Does the Quran or Sunnah Explain The Concept of Deja Vu? – Ask Shaykh YQ #223

Brother Rahim from Pakistan emails and he says that if you look, he asks that looking at the Quran and Sunnah. Is there something that we call deja vu? That does the Quran or sooner tell us that we might have an explanation of why we feel that we've met somebody before, or why we feel we might have been somewhere even though it might be the first time that we are there. One

COVID, Nika regionalen know hey, he lay him first

rickety.

Now, this is a definitely not one of the standard questions that I choose to answer. I like to do some variety. And so today I thought I'd begin with something slightly atypical. Firstly, for those who don't know what deja vu is, it is the feeling the the the premonition, if you like, the notion that when we meet somebody, for the first time, we kind of feel I know this guy from before, even though we haven't met this the first time, or that you're in a particular location, or you're doing something, and it is your first time. But you feel that I've been here before, or, you know, I've done this before, even though from your own life, it is the first time that it is that is occurring.

Now, this topic, of course, from a I'm not going to discuss it from a psychiatric perspective, that's not my forte or area of expertise. And I'm no psychiatrist. But of course, I mean, from the perspective of psychiatrists, and of

people who are dealing with memory and whatnot. This is a well known, observable phenomenon that has actually been documented in cultures across the world. It's not something that is unique to our culture at any one culture, it is a phenomenon that is documented that people feel, you know, across the world that it is something that is well known, you find this in the books as well of ancient history that people sometimes felt something of this nature. And psychiatrists have their ways in theories. And from what I've read, I'm not an expert, from what I've read, those of them who, you know, obviously, they don't believe in souls and whatnot. So those who are trying to explain this

phenomenon from a purely non spiritual perspective, they feel that one of the theories of deja vu is that when you're in a particular location, when you meet somebody, that it triggers a memory that is unrelated. So you meet Mr. X, and something about Mr. X Association occurs in your mind with Mr. Y that you have met. And you assume that that Mr. Y was actually Mr. X. So your memory makes a false linkage. This is one theory of psychiatrists, right. So they say that there's a triggered memory. And then a memory is constructed, even though it is not exactly the same. So for example, you walk into a room, you've never been there, but you were in a room that was somewhat similar before. And

so you think that it is the same room, and then your memory might even make you believe, because your memories can be implanted or your memories can be mistaken. And this is again, very well known. And so that's one one of the ways that psychiatry is talked about deja vu. Also, there is the notion as well that some have said that this is the brain's mechanism for how to make decisions. It's a tactic that the brain uses. In any case, we are not interested in the psychiatry I just did this FYI. You asked me about the Quran, and sooner you asked me, is there some notion in the Hadith or whatnot, and the response in a simplistic manner is that nothing explicit exists, nothing explicit

exists. Nonetheless, there is there are extrapolations that we can if we wanted to, perhaps reading something, so we're not going to affirm this concept of deja vu from the Quran and Sunnah. At the same time, there might be indirect references, so neither can we negate. And as for those indirect references, so it goes back to the notion of the soul, it goes back to the concept of the rule and what the rule does. And Allah subhana wa Taala mentions in the Quran that they ask you about the rule, you don't have any knowledge about the rule, except a very, very small amount of knowledge or multi term, the enemy Illa Allah, The rule is, of course, what really gives us life. It's not our

physical body. The rule, when it comes into us died is what gives us life. And when the rule leaves the body, then the body falls down as a corpse. This rule is not attached completely to our bodies. It was before our existence in another existence and an alternative existence. It was in an existence that we don't have a conscious memory of. And when, when we came into this earth, when we were in the

have our mothers, the angel came and blew our room into this world. And so our birth occurred before our physical birth, our spiritual birth occurred in the wombs of our mothers and then our physical birth, and then we have an entire life and even in this life, our room separate from the body in our sleep. And Allah says in the Quran, Allah here too often unforeseen mot hap one Letty Lampton with FIM Anamika, Allah takes the souls of those who die, and those who go to sleep, literally Allah takes the souls and then Allah azza wa jal returns the souls of those who are sleeping for another day, every single night, our soul leaves the body, and it goes to another realm. And what it does in

that realm, and who it meets in that realm is not something that our physical body is conscious of when we wake up, we might have glimmers or we might have imbedded memories, you see where I'm heading with this, we might have imbedded subconscious memories that we are not cognizant of, if we try to think about them, we cannot think about them. There is a linkage between this world and the world of our souls, because the souls go, and if something happens in this world, it does affect our souls during the dream, we know this, for from our own lives, that if there's a loud noise, or if somebody is knocking on the door, our dreams, dream of that noise. And so there is some linkage, but

it is not a link is that we control. And therefore great scholars, like even hasm actually talks about the possibility of souls having met in the previous life before they came into this world. And then when those bodies meet in this world, the souls recognize each other even though the bodies are meeting for the first time. And so I've been hasn't posits a theory that in fact, perhaps Now, of course, he didn't use the word deja vu obviously is a French word. But he's talking about this notion of Oh, I'm sure I've met you before, but we haven't met her this notion of familiarity. And it's very interesting that our Prophet sallallahu Sallam actually has a hadith that is, perhaps can

also be used here, the famous Hadith when in which you said, or wha hoo, Jew don't majan Neda, that souls are like lines of

military personnel lined up, I either blocks together, that those souls that recognize one another, they are friendly, and those souls that don't they are not friendly. So it is as if the Prophet sallallahu wasallam is saying that souls have the tendency to also agree, how could the souls agree? If the hasm says that in the world before this world, when we were not yet born spiritually, we our our room was created in a different dimension, if you like or call it what you will paradigm, whatever word you want to use, I will rule was created before our bodies. And since the time of Adam, it has set up our souls have been in some existence, and they intermingle with the other

souls, then they come into this world and even hasn't posits that in that intermingling, perhaps friendships were formed, perhaps souls recognize one another, then when they see each other in this world, they find a bond and the connection, even though they might have met for two minutes, but they feel a friendship as if it was a friendship for 20 years. And there are those who are physically together for 20 years, and there is no friendship between them. Right. So the reality is that you asked a very interesting question, I thought I'd just throw it out there, that there is the possibility of some basis of this feeling of familiarity, because in the end of the day, the soul

goes and wanders during the time of sleep, and where it wanders and how it wanders and what sights it sees, we do not know and the soul meets other souls during the sleep as well. So to be clear, there are two timeframes that potentially might embed memories in our subconscious soul that will then be reflected in the lives that we live, the first timeframe before we came into this world, and that was before our mothers gave birth to us before conception, our souls were in a different you know, dimension or different universe or whatever you want to call it. And in that dimension or universe, they were only the souls of all of the other created human beings that Allah created. When

Allah created Adam, Allah extracted all of the souls of the children of Adam till the Day of Judgment, that is one time possibility, the second is on a daily basis or a nightly basis or, you know, whatever time you go to sleep siesta basis, right? Every time we go to sleep, the soul leaves our body, and in that leaving of the body, where it goes, who it needs. What it does, is not something that our conscious memory, we literally live by the way we literally live two different types of life simultaneously. There is the life of the soul.

That it is living when it whenever we go to sleep. And then there is the life of the body that we are now conscious of these two lives are pretty much semi independent. But perhaps perhaps once in a while there is an overlap. And that overlap occurs when we have righteous dreams. That overlap occurs when Allah subhanho wa Taala blesses us with the dream that we remember and we recognize and sometimes we can meet those relatives that have passed on. And perhaps we might even meet other souls that are in the same dimension as that soul there, perhaps the soul can go to places that we might recognize when we go in our wakeful state in the end of the day. The reality is that this

question cannot be answered definitively. At the same time. It is an interesting theory. And then we conclude on a more somber note in that whether deja vu exists or not, it doesn't change the reality of any aspect of our lives. We don't base any decision on it. We don't make any ruling based upon this. And so it is just an interesting tidbit of one of those trivia questions that, you know, we can discuss and perhaps have some theories, but it doesn't really impact our daily routine. Allahu Tada, Adam.

Shangri La

he can