Walead Mosaad – An Islamic Paradigm of Spiritual Wellness
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AI: Transcript ©
Can everyone in the back hear me? Or
do I need to project a little more?
Okay. Good. Because we have a portable speaker
just in case.
So I'd like to thank all of you,
on behalf of the civil community and in
addition to doctor Ahmed who, introduced,
all of us.
This event is also co sponsored by the
chaplain's office at Lehigh University,
where I am the director of Muslim Student
NAIF and also at Kadam Institute as also
participated,
is participating in this conference.
So
just to give you, sort of a little
brief background about our our organization, 1st,
civil community. It was founded last year
about this time in the fall. And thus
far, most of our programs have been outside
of the US.
The main goal of our programs is to
kind of offer opportunity for people to reconnect,
reconnect.
Our motto is connect, live,
be. So by
connection to the divine, by connection to
the imperatives
of prophecy and prophethood,
people then can have a
method,
methodology
by which they can
live their best lives.
And then by doing so, they are connecting
to what we think is that which will
give them their best lives, and then they
may be
after that.
So
we try to,
in our programs, try to bring different perspectives,
and see how
the prophetic teachings of Muhammad salarahu alaihi wa
sallam, our word of Islam
can be understood as relevant to
dealing with everyday issues. So not just sort
of an abstract
theoretical
approach, but taking approach, well, what does this
mean for me and how can I actually
use it to,
do something about my own condition or those
around me?
So the topic that we, we worked on,
we chose for today,
mental and spiritual
wellness is one that is actually kind of
a hot button
topic.
Nowadays, many people are interested in it.
The proliferation
of
what seems to be many, many mental health
issues both within the Muslim community and outside
of the Muslim community.
I'm aware there's a conference
that's almost with the same name,
same title going on today in or was
going on today in Scotland,
UK.
So it just bears testimony that this is
of great interest to to people.
And we chose the name of,
even though I say spiritual wellness here because
that's kind of what we're gonna focus on,
but
one of the things I'm going to present
now is
the idea of
an an Islamic
paradigm.
And for those who are not familiar with
that term,
what it means is
kind of the
context, world view, and presuppositions
of how we understand
the world around us.
And,
this is important because most of us are
firmly grounded in what we call the paradigm
of modernity.
There are certain presuppositions that come along with
that. And one of those presuppositions
is that
probably a
a bit of
apprehension about the idea of how religion somehow
fits into all of that.
How does religion or religious teachings fit into
the idea of mental
wellness? Right? Because we, we call it spiritual
wellness, but
if we look at the greater islamic paradigm,
the spiritual, the mental, the emotional,
perhaps we can even call it psycho spiritual,
pretty much are viewed as 1 and the
same. In other words, different aspects
of what are is essentially the same essence,
which is the human condition.
And so as a result, when we talk
about mental health, we're also talking about spiritual
health. And when we're talking about emotional health,
we're also talking about
mental health and so forth.
You know, a case in point in another
genre, another discipline, the idea of the philosophy
and theology
divide.
So for most
Muslim theologians, they're also philosophers. Even though modern
philosophy now has largely removed the idea of
religious teachings as being
a source of arriving at philosophical truths. And
if it does treat that, then it looks
at it as something to be studied. That's
something that is contributing to the conversation about
philosophical truths. So,
this is something that we're going to kind
of,
go over today and look at. So I
mentioned modernity
first,
because I'm gonna introduce something that may be
very unfamiliar to people.
But before we introduce the unfamiliar, maybe we
have to be a little bit more acquainted
with what is familiar.
So I call it the relentless reductionism of
modernity, which sounds very negative and pejorative, and
I meant to do so
because that's kind of the way I interpret
it. And I'm not talking about the modern
age or contemporary times.
There's a difference between modernity as a phenomenon
and then living in contemporary times. So I'm
not saying by any stretch of the imagination
that somehow,
we should all stop driving cars and using
iPhones and, and stuff like that.
That's an aspect of living in the times
that we live in. But what are the
philosophical
underpinnings
of modernity
that may be,
in large part or in some part responsible
for the proliferation of mental health issues that
we're seeing? That would be the, you know,
the the crux of the argument.
So
how does modernity look at reality?
And how we look at reality, I'm going
to argue later on, is very important to
our mental health
and is very important for our spiritual health.
So if we see morality as just atoms
in the void, you know, what some refer
to as
scientific realism,
Like this table is not really a table.
We call it a table by convention,
but what it actually consists of, it's it's
molecules,
the composite that make it a table.
And then if we were to take a
microscope at it and really look at it,
we would just see a lot of empty
space,
and we'd see atoms
in the void,
as it were. And then that's
what we what some would consider to be
the reality
of not just this table, but the reality
of everything. In other words, the reduction of
all things to the quantum or the atomic
or to the merely physical
and that there's no reality then beyond that.
That is one of the presuppositions
of modernity for the most part, whether we
realize it or we don't realize it. And
that's, I think,
inextricably
linked also to
how we feel about ourselves.
Because if everything else is like that, then
what what essentially is a human
being, except maybe just the sum of his
or her parts? And if we're just the
sum of our parts,
then what type of,
effect does that have on one's psyche and
how they view themselves and how they're gonna
live their lives if this is this is
it? Just the body.
So as a result, we have this sort
of self centered
model of happiness.
Not everybody, but I would say as a
general trend and increasingly so as of late,
where
happiness for me is gonna be how I
feel about it. You know, the things that,
give me joy.
Right? What what did that,
what's her name?
Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo say? When you're cleaning
out your closet, if it doesn't give you
joy, get rid of it.
Right? And and some people
some people take that approach to everything, even
their relationships.
You know, when people are like, oh, this
just isn't working out for me anymore.
You know, what does that mean?
So we have this sort of disposable
attitude to some degree because the most important
thing is the self. And so if these
things are negatively affecting the self, then maybe
it's better to jettison them to get rid
of them and and focus on the self.
Then what is the self?
Well, in this scheme, the self is defined
about that which
it has sovereignty over. And obviously the things,
if we're looking ourselves as merely physical beings,
the things that have sovereignty over ownership are
the body and then things that I possess,
things that I can acquire,
things that I can accumulate, things that I
can buy.
And this leads to this age of consumerism
and materialism.
So people become defined
to a large extent by the things that
they acquire and the things that they possess.
And people are evaluated
also to a large degree
based upon that. And now in the age
of social media,
the
the ability to compare oneself to others
has never been as easy and as, I
would say, as acute.
And perhaps
there was kind of a blissful ignorance in
in in earlier periods, maybe 20 years ago
or 30 years ago, when people did not
didn't know that much about other people and
what they did in their free time and
who they're taking selfies with and who they're
spending their, you know, their weekends and their
weeknights with. But now
all those things have become largely public
or public to the degree that I want
them to become public. Right? The person who's
putting them out there.
And so as a result, we have this
sort of, scrutiny and also this envy that
will come about because people are saying, well,
oh wow. Look at that life that they're
living, which may not in fact be the
life they're living. It's only the life they're
projecting.
But when you're preusing social media,
that's not apparent to you. It's still triggering,
I think, certain psychological triggers within one that
will then,
lead them to make the comparison. And then
feel like if they don't live up to
it, they don't measure up, they don't have
the means to measure up, then it could
lead to I would think also mental health
issues. And this has been documented. It's not
something like we're making up.
The tyranny of scientism.
Here when we get into the isms, we're
also looking kind of on a macro level
kind of,
understanding of it. So
believing, for example, that
only the physical is what's real
and only things that can be seen or
measured
are the measure of the real.
This is where I would say when we
talk about an Islamic paradigm, it's gonna be
at odds.
Because
whether they're Muslim or Christian or Jewish or
anyone who believes in a revealed scripture or
religion,
obviously there's a belief in something beyond the
physical,
beyond that which can be perceived by the
senses,
but nevertheless
would affirm its existence,
and that existence,
perhaps is even more powerful and more important
than those things we can perceive by merely
the 5 senses.
So if you reduce all knowledge to that
which is merely scientific, in other words that
which can be measured via instruments,
then you eliminate all that other
that religion
prescribes to and you dismiss it as belief
or you dismiss it as something within the
realm of the personal that's nice to have.
That's a good,
emotional crutch to lean on. You know, these
are the type of words that people use
in the modern age when they talk about
religion, especially if they're not of a religious
nature.
But it squarely puts it outside of this
thing
that we call reality
and knowledge.
So few people today would associate religious knowledge
with, like, real knowledge
and with reality.
They would say, well, it's a nice emotional
support that you have to believe in something,
right, to believe in life after death
and not to think that this is it.
That's nice. But you can't really prove that.
Right? And that's, you know, you can't say
that's real. It's not something we can interject
into a public conversation because, you know, that's
your belief.
And so,
religion to a great extent, and I would
say what would be this
paradigm
of of a knowledge system that
for centuries, if not millennia, people actually was
pretty much in the public realm and the
public square has now been dismissed.
Presentism is similar, thinking that only what we're
living in right now counts, and all that
came before,
was something less than what is right now
and that we're progressively getting better. So the
notion of progress and also the pro notion
that it's the present,
that we have to figure things out in
the past has little ability to affect our
present and to and to inform us about
that. Then relativism and nihilism, which are kind
of closely related,
which are associated with the loss of meaning.
So if you eliminate absolutes, if there's no
such thing as an absolute truth
and that truth is only relative from one
person to the next.
Right? What has become the mantra of people
like Oprah and others?
Speak
your truth.
Right? Which can mean more like a number
of things. It can mean speak to your
own experience,
which is fine,
or it can mean everybody's truth is different.
So
there's not like a truth or the truth,
but individual truths.
Problem arises. Well, what if there's a contradiction
between my truth and your truth? How does
that work? Well, then it's a relative thing.
It's relatively true for you as it's relatively
true for me. And then we eliminate this
notion of absolutes.
And in our estimation, that can only end
in nihilism, which means the loss of all
meaning. Nothing means anything anymore.
And in fact, probably what we're dealing with
many of our youth is just a large
scale apathy. Like,
nothing means anything. So what's the point? Right?
What's the point of even trying or doing
if it's all meaningless
at the end? So,
you know, mental health professionals that I've spoken
to also say this, that people do have
mental health issues. It's not just about the
individual, what they're feeling and their own kind
of individual temperament, but it's also the society
around them that affects them. So it's not
really just like an individual issue. It's a
community issue. It's a society issue. And I
think one of the things that largely gets
ignored
you know, whenever you
hear some of these school shootings or these
mass killings that happen here in the United
States,
the easy way out is to dismiss it
as, oh, that person had a mental health
issue, which
I'm sure they did. Who else is gonna
go kill 100 of people or tens of
people that they don't even know,
except something's wrong with them. But it kinda
we leave it at that. We don't take
it a step further and say, well, why
does that person have mental health issues?
What is it about not just their environment,
because we've seen it too many times already,
but is there actually a sort of collective
environment they're all sharing in that is contributing
to this, that is leading to
this sort of
insanity, for lack of a better word,
not just amongst a few people, but many
people.
And how many of the people who carry
it out versus how many people actually think
about carrying out but don't do it or
considering it.
So the effect of society upon us, the
way that we live actually is is a
very big,
I think, factor,
in in discussing these particular issues.
So
what does Islam really have to,
say about this?
I call this first lie between heaven and
earth because that's kind of, I think, the
most important aspect of it,
namely
that
we are not just the sum of our
parts,
and we are not just
as old as our birth date,
the day that we were born,
that we have
some sort of significance, if not existence, that
even precedes
our birth.
And this can only
be understood in the
scope of the divine, of God.
Because if we believe that God had created
us and gave us life,
and then
His knowledge of us then preceded that life.
So that means
even though we exist in time right now,
we were always meant to exist.
Nobody's life is an accident.
Everybody's life is actually
a choice.
Whose choice? God's choice, a divine choice.
A choice that could have not been any
other way
because when God issues a decree, it's it's
immutable.
It's unchangeable. It's something that was always going
to be.
And in that sense, that makes human being
significant.
One of the sayings of Ali ibn Talib,
he said,
tahhabu annakajirun saree wa fika intawal alam al
kabir.
You think you are just this little
small body
but within you is the universe.
Within you is the universe.
So there's this sort of,
mirror image of the human being
of creation of the universe. So the significance
of the human being is not because of
their size,
but rather because the assigned significance
by
the one who put them here, else,
namely God. So we say in a sense
all human spirits are as ancient as the
first humans,
So our DNA code, as it were, who
we're going to be was always there even
with the first human being, if we believe
that human being to be Adam.
We were there. We were in his loins.
And in fact one of the verses of
the Quran,
talks about how we were addressed by God
when we were in that state. When we
were just souls in the loins of Adam.
And it was said to us,
a question was asked, am I not your
Lord? And we applied in the affirmative,
yes indeed, you
are our Lord.
So,
that makes us
sacred in a sense, and and sacred means
inviable.
Sacred means respected. Sacred means
honored,
and that means every life then is honorable,
just on the basis of it being a
human life
or even on the basis of being just
a life that God gave it life.
So there's a sacredness of humanity and the
universe at the same time, which is quite
different than looking at it as just a
mere sum of its physical parts. And then
we assign value
based upon
quantitative methodologies.
How big, how long, how old,
how much,
but rather it's how, not any other qualifier
after that. And the how is that it's
something of a divine origin because the divine
is the one that put it there.
So as I said, humanity and the universe
as mirror images of one and another.
So the universe has this
sacredness to it as does human being as
they reflect one or the other, and they
all reflect that cosmic
order.
So
in essence, it's not a chaotic universe,
universe.
It's not a universe founded on
on accident
and randomness
and lack of order, but quite the opposite.
The only problem or not problem, but the
issue then arises. Well, if there's an order,
maybe I don't understand that order completely.
But nevertheless, we would say there is an
order, and your ability to reconcile yourself with
that order
is going to be dependent upon
things internal to you, not things external to
you. So there's nothing stopping you externally from
recognizing that, but the things will be internal.
Hence, the idea then when we get into
spiritual wellness about
reconciling the spirit
with that particular order. And that order obviously
has the centrality of God
in a sense
and also the centrality of humanity.
So humanity is seen as
the steward
or the one who will carry out the
vision of God
in the earth,
in the world.
So again, that's largely at odds with a
modern
kind of look at it,
namely that
moderns tend to see humanity as in charge
because
they're the most powerful.
It's a power
paradigm.
So we survived
the survival of the fittest, and we went
out at the end in the Darwinian sweepstakes.
And all the other creatures are less than
us, and we're smarter than they are, so
that's why they're in the position they're in.
And that's why we're we're in the position
we are in.
Whereas I would submit this is not a
paradigm of power. It's a paradigm of knowledge.
So human beings were given this
this stewardship,
right, this khilafa,
because of what God has endowed in them,
namely knowledge. Not power.
Not power in the physical sense, but power
maybe in the spiritual sense. And the only
power in the spiritual sense is knowledge and
specifically knowledge of reality as it is.
Alm al haqqaikwal
haqqiqa.
So knowing the realities, knowing the real one
of the names of God is al Haqq.
Right? The real and the true. So in
as much as we reconcile ourselves with that,
then
this is how we gain ascendency in the
universe.
And as much as we don't reconcile ourselves
with that reality, then we can become debased.
And the Quran, in fact, describes both.
But again, it's based upon those faculties that
are that they have been endowed by God,
namely the ability to know
and to realize
and to act upon that knowledge.
So how does the
divine
relate to
the human or the created?
Well, there's still a universality and essential oneness
of humanity and the universe. How do we
see that?
There's 2 types of existences.
Things can exist in 1 of 2 ways,
either an absolute existence or a contingent one.
An absolute one is one that is not
dependent upon anything else for it to exist.
It is self sufficient.
It is not in need of anything even
to maintain
that existence.
But in Islamic teachings and paradigm, the only
thing that falls under that category is Allah
is God. Nothing else
of absolute existence.
If we determine then there's an absolute existence
that is not contingent even upon
space and
time, you know, we think of existence as
something well, it's in time, right, beginning and
end,
or takes up space,
is is somewhere.
Right? We don't think of something as existing
that doesn't have a place, has a place
somewhere.
Well, god falls outside of those
qualifications and I would say outside of those,
constrictions.
But human beings don't.
So human beings don't have contingent
existence.
They only exist merely
by the desire, not the pleasure of the
absolutely
existing,
namely God.
So
if we're then merely contingent,
right,
then that contingency has to have all of
its reliance and dependence
upon the one who is absolute,
namely Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Despite that and what we would essentially see
it as a short come do you have
a question?
What we see as a short coming
is humanity is still in the image of
God.
That's one of the hadith, and it's also
another religious traditions.
How is humanity in the image of God
even though there is this
irreconcilable
disparity between
God's existence and the existence of the human
being?
They said
that
we take on godlike
qualities
when we ascend to be the best version
of ourselves,
and the godlike qualities
are qualities that were returned back to accountability
and responsibility,
what's called amena.
It's a trusteeship or a stewardship.
And only the human being
out of all the creatures on earth has
the faculties by which to do that.
And so by
God's command and by his will,
then we can actually
do things and take upon the responsibility that
has been assigned to us, but only if
we realize the nature of that relationship.
So essentially, everybody then on the face of
the planet is here for a reason,
and they have a mission to carry out,
and they have a purpose.
And it's not merely just to sustain and
to exist
and to
partake in the luxuries and and and pleasantries
and pleasures of life.
All creatures have that even besides human beings,
but human beings has the added responsibility
of this what's called hilafa,
right, of taking on the role of the
steward.
So human humanity then are stewards of creation.
We're entrusted,
right, to maintain all the rest of the
creatures,
to use them in an equitable and economical
and sustainable way. Not to abuse them, not
to scorch the earth,
not to scorch a creation on the face
of the earth. All those things then remain
the responsibility
of the human being.
So
how do we do that
essentially?
Right? Is it enough to kind of just
read scripture and
take upon one's,
ritual obligations as a Muslim or as a
Christian or as a Jew, whatever it might
be?
No.
Humanity is complex,
and
we're not just the physical parts.
So
some of the Muslim theologians,
in addition some of the Muslim spiritual doctors,
they kind of studied this and,
and had a kind of holistic reading
of the scripture and
they derive from that. There are kind of
6
some do 4, some do 5, but I
went with the 6 model.
Basic
components
to what it means to be a human
being.
Different aspects of being a human being. So
they're the body, the mind,
the ego, the heart, the soul, and then
something called asir or the inner secret.
So what are these things?
Oh,
So
the heart also I wrote there. Right? Yeah.
So the body
is not seen as our essence.
It's something that is what's called,
in in the language of theologians as an
accident or an attribute
or
incidental
to our essence,
but not it's not who we are.
And in fact, we see that the essence
of who we are doesn't have any of
the physicalities.
It doesn't have gender. It doesn't have ethnicity.
All of the things upon which identity issues
are based today,
essentially, we see the human being as not
any of those things. Those things are merely
incidental to
their manifestation in in this life.
Right? And this life in the Islamic,
terminology is called dunya.
And dunya means the lowest aspect of life.
So
despite how
magnificent creation is, and it is, it's still
considered to be not the best
manifestation of it. Not the highest, actually, not
the best. Not the highest manifestation of it.
So that body then, the soul, in order
for it to kind of participate and exist
in this realm that we occupy now, it
has to occupy a body.
So this body operates in a particular way.
Right? It needs nourishment.
It needs to sustain itself. It doesn't get
nourishment, then the body itself will not survive.
The soul may live on, but the body
will not survive.
So
in essence then, it's a gift.
So having physical features and physical faculties and
being able to move and to see and
to hear and to speak,
essentially are gifts.
And part of the Islamic philosophy behind people
who
may be robbed of those gifts or even
born without them is that they actually serve
as signs for those who have them,
that they should not be taken for granted.
And even sickness is considered to be a
reminder.
Sickness reminds you periodically that
it's not just running on autopilot
and that you are subject to
losing some of these faculties. You know, don't
take your eyesight for granted or your hearing
or even your ability to speak or ability
to walk.
All those things are gifts, and so if
they're gifts, what you do with a gift
when it's given to you by the greatest
gift giver is that you see it as
a trust,
something that you need to take care of,
and something essentially that's borrowed.
Right? You don't actually own it.
You're getting to use it kind of rent
free
almost,
and you're gonna give it back.
Eventually,
where this body came from, if Adam is
from clay,
then we are essentially gonna be put back
in the clay, back in the earth. And
that's why since time immemorial, human beings and
all creatures in fact bury their dead in
the ground because from the ground is where
we came.
So
this body then is to be treated as
a trust,
not to be abused,
and not to be,
dispensed with in any
manner that one sees fit because you don't
actually own it, as I said. Something that
you're using for the time being.
Its movements and utterances affect one's soul as
well as others, but there is a link
between the body and the soul. So we
don't have this sort of Cartesian
body
soul disparity,
separation.
There are there is an,
a, a sort of
essence to them to how they interact.
Some of them said it's like,
olive oil in the olive before you take
the oil out. That's the soul.
Right. It's there somehow. You don't see the
oil,
but if you cold press it,
right, then the oil olive oil is gonna
come out Just like when the body
dies, the soul will come out
even though you can't see the soul within
it, but you can see the effects of
the soul on the body.
Because without
the soul, the body does not function.
So there is a link between the 2.
Hence,
what the body says,
right, and what it does will have an
effect on the soul.
So in the Islamic
paradigm and understanding,
the movements that the body does will affect
not just the physical body itself, but the
soul. So the movements in prayer, for example,
the things that are said,
these are all significant because they seem to
have an effect on the soul and have
a unique effect on the soul.
So,
the the Muslim prayer has 4 standard components.
There's a standing, and then there's the
the bowing, then there's a prostration,
then there's a sitting position, And each one
of those has a unique
effect
on the soul. Right? The movements themselves.
And
the the fact that it's supposed to have
is supposed to be a purifying effect.
Right? It's not a coincidence when you're in
prostration
that your heart is higher than your than
your head, right, because it's the ascendancy of
the heart.
And in that position,
you are as closest as you can be
in a fit from a physical perspective
as you can be to God.
God is not physical so you can't like
fly to him or reach him in that
way. But the disposition of the human body
when it's in that position,
is the best position to avail itself of
feeling that nearness and closeness to God.
That's the body.
And just
the heart,
first thing I worry about, it's affected by
all. The heart is really who you are.
Right? The heart what do they say? The
heart wants what the heart wants.
Right? But how does the heart want things?
It too is affected by its environment,
and it's affected by its body, and it's
affected by its ego, and it's affected by
its mind,
but it's really the driver in the whole
scenario.
At the end of
the day, right, you may think something is
right. You acknowledge it intellectually by your mind,
and you know it's the right thing to
do, but then you don't wanna do it,
and you don't do it. And then ultimately,
you do something else.
Why did why did discrepancy?
How did that happen? Well, because the heart
is the driver.
So we can acknowledge things by ways of
our intellect, but it's not always gonna be
a thing that's gonna motivate us. That thing
that motivates us and makes that decision
on our behalf is going to be what's
considered
the heart, the qalb.
And
qalb in Arabic
comes from the word to qalub or to
flip or to oscillate. So it's kind of
like,
we're talking about the spiritual heart here. It's
in a constant state of flux
and it's easily affected by,
you know, things it's in in its environment
and its mood if we allow it to
be.
So
rectifying the heart then is a central issue
within the Islamic tradition,
and there are numerous
traditions that point to that. And and the
prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam pointed to
that. He said there's a morsel of flesh
in the body. If it's rectified and everything
else is rectified, and if it's corrupted, everything
else is corrupted.
And he said that's the heart.
So it becomes then the focus
of getting the heart aligned to all the
things that we said before, The central order
of things, the cosmic order, the centrality of
God, of humanity, the stewardship.
If the heart becomes aligned to those things,
then the limbs will follow.
The body movements will follow. The the,
the soul will follow, then it becomes the
the driver behind things as it were.
The mind
here in this scenario,
it's not that different from the heart. We're
actually talking about different aspects of the same
central reality. But when we say al akhil
or mind
or intellect,
we're talking about the ability to perceive realities
that are like
more or less logical in nature.
So the mind has ability to perceive that,
you know, I can't be sitting here in
the front of the room and sitting at
the back of the room at the same
time.
That would be an impossibility and the mind
can recognize that.
The mind also has the ability to,
to derive knowledge from experiences.
Right? You you you get a sense of
things of, you know, when to turn left,
when to turn right, when to stop, when
to go, and this will be
subject to the your your life's experiences
that you learn from. So scientific knowledge also
would fall into that and so forth.
And it has the ability, as I said,
to determine what's possible or impossible or or
logically necessary.
And finally,
it is this in the Islamic tradition that
what this concept of taklif.
So you're only held responsible and accountable if
you have
sound mind
that you can make decisions based upon discernment.
That doesn't mean that you're always gonna make
the right decision, but you have the potential
within you. In other words, there's nothing intrinsic
within you that's going to prevent you from
doing that.
Right? Nothing's gonna preclude preclude you from doing
that.
Insanity, on the other hand, or not having
enough of this, such as in prepubescent children,
they're not considered to be mukallaf. They're not
considered to be
legally,
morally, ethically responsible yet because they don't have
enough of that
discernment in order to make decisions like that.
But people who do have that, then they're
going to be held accountable,
whether in this life or the next.
Now the ego
are sometimes referred to as the nafs and
more specifically
nafsus shahwaaniyah
or the base desirous
soul.
It's
our life force,
right. It keeps us alive
because it's the thing that says I'm hungry,
I'm thirsty,
you know,
I have a need for this thing and
I have a need for that thing which
are essential to life,
So it's
there. It also has,
the responsible for the the the main sort
of vice, but also necessity of anger.
Right. Muslim
spiritual doctors talked a lot about anger and
that's actually a function of
this base desire of soul.
And anger is there because
whenever we feel threatened, we become angry. And
whether that, whether that threat is real or
it's imagined
or,
it's legitimate or illegitimate. It doesn't matter. Anger
nevertheless will come out. So anger then is
an important thing to have because it also
keeps you alive in case
if the threat is real and it's legitimate
and it's something that's gonna affect your survival,
then anger is needed
in order to meet that threat with courage.
But we're not regulated,
and when when spun out of control,
then it becomes part of this nafsus shahu
aniyan.
Right?
It it will just seek to satiate whether
it's its appetite for physical or sexual desire
or its appetite for revenge based upon its
anger.
And this is the thing about us
that gets us into the most trouble.
And this is the thing that is the
whole focus of spiritual purification.
Getting this
nafs,
base desire soul,
under control.
And everybody has it, and we all know
that about ourselves. Right? Everybody knows they can
get angry and they can get an appetite
and but
it's the idea then is for you to
have control over it rather than it controlling
you.
And then finally, the soul and inner secret,
when I described earlier when we were just
souls in the loins of Adam and we
were asked, am I not your lord and
responded affirmatively,
what was responding was this,
the ruah.
Right? And the Quran says,
They ask you about the soul of ruh.
Say you have been given but little knowledge.
So it remains one of the secrets.
That's why
in its, you know, they say there's like
an outer shell of a ruach, the outer
soul, then the inner soul, which is called
the inner secret.
These are the things
when the ego
is put under control and we wanna tap
back into who we truly are, then we
try to tap back into the soul and
inner secret,
what's called
arrohwasir.
Why do I wanna tap into that? Because
its realm is not of the dunya.
Its realm really is the malakut,
which is the realm of the physically imperceptible.
So
there's 2 types of main realms.
Right? Alam is shahada, Awan Mulkos shahada, Wa'al
Malakut.
The realm of the observed and physical perceived
things, this.
Then is there's the realm of the malakut,
which is the physically imperceivable things but real
and existing nonetheless.
And that part of us that remains in
that realm, but hidden from us to a
great degree,
is the soul
and the seer.
However, they remain
accessible to some.
And the thing that acts as another,
whether they use hijab or veil preventing us
from
that is the nafs, is the ego.
So the more one
indulges oneself
in physical desires, then the inverse relationship, the
less they're going to be in touch with
their soul and their inner secret.
So there are certain Islamic ritualistic practices that
are are geared towards
making that a reality for us, amongst them
being Ramadan fasting.
So
fasting,
staying away from food is the main driver
of our physical
body. But at the same time,
by suppressing it for periods of time, it
also allows you, if done in the right
way, to have greater access into the the
soul and the inner secret.
So for the rest of this presentation, what
I'm gonna talk about
is
something that you find in
the literature of,
spiritual purification of the salawaf, which I'll get
to more about in the next presentation, but
I'm just trying to kinda present a particular
paradigm here.
So here the word they use is nefs.
It's not the same nefs that I used
in the
previous slide even though the words are the
same. So I translated it as soul but
it what it's talking about is something called
a nafsunnatikah.
A nafsunnatikah
which means
the,
eloquent nafs or the uttering
nafs or the pronouncing nafs.
Right? It's the nefs that can speak to
God.
Not not the life force physical nefs, but
the soul that is the essence of who
you are.
And
this soul can go through degrees
of
reconciliation
with the divine.
At its lowest level, which is the first
one,
the inciting soul, it has very little ability
to do that.
And at its highest level, nafsul
kamila, then it's at complete reconciliation
with alhaqqwalhaqqikha,
with the real God and the hakika, the
reality
of all things. And we're just gonna go
through a little bit of
each of these to a degree.
So
it's
mentioned in the Quran.
Right? There's 3 mentioned in the Quran specifically.
An nafsulammarabusu,
nafsullawana,
and nafsul mutma'ina, which are also part of
these 3.
Some expanded them to 7
taking the nafsul mutma'inna or the
the the assured
or the contented,
or he calls it the serene soul.
And that even has higher levels that are
part of that nafsun mutla'inna.
But for our purposes, we're gonna look at
the 7.
So
this inciting soul incites you to self satisfaction
regardless of any moral and ethical implications.
And usually, if you don't have any moral
constraints,
then there's nothing that's gonna stop you from
acting in the way that you want Because
it becomes about self gratification,
self satisfaction.
And that self gratification then, it's not about
gratification of the soul. It's about gratification
of that nafsus shahuaniyah.
Right? That
base desirous soul that just seeks
its pleasures
and mostly in in a physical sense. And
sometimes it can even be in a nonphysical
sense. Right? To have power, influence over others,
to be praised by others,
these are also
pleasures of the inciting soul.
And then that means you'll have all of
the traits of a narcissistic
temperament. So greed, stinginess, arrogance, anger, jealousy.
It's all about self.
It's inexorably linked to the desirous and gratification
seeking soul. Right? An nafsashawaniyah.
Just give me what I want.
And
we're not saying that this person is not
a believer or not a Muslim. They could
be, but
if they have this
about them, then,
they will not be a person who is
going to be in a state of spiritual
wellness.
So you can easily be a practicing Muslim
and not be in a state of spiritual
wellness. And you can easily be a practicing
Muslim, not in a state of mental
wellness either, which are things we're gonna see
later, especially with doctor Carey, I think. So
but the paradigm is to recognize this within
oneself and say, oh, this is where I'm
at. I think I have to move on
to something better than this.
So the one that's considered, of a higher
level,
a nafsulawema
or the reproachful
soul,
This is the one that's kind of conflicted.
I would probably if I were to translate,
I'd call it conflicted soul. Lawwama means to
like blaming or reproachful. It takes itself into
account
and recognizes truth and falsehood,
but it's unable to consistently
resist.
And most people are committed and practicing.
If they're not in this stage, they've been
in this stage.
Right? Or may they still struggle with it?
You kinda know what the right thing is,
but somehow you you fail to be able
to consistently
do the right thing.
And people have their habits and people have
their even addictions and people have,
their comfort zones, and it's difficult to go
out of those things.
Why?
Well, because
the
nafs
that was before this, that,
you know, a shahuaniyah
that's considered
about your satisfaction,
you're not that far removed from it. So
it's still kind
of influencing one.
So there'll be oscillating periods of,
like, selective isolation, but at the same time,
wanting to show off, not wanting people to
be happy with you,
seeking validation from others still.
Right, because there's still the world view that
people are these independent powerful beings who have
the ability to affect me, to bring good
to me, or to bring hard to me.
And in terms of
how things really are, as we said in
the cosmic order, that's not actually true. If
that person is of a contingent existence like
you are, then they only exist by God's
design and his pleasure.
So it's like they're not really there. They're
only there because God wants them to be
there. So the idea then is is to
focus
that that concentration and that concern from
created things to the divine.
They say that moving from this soul to
the next one is the most difficult.
Going from this,
nafs al lawwama, what's called nafs al mulhamah,
the inspired soul.
This is where
the za'im people can rarely
do it by themselves.
Usually need
guide, a teacher, a mentor, community,
support,
family,
good companionship,
you know, all of these positive influences and
factors around 1 to go from that reproachful
soul to the inspired soul.
The inspired soul, from the outside, people will
see this person and be like, wow they're
amazing.
They are walimin alawliyah, and it's the first
stages of wilayyah, if
mahfud.
They have generosity, knowledge, forbearance,
spiritual contentment.
They do go through constriction and expansion, which
are spiritual states or ahuel, khabd and bust.
So they can get in a in a
mood where they feel constricted, or they can
get in a mood where they feel expanded.
So they're still kind of affected externally by
those things.
They still are subject to angelic as well
as satanic influences,
but
they have the ability to recognize them when
they come upon them.
So someone who's acting out on their most
evil and based instinct doesn't recognize it's an
evil and based instinct.
They don't see where it's coming from. Whereas
this soul will be like, oh, wait a
minute. That's not,
that's not right. That's,
you know, that's me being affected by what
that person said, and, you know, I wanna
have revenge on them, but I understand that's
not coming from a good place, so I'm
not gonna act upon it.
That would be an inspired soul that can
and that's a difficult thing to do, not
to act in the moment, not to be
reactionary.
Because most people are reactionary. Most people are
reactive. And the reason they're reactive is because
it's their their base soul that's acting out.
It's not something that's based upon contemplation or
thinking or anything like that.
One of the pitfalls, I said, of this
particular stage is witnessing of the hafikal and
possible neglect of the sharia, which means, as
I mentioned earlier,
the reality is God is in charge of
everything.
And they might say to themselves, well if
God's in charge of everything then, you know,
what's the point? Maybe I can not do
certain things because God is in charge of
them. And so they may get lax with
certain ritualistic
practices.
So they said that's one of the pitfalls
of this.
Their veils will be veils of light.
Right? So there's a higher place than this,
but it's not gonna be something they're gonna
be precluded from by their
sins. But it's something they have the ability,
possibly,
to get beyond, but it's a veil of
light.
They're still in a good place, but there
could be a better place.
And then Fana
is one of the the first fana, they
say, is one of the,
hallmarks of this soul, namely that it begins
to become less concerned with itself
and its
attributes
start to
become subsumed into the divine attributes.
So it's no longer about I'm doing this
and I'm doing that,
but you start saying,
God allowed me to do this and he
allowed me to do that and he gave
me the ability to do this. So switching
from this sort of very self centered
way of life to something that is more,
I would say, divinely centered or god centered.
Nasrul Mutma'inna,
the serene soul,
has all of the things that this previous
soul had but it can do it more
consistently.
It's more of in a state of constant
remembrance. In other words,
this is a soul that there's not a
moment of the day that goes by except
it's in tune and reconciled with the cosmic
order and with God.
It doesn't have,
you know, lapses
during the day or during the night where
it kind of just forgets about itself
like the approachable soul would have.
Instead of khabdanbas, it's something called unsenheba.
Right? So it's not constriction
and expansion, but it's more like,
feeling of intimacy with God and heba feeling
being in awe
of God.
So it kind of oscillates between those two
things.
So when we see the sifat al jama'a,
the attributes of beauty like mercy and love
and compassion from God, then we feel this
intimacy with God, things that happen in our
life,
And then when we see things that are
awe inspiring, we see qahr.
We see
compulsion.
We see things of, of a massive scale,
maybe even of disaster.
We think of heba. This is awe inspiring.
It's a reminder.
And it's not an objection.
It's not an atirad. Right? It's not objecting
to divine decree, but it's being in awe
of it.
Reliance, consistent gratitude.
Such people only speak when it's necessary and
beneficial. They don't speak for their own volition
because they want something,
but rather they think they can help someone
else.
The knowledge that they speak will be something
called the ilm alwabi,
inspired knowledge. Something that God puts in their
heart directly because now they're more in contact
with who they really are. As we said,
alrukh wasir.
And this type of person is qualified then
to be in a position of spiritual leadership
and mentorship
to actually help others, not to be self
serving,
but to be serving others in the truest
sense.
Nafsul Radia,
which is the 5th one, the contented soul,
it means it's contented with a divine decree.
Right? Radia.
Doesn't have any objection to anything. It greets
it with gratitude.
You might even say that
forbearance and patience and sabr is not appropriate
for this particular soul because patience means you
taste the bitterness in the things that's happening
to you. You kinda don't like it. So
be patient with it. But this particular soul,
is beyond that. It's gotten to the point
where, well, it's coming from God. Why should
it be bitter? I should be content with
it rather than be bitter about it.
This is at the point where the fanet
gets into its higher realm and then annihilation
of base human attributes.
So greed, envy, jealousy, all those things really
not applicable.
Most people when I start talking about stuff
like this, they're like, where's that? Who are
you talking about?
How could such people, you know, arrive to
such a thing? And I think
one of the things of the of, you
know, we've been accustomed to
is we've seen the the first and second
souls all time, even within ourselves.
And probably I would say,
you know, modern
psychology has put a lot of focus on
nafs alamara besu or nafs al lawema.
Right? You know, the soul that's insightful and
the soul that has whisperings and misgivings and,
but
you know, where's the research on? Can people
actually be like that? And,
just speaking from personal experience, I've I've seen
it. I've been with people like that. You
know? And I know that they can exist.
And it's hard to fathom and imagine sometimes
because we don't see it that often,
but people can you know, what we're describing
here is someone who is who is saintly,
who's like a saint, who actually
doesn't mean they don't make any mistakes,
but it means
that
via, you know, divine providence, they're able to
ascend to a place where
all of the things that affect the rest
of us all the time, just not things
for them.
They still have difficulties in their lives and
they still may have to pay their mortgage
and their auto insurance and all those things.
They don't necessarily live in a cave
in Nepal somewhere.
They could be amongst us,
but
internally,
right, they have this special thing about them
and and and most of the time they're
actually hidden from people. You can't actually discern
them and and see who they are.
You know the prophet
he one time he, there was a man
who walked by
and he mentioned to the other companions with
him that this person is a man of
paradise.
And they were like, we don't say anything
special about him. He's not doing anything in
a religious sense. He doesn't fast or pray
more than us. So one of them said
I'm gonna go accompany him.
He asked. I said, can I spend, like,
just 24 hours with you a day and
night? I just wanna hang out with you.
I was like, okay.
So he did that.
And at the end of the 24 hours,
he said, you know, I didn't really see
anything to do, anything special
that the rest of us, you know, are
not doing. And the prophet said about you
that you're from paradise. I don't understand. Why
is that?
He said, I don't know, but when I
go to sleep, I feel,
no objection and no harm or hatred for
anyone on the face of the planet.
It's called.
I feel peaceful at my heart and reconcile
with everybody else.
He said that's the secret.
Right? There's no internal
rancor.
Right? There's no internal conflict
with anybody else. People may still do things
to you and say things to you, but
it doesn't
cause an internal conflict.
So even though we mentioned earlier
that external influences in large part play a
big role in mental and spiritual wellness.
But for the person who is balanced,
the external factors don't affect them as much.
Right? What I what I guess what they
call today coping mechanism.
So
from the from the Muslim perspective, the best
coping mechanism is to actually just be the
human being you're meant to be. And it's
not about eliminating all of the external things.
You can't do
that. But what you can do is
work on how it affects you, what it
does to you.
And then the last 2, the nafsul maldiyyah
and,
nafsul kamila. There's not much we can say
about it except theoretically.
And, and basically
these are people who have been given divine
secrets
and they're not actually living amongst us in
the sense that they're living the way we
live.
Their mind, their body,
their heart is, is in the other realm.
But it appears that they're amongst us, you
know, and certainly
the last one, and Nafsu Kamina, the best
representative of that is the prophet Muhammad
So even though he was
amongst people, he really wasn't amongst them.
Right? He was with people. He really wasn't
with them. He was with Allah.
And someone who who has that attribute then
they said can
take on the khilafa and Muhammadiyah.
Right? The
the stewardship of of
of Muhammad
which means to be
someone who
is representative of that Muhammadan
reality
and be that for other people. And those,
that's the rare person obviously can do that,
but,
the people who were around the prophet Muhammad
who were amongst him,
they were that.
And every generation is gonna have some of
these people. If we did not have them,
then it'd be very difficult to continue the
practice of religion as we know it.
But that's kind of the divine promise that
we're always going to be taken care of
in that sense.
So that's the end of, the first,
presentation.
Just to give you kind of
a taste of a different way of looking
at things. In my next session
I'm actually going to look at,
2 different perspectives of how to
treat or how to maintain spiritual and,
wellness.
1 from what's called the Hakim
tradition,
and one from the tradition of Tissova for
Sufism.
We're looking at that.