say that they had maybe some mental health issues? Could it be someone just having so much stress, anxiety? Maybe someone went away from Allah from God Almighty, and now they're feeling the effects on their soul?
And then what kind of therapy? What would the scholar of that time the person, the physical physician of that time, the person, the doctor of the self, the neffs, would come in? And sit you down? Talk therapy with him some therapy of Quran? How would you paint a picture of how would that go? Well, it was like we mentioned how
random one Napster assignment psychology was very interdisciplinary. The treatments were also very interdisciplinary. So what I mean by that is the one who I was reading the most about NLP from the ninth century, the one who I wrote about for OCD. And if I use that example, obsessive compulsive disorder, what he says is very interesting. He basically says, Look, all humans have vice versa, all of us have a certain level of whisperings of shaytaan, that kind of makes us doubt or kind of wonder, you know, if I did something or didn't really my my third or fourth record prayer, what's going on here. And he says, basically says that all people, this is normative, all people have some
level of this, but some individuals have what he calls a pathological level, meaning a clinical medical level of this where it's really overpowering you. And so what he says is for those individuals, he gives three solutions, right? So he basically says one solution is in their pre modern time, he would say, take medicine. And he actually kind of gives you a concoction of like what you would use in a pre modern sense of what would it be physical medicine to take. And then another. Another part of the solution is talk therapy, which I thought was so interesting, because the kind of therapy he outlines in the ninth century is exactly what we use today, he actually
literally describes to you a kind of talk therapy called gradual exposure therapy, which, for something like treating OCD, you basically take something that you are concerned about worried about over it feeling very overpowered by, and you gradually, slowly, but surely kind of expose that person to it. And eventually, it kind of overpowers it. And so it kind of extinguishes it. And so he literally outlines this the ninth century, which is phenomenal. And then the third part of this, he says, and you can't have any actual treatment, unless you're going to have to look good or dependence on God. So he brings a spiritual aspect. And he reminds us of having patients having
dependence on Allah after doing your part, which is the first to taking your medicine and doing your therapy. And at the same time, also making sure that you're doing your prayers and connecting to Allah. So he basically outlines effectively, a, basically a biological, psychological and spiritual aspect of how you treat this condition. And that is exactly the solutions you find in so many of the writings of the early greats. When they're talking about what today we would call mental health condition. They're bringing the spiritual but they're also bringing in the biological physical as well. And that's very impressive. That's why we call it Islamic. Yes, psychiatry. Because now it's
different than you're sitting. Obviously, there's that also talking but you people envision Okay, you go to a psych chi, we get to psychologist, psychiatrist, psychiatrist is more, has the personality prescribed, right? But we see, we see a, an influx where drugs prescribed prescription of drugs, you know, yours, your SAT with someone, and now you sit for an hour or two hours, and then from there, you'll get a prescription from a drug. And some time last, sometimes it's so much less. Yeah, I mean, people talk about sitting with a psychiatrist for 20 minutes and then getting up, you know, essential 20 minutes. Yes, sometimes people will say, All I got was pills pushed on me and I,
I would say I'm not, I'm not the only one like this, but I'm very much an oddball psychiatrist, I probably do a lot more therapy than I do medications. Would you consider yourself like a holistic mind trying to be Yeah, sha Allah? Definitely. That's the goal. Absolutely. And I do think the importance of holistic medicine, and hopefully the field is actually starting to move more and more in this direction. But definitely, there's been a lot of criticism of modern psychiatry and just pushing pills, right, as opposed to really dealing with the root of the problem. Or the opposite. You find people who are talking, talking, talking, talking, and not really getting to really the
issue which may be biological and requires medication. So you have kind of both extremes and nothing really balanced in the middle are very little of that. Have you heard of a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Kelly Brogan? I have not. No she talks about this. She's also someone who went she was your conventional psychiatrists, and she narrates and others
that she felt like she wasn't helping people. She was prescribing drugs. And she found that this was actually making matters worse in a lot of cases. And when she went towards more of lifestyle, and she went more towards holistic healing, she actually saw starting with what people were nutrition, you know, what people were putting in their bodies, all of these things she saw, she actually started seeing a difference and she started getting more motivated. On the flip side, she's narrating that she was really felt like she's so you know what she's doing. She's doing essentially a modern day medicine. And the modern day be medicine, the modern day hospitals that the Muslims had
when you Okay, so this is look back to Islamic civilization. Absolutely. Here's what they would do. If you look at the the care team that was taking care of the patient at that time, it was not just the physician, it's so interesting in the book that we're writing right now about the new medicines, it's so interesting, they have the physicians, they have the nursing, which makes sense, somebody who's taking care of the patient. But then also, they had with them, the person who you would call the dietician who was actually working on the specific meal plan for this specific illness, mental illness, right, figuring out what the balance in their meal would be to help them get better. You
also had the pharmacist rotating with them, which basically is figuring out what specific types of medications herbs concoction needs to be given to this person. Also rotating with them, you had the person who today in today's language would say a social worker, somebody who figures out, you know, it's not just you here at the hospital, or in the clinic, it's also your home life. So what do you need in your community at home to be to do okay to do better, both while you're in the hospital and outside of it. And they have the sixth person, which is basically your today you'd call this person a hospital chaplain, basically, your spiritual provider, the person who gives them reminders,
Islamic reminders, and God, all of these people would rotate with each patient every single day to take care of them. So when I say interdisciplinary, I really mean interdisciplinary care, because you have everything kind of addressed. Not any one part of you is left out in the story. So yeah, this this, what we're talking about a holistic approach is not just there's a pill for every ill. That's right. And now you end up just masking the symptoms. That's right. But there are root causes of what's really happening. Yeah. What is this term? So how would they this is a popular diagnosis, isn't it? It's bipolar. Okay. And how would you think if you take us back in time, how would again,
someone who was labeled as bipolar, how would they go ahead and was same thing? We're going into the same procedures? Pretty much? It's some of the research that we were looking at here today? What is what is what is diagnosed for bipolar? Yeah. So it's interesting, some of the diagnoses fit very well. And what we're seeing historically, some of the diagnoses are harder to tell. So in bipolar disorder, you find basically two poles, right? Somebody who is most of the time actually depressed, kind of if this is your main, if this is kind of like your status quo, kind of like the way you're normally living out, if you will, somebody who's bipolar is often below this and kind of a depressed
mood. And every so often, they hit the other pole, which is kind of a manic pole, which is they're very excitable, very happy, very, very, very up. And, but it's not sort of productive, it caught off. And that very hot mania essentially is not a rational state, unfortunately. And so that person is actually doing kind of decisions, and not even realizing sometimes what they're doing, because it's awfully rational, and maybe making kind of risky, or kind of decisions that are not very useful. What do we find, historically, we're finding that at mentions of individuals who were not in a rational state of mind, and so what would happen is, they would help them by having them in the
medicines, right, these were places most mental illness was dealt with at home, actually. But if it was something so acute or so intense, this is where the hospitals were very helpful to them. So this is what I meant by the balanced meals, the balanced medications, the reminders of Allah subhanaw, taala, even Subhanallah using things like all of your senses, so that so it wasn't just medications they were receiving and talk therapy they were doing, but even things like the colors, the sounds, the fountains, the greenery, making sure that they were hearing it and then kind of consistently, even using the, the what people might call today, music therapy, but it's actually not so much
music, it's more the tones, the MACOM basically different kinds of MACOM to actually calm a person who's very kind of very agitated, kind of calm them down, or somebody very depressed to bring them up, there was a whole science to this, and they would actually bring the Quran you have different parts of the reading, people would adapt adapted the bulky ringtones and to use that as a reading. So when you read, for example, verses related to heaven, and you know, in paradise, you're going to read up, but if it's something about hellfire, you're going to read kind of down you're not going to read that with a high Toad Subhanallah so even adapting them upon that to the recitation of Quran
was healing. So they would have also specialized Rocky's at the time who would also do healing with with the Quran and then And subhanAllah even the it's
situations, the Muslims did everything beautifully with Hassan with excellence, right? Even the way remember, there's no microphones, this is all pre modern. So even the way that they would build the angles of where the patient rooms or wherever you stood, you can hear the oven in your room, like they were very particular and making sure that everything was dealt with. And all the senses were were dealt with. I interviewed a psychiatrist, an American, he's not Muslim. And we spoke about the different terms that are out there nowadays. And he just brought to light, he said that, and he put it in terms of the insurance companies, because there are a lot of term diagnoses nowadays. And he
said that many of these were developed because the doctors had to go ahead and be able to recompense from the insurance company. So that's why they had to classify certain certain certain things with certain patients to go ahead and MEC the Yeah, so what's your opinion on that? Now, like, obviously, someone can be like, you heard, here's certain terms, like, what some popular ones, someone's toxic narcissists, this and that, and, you know, there, and there are people that fit certain terms. But you see a lot of these things also being weaponized, nowadays, and this can also backfire where this can also be, instead of elevating someone, you know, to kind of, you know, get out of certain bad
habits that they might be, you know, exhibiting what in psychology, what, in Islamic psychology, how do you deal in terms of this, where you don't fall into the IOER? Allah saying, Don't insult each other, you know, good use words. How do you approach this from an Islamic perspective? Yeah, and Islamic psychology is very interesting, because you're talking about now kind of personality disorders, what would be in the, in our books of diagnosis of the DSM, for example, on personality disorders, and Islamic psychology is very interesting. One of the things that I find very important is that in these books of diagnosis, you're not going to, you're going to find certain diagnoses and
certain personality disorders, but then you're going to find a whole section that is very important in Islamic psychology completely missing from these manuals. So for example, things like envy, greed, right? People, avarice, gluttony, you know, any of these at basically, we would call an Islamic psychology and in Islam, in general, the diseases of the heart, you don't find this, no, you're not going to find a psychologist diagnose you with something like greed, right? But we know that that is problematic Islamically, it has to be worked on. And so the the matters of the heart. So in Islamic psychology, you have the aspects that are clinical, like the depression and anxieties
and so on. But then you also have aspects of the heart diseases of the heart that have to be purified and worked on as well, which here, it doesn't even take in consideration, there must frustrate you a lot, very much. And when people come to and Muslims come to our practice, you know, I've hunted it, I was very honored to, and blessed to help set up a few different Muslim mental health clinics. And when people come and Muslims come to these clinics, they're looking for both things. They're basically saying, Look, I may be someone who's somewhat depressed, or I'm dealing with anxiety, maybe a person has a social anxiety they, they have, they get very, very nervous, kind
of in social settings, they want to work through it. But in addition to that, maybe they also have something else at home, they're kind of like, you know, in public, they're kind of have this social anxiety. But at home, they're kind of like a bit, you know, a bit of a monster, right? Like they are they they yell and they kind of make a big fuss, and so on. And they want help with both things. And in Islamic psychology, you can work on both aspects. Whereas in standard, what I would call Western psychology, you wouldn't have the space to be able to do both things. You're limited there. There's a limitation, limitation. And the limitation isn't that the person doesn't want to it, they're
simply the clinician simply isn't trained, you know, if you try to tell them, I'm somebody that's very jealous, right. And I see that jealousy show up a lot in my marriage, for example, and it causes all kinds of frictions and issues, the person may be trained in marriage therapy, and can help you with specific things within that maybe communication and skills. But when it comes to diseases of the heart and matters of spirituality, they, they're like I this is above my ability and clearly, you know, clinical abilities.
And so part of part of the work that we're doing right now is actually building a clinical competencies in religion and spirituality for clinicians. And part of a two is building and part of the book that we helped kind of edit and CO write is a book on introducing Islamic principles into clinical mental health care. And so this book is published and clinicians, clinicians are actually able to purchase this and actually go through the training have something called tip, traditionally Islamically integrated psychotherapy. So we've developed a kind of psychotherapy where you bring in the Islamic principles, and that I think inshallah can help kind of both of these issues we're
talking about, what about the term? What about the concept of forgiveness, holding on to grudges? Is it limited another aspect that's limited here that we really stress on this in Islam? Right, what about this area? Is this something that's limited in how much does that play a role in mental health? Holding on
grudges being unforgiving? Not letting go of the past things like this. And it's interesting. forgiveness isn't as major. I mean, it's psychology in general, I would say. And there's always hear it when we say Islamic psychology, what is it that's different. And what's different here is Islamic understanding of something like forgiveness. Because we understand that we, as humans have this capability that ultimately, Allah subhanaw taala forgives, even if we're not willing and can't hold on to that grudge, he may forgive that other person, right. And so ultimately, that that grudge may end up kind of wearing down on us and hurting us when Subhan Allah ultimately, the final state of
things is actually with the last panel Tada. So in Islamic psychology, we often talk to people about look, you may not be something may be so heinous, and so harmful, truly, maybe even criminal, but something happened to the person that is so traumatic to them, that it's like, I can't get myself to forgive. And so we work through the with the through through this and cycle in our therapy sessions and work on, maybe it's not so much forgiving, right at that moment. Because it's not about forgetting what happened. Like this is a real this is part of your narrative. We're not asking for it to be erased, right? But actually letting go of the part that's kind of like wearing on you every
single day and wearing you down literally, and realizing that ultimately, Allah subhanaw taala is the one who makes the decision on what happens to that person. Right? That is a completely different frame of therapy that I think you would get in kind of your standard therapy. What do you think about this book? Do you know about this book, I was introduced to it earlier.
In when I started practicing Islam is called Don't be sad. You know, this? They do? Yeah, yeah. What do you what do you think about this book, and there's one part in the book, it talks about this, letting go of the past, right. And it was very powerful, the way the author talked about this, how this is a form of insanity, just dwelling over things of the past that can drive you crazy. And it can for some people, it can actually kind of cause them to really, it wears on them so much, that it's that they're not able to kind of progress in their own life. Like we talked about how that other person that caused the problem in the first place, may actually be going forward, kind of
enjoying life, even in the person who who was harmed, is holding on to it and harmed by it to a way that they're not progressing in their own life, and they're holding on to it so much. So part of the work that we do is really helping them be able to move forward, even if it's not a full forgiveness, and you're going to leave that to Allah subhanaw taala the part that you're able to do is being able to progress forward in your own life, inshallah. Tada.
So it does, like you said earlier, it does and I was one of my questions, how much does food and you touched upon it? How much does food our environment how we sleep? Everyday chemicals from shampoos to make up to some of the medications? How much does that play a role in mental health? Well, as if you come from the perspective of everything is connected this kind of interconnected system, everything we're talking about, this is why the concept of holistic healing is really the Islamic concept of healing. And which is why on one hand, you don't discriminate mental health from physical health, right. On the other hand, it's also knowing that everything is connected to your mental
health. Right? So your physical well being.
And and, you know, brother, Eddie, I have to ask you, because I know that there's martial law aspects here of of having a gym and having a facility to actually work out. And I think that's so important for mental health. That's very important for mental health. Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. And I also have to ask you, with all the aspects special you're doing in the data center, I hope we'll also see a mental health section here.
Yes, holistic, a holistic mental health section. Like I said, inspired by these medicines, you have, obviously you know, about Tony Robbins, right, he's one of the Guru's and motivation in that and I like where he put in people who attended, a lot of Muslims attended a lot of his stuff, and he has a section a day, a whole day on nutrition. Sure, yes, of course. I mean, if you think about it, what you you know, they say, like, you know, you are what you eat kind of concept. And and you also are, what your company is, you know, there's a lot of things that you are based on what's kind of the intake that's coming forward. You are what you listened to you are what you are what you listen to
absolutely, okay, honestly of what you think about all the senses, right? All of these are outlets to the heart is in the Muslim belief. So the concept here is what you're looking at what you're hearing, who you're interacting with what you're saying all of it kind of affects the heart, both positive and negative. And the heart is the conduit in the Sonic tradition, that Imam Al Ghazali his concept is his model, if you will of human psyche is at the heart the club is at the center, and connected to this cognition, right connected to what is your emotions says connected to zero, right your spirit your soul, and connect to it to is your neffs yourself. And so all of this is very
interconnected, but the heart is really at the core in Islamic tradition. And so this concept like the Hadith says the Prophet SAW
Allahu Allah he was sending him if the heart is sound the whole body of sound and that's why the physical health is part of this nutritionist part of this your sleep as part of this your prayer are part of this as well. Now you mentioned the what we see what we hear in modern day psychology, psychiatry, do they hit upon these things where we don't have to get into the growth test and a lot of the filth that's out there that the eyes see things that Muslims should be far away from, you know, explicit, you know, I'm talking my book rated are even rated some of the things that are rated are that will directly from the eyes to the heart does modern day psychology psychiatrists, will
they tell you to stay away from some of these things? Or some even the, you know, the the songs that are out there with the 50 says, The Lady Gaga and stuff? Can you sit with a psychiatrist, and he'll tell you like, you need to stop listening to Chris Brown, you need to, you know, what will they touch upon these things are? So that's what I mean, that's what I mean, the difference between your modern day or even a Muslim scholar who's trained in modern day psychology to Islamic psychology, I think, where the differences is that there's going to be limitations, right? Where that person may not be focused on the spiritual hearts, and it's purification. So they might not be able to say
something, or willing to say something like, stop listening to that music, right? But in Islamic psychology, understanding that everything's connected, and the physical, metaphysical heart is really what we're trying to get out and purify here, then yes, you would find that the Islamic psychologists would say, maybe what you're putting into your ears and listening to it is causing a kind of insanity, right? Of like, a kind of dissonance, right? Like you're listening to something that literally is haram to act upon. So why put that into your ears? Right? Why put that into an even the, you know, Allah subhanaw taala tells us about eating right Halal until you have been like,
it's like, why are you putting anything other than that into your body? Right? It because if Allah has commanded it, and you do other than it, then clearly it's going to shift you away from kind of that centered self that we're trying to get to. Can can people be led to a position of like, you're listening to a what do you think an insane person, and now you think you're not going to go insane. So this is, this is a really important thing to remember, this is powerful. Let's say you've gone through, you've gone through many of the modern day, strategies, you've done so many things, and I, and we understand some people jump on what I'm going to show you, maybe ahead of everything else,
and some would kind of dismiss this. But where would you say is is a nice imbalance. Okay, so we've exhausted all means. And now we come to another area that modern day psychiatry really doesn't accept. But we as Muslims do that these things do happen. We have in the morning, we have called we have certain certain laws of God that we say, to protect us from the satanic evil forces that are out here. And this is essentially this is a Christian who's talking about this, and then they actually, you know, we think this lot of stuff is far fetched, but they actually caught on tape what might be surprising even to you that in modern times that people were actually doing this, the enemy
is so blatant with his devices that at this point, there's daylight witchcraft happening, they don't even have to conform to darkness and you don't even have to come out and creep out in the light. Because we're so desensitized to witchcraft, which is actually going into supermarkets in broad daylight and putting curses on food. Look at this right now.
One prayer from a Christian and you're getting arrested, you give it a Bible, they will actually arrest you. But see a witch come into a shop and start cursing the breads and putting on the honey. Like this person is literally putting a cause on bread and honey and regular everyday items in as da like. And it's just nothing and people just walking around. I don't even know if the person was reported. We actually need to be interceding. I'm praying over our food. No, we don't live in fear. No, we're not intimidated. No, we're not scared. People who will go see my reaction right away think like, I cannot take for granted or miss the simple things like the three calls. I had to quit see.
Sure. You know 100 Thai law by law, local law should equal Allahu Nucala Valhalla Coalition did you know you have the EU protected? People take these things for granted. You know, being under what do what are your thoughts? No, no incredibly important, incredibly important. What are your thoughts seeing like in supermarkets, where you would actually have type of people doing these things? You know, over the food and Subhanallah I would say it's as old as time it's as old as time this was it. Now it's, you know? Yeah, exactly. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam specifically instructed us to protect ourselves from the scene in the unseen and people have a really hard time with what
what is this unseen and it's in its
You don't know like you don't know if something like this is like you didn't you weren't there when it happened necessarily so you don't know. And there are other things that we don't force is essentially that we don't know when somebody you know, we talked about like I in the evil eye right. And I know a lot of people try to blame everything on the island but the reality is not everything is to be blamed on whether or not it's a sign we're told to read our pledges right to read the three of them to allow allow the robbing as collateral, but we're also told to read ated courtesy right to protect ourselves and our families from anything that could be harmful. And so it's it's part and
parcel of our tradition to protect ourselves from the scene in the unseen And subhanAllah I think it's a it's it's a good reminder to continue to do so. So at what point do you you after you've exhausted everything? Do you Have you determined sometimes that okay, we've done everything I can, this person had been maybe possessed by a jinn or something, you know, what I know after stringent stringent, you know,
therapies and whatever else you go through, but have you ever seen like, you know, that this is, this is the case, this is actually in there. Have you ever witnessed that you've been a part of maybe say, a rocky and someone's who's, you know, recited Quran and somebody after that, maybe the gin love Have you ever got a little kit is, and we and we understand that some people, you should not get to a point where you just, you know, right away, you're, you're, you're blaming this, at the start of it, you know what I mean? That's what I appreciate by what you're saying, brother Eddie, super appreciate it because I have patients come often within their families, and they will say, but
it's definitely jinn. And you know, it's interesting conversation, often with Muslims when we have this because that can be a dark hole, you know, it's never ending, you know, and what I say to them, I say, Allahu Allah, the reality is, I'm not a doctor. I'm a psychiatrist. And so what I'm able to do though, is I'm very happy to refer them to any of the sheep in our community who are able to read the Quran, do the rakia help that person with the understanding that they would also in parallel, be able to seek out this mental health psychiatric treatment? Here's why Islamic is short. But here's, here's what I want to say. The reason for that is we know that so many people will go straight to
only doing put it on. And while for some people, as you mentioned, this may be useful. It's one of the shields actually did an incredible study. I don't know if you've seen this study, but it was actually he took Chicagoland Phillips took all of these cases of gin that were brought to the show. Have you seen the study? So interesting that we're about to show you. And he said, he kind of quantified all of these cases. And after he looked at all of them, he actually found that a very high percentage I forget the percentage, maybe 97% was actually psychiatric in origin.
fallopia Yes, his research. And he said that the rarity may have been, you know, supernatural cause, but the vast majority and the ordinary everyday kind of cases related to even psychosis was actually something psychiatric in origin of biological origin. And that was really important, I think eye opening for so many people including the shoe to say, look, let's make sure that we have a good partnership with the mental health providers to say let them deal with what's actually part of their domain. And let's make sure in parallel to make sure that there is little clear for each and every one of these individuals because you can't go wrong with it. It's the similar profits
and a stick to the prescription that Allah the Almighty the Creator prescribed praying five times a day minimum, making sure you're staying away from toxic
things influences and people and environment this mean you don't want to be going to a nightclub where you got all Shakedowns in there. True. You think you're gonna keep your sanity? And in addition, if it is a actual condition, medical condition, the Prophet sallallahu sallam was very clear on this when he was asked by the Sahaba should we seek out treatment if we're ill? And he said very clearly he said to Dell, we are about the loss seek out treatments Oh servants of Allah for in Allahu La Mirada and in level la lucha shifa, but Allah subhanaw taala does not send down an illness unless he sent a cure. And so the reality is, if there is illnesses that exist on Earth, there's
also cure so seek out treatment. So his sunnah was when he was ill SallAllahu sallam, he took medicine like he actually took treatment, in addition to prayer, and I think that's what's very important, sometimes missing for some of our community. I have a couple more questions for you. Do you feel now as we talking about mental health, do you feel that now? What's what's been the reception now from the Muslim community? Do? Is the Muslim community, accepting to this term mental health issues problems? Are they in denial? Is it something that's now when you mentioned Islamic history with it? Is it something that's been more accepted? So it's interesting, I think in the
last, definitely five years, 10 years, definitely more so than ever before. Certainly from when I was growing up, there's much more acceptance. I won't say it's everywhere. I think there's pockets of acceptance
And I also think that now you've had, for example, next year at Stanford University, we're going to be hosting the annual Muslim Mental Health Conference, which is in its 16th year. And if you think about that my lab itself the Muslim mental health and Islamic psychology Lab at Stanford is going into its 10th year, mashallah, I think all the research and all the work that's been happening in that decade has really changed the tides in this conversation, there's so much more, so much more work to do, I think, I think when Muslims start to understand their legacy, their heritage, they're very proud of it, they're willing to, not only kind of accept it, but also know it, but to revive
it. And realize that we've always been at the forefront of anything called mental health because we understood holistic health and wellness.
There, there's much more of an acceptance of it. So many more people are choosing this as a career. I didn't choose this as a career, I feel like my stories come I came to this completely in a different way, unexpectedly Subhan Allah and Allah is the best of planners, but so many people, Muslims today are choosing this as a career. And I think it's powerful that you're going to help with some that I hope are kind of practicing their Deen understanding their faith and actually wanting to help people in mental health. So I think we're gonna see more and more of this as we go forward. Okay, so we have some couple questions that just came in. And then we'll conclude, how do
we stop blaming shaytaan when things don't go our way? And we don't have control I hear this often is the work of ShakeDown shut down broke up the family, you should be a better Muslim and not listen to shut down. Well, the shaytaan is always going to be a play. He says so in the Quran, right? We know exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the first in the Quran literally says that he's going to literally sit in our path and continue to cause us trouble until the last day. And this is almost like an oath that he takes, right? And Allah subhanaw taala says to him, but you won't be able to touch the believers, right. And so this is a beautiful thing, where, despite all of his attempting,
ultimately, we have the tools to be able to push this away. And blaming shaitan on everything is very much like I was saying earlier, blaming shaitan on everything, or blaming burying our evil eye on everything or blaming the head or magic on everything. There's some portion of this to blame. Sure. But we also have to ask ourselves, where are we? Like, where's the self blame in the story of actually saying, What did I contribute to the story, right? And also, what are other factors that have happened. So when you kind of go to an extreme and say it's all shaped on that, too, is a very extreme position, that's not going to help you see your role in something because you're also
externalizing it to everything and everyone else, as opposed to saying, What did I do to cause the troubles in my marriage? Right? What did I do to cause the troubles between these two individuals that are not on good terms? So yeah, there's there's definitely a place in having a balance and this to not taking him out of the equation, but realizing what are you putting forward as well? So in summary, what would you what kind of advice would you give for someone who is struggling with anxiety with so much stress, they feel like this life is just overbearing every day waking up to the same trauma, drama and whatnot. And they're, they're kind of stuck. And they're listening, they're
tuning in, and they they've been classified with so many different diagnosis, maybe from different psychiatrists, one gave them two labels, the other one gave him another one thing is, you know, they're just lost and thinking like, Where can I get help they tune in? And where would they start? Would you tell me? Well, the first thing I would say I was, I would say, I'm so glad that you're here and tuning it home today. Now. Secondly, I would say I'm glad you're asking these questions. Right? I think it starts with acknowledgment, it actually starts with saying, I think there's something off here that I'm continuously waking up to a cycle of difficulty. The third is really
reminding ourselves that this is dotted build up. This is Allah's content of calls this world is duty that we live in the abode of tribulation. It's meant to be a place of trials and tribulations. And so if you are experiencing trial after trial, it's a very human thing that's happening, actually. And every human has their own set of trials. And tribulations no two humans are gonna have the same set of them. But it's part of our dunya. Because we know in the athlete or in the Hereafter in the agenda, and all of this is going to go away. And I think that's what you hold on to is realizing that there's something so much better after this. Fourth, though, is to say, we know what
the DoDEA is, we know kind of the elements of what it makes up that these are trials and tribulations, what do I need to do to get support and help? And so I'm not so much and I tell people this, especially my own patients, I say, I'm not so worried about the actual classification, the actual diet, the label, right? I'm concerned about the aftermath. Right? So what's happening here? So if you're so anxious all the time, so overwhelmed all the time, the label might be called anxiety, but what's actually happening? And if they say, Well, what's happening is I can't actually meet with my friends, I can't be able to go out and do things. I'm stuck. I feel literally in a rut.
And I say, Well, that's what we need to work on. Right? And so getting the support that's actually takes a lot of care
he had to say, let me get help and support, right? Part of it is spiritual part of this physical part of his mental, right part of it is cognitive and emotional. All of these come together in order to support you. So really the fifth part of the story of the five that I've just mentioned here is after acknowledging that there's help needed is actually taking the physical steps to actually get that help, and knowing where to get the help and getting the best help possible. To me that is in sha Allah that Allah subhanaw taala says, you know, if we take the one step right towards him, right, which is part of this, right, because he tells us get help, like the Hadith says get help,
right. And if you take the one step, he actually takes several. And if you go walking, he comes running as the Hadith, pudsey says, and it's a very powerful and very beautiful thing to realize that Allah subhanaw taala. If he sent you difficulty, he's also going to send you help and assistance in the monastery or throw it with difficulty comes ease. And so I just tell them if you cannot leave without giving you a gift, if you're not
talking about and you'd like a free copy of the Koran, go and visit the show.com like therapists take care of the postage and everything and get it delivered to you those questions. Sometimes it's a spiritual, how many 160 coming
to you next time until then, peace, legal person and if you liked this episode of the D show, like this video, share this video far and wide and support us on our Patreon page so we can continue this work. Thank you for tuning in. Peace be with you a salam ala Goomer never let go of prayer. Never let go Salah ever your connection with your Creator? Absolutely. It is an absolute must. Mashallah. Thank you. Thank you very much. colomba
de la May Allah bless you and bless the deen show and bless all the efforts that are happening here. Michelle, thank you so much. I'll lay back the Konami salami gladly come sit and play but I gotta said I wanted to come up with a lie but I can't do Hello, I'm Dr. Daniela and I'm so excited to be here at the Dean center, mashallah which is under renovation. And I can't wait to see what's going to come and cello there's going to be a data center. There's a masjid, there's a school and Islamic school, a gem and what we hope Inshallah, we'll also have a mental health part of this center as well in sha Allah. So I'm asking you to please make sure that you support this effort, Inshallah, I
really hope that it spreads and really the knowledge of the standard people get to know more about Muslims and Islam through this effort.
I cannot leave without giving you a gift if you're not yet Muslim, and you tune in and see what these Muslims are talking about, and you'd like a free copy of the Quran. Go and visit the deen show.com. We'll take care of the postage and everything and get it delivered to you. And if you still have some questions about Islam, call us at 1-800-662-4752 We'll see you next time until then, Peace be with you as salaam alaikum