Why does Empiricism not work?! Those ” facts” which are supposed to provide such a solid foundation on which to judge reality, are preselected and post-interpreted.Those two.processes completely undermine the objectivity.We are better of with subtle feelings like ” seeing” and intuition if we learn how to use them properly.Stated simply “objectivity” is subjective and “subjectivity” is the Royal Road to Reality! Put that in your pipe and smoke it but please don’t add THC to the mix( another distorting substance lol)
Category Archives: Modern Living
“Respect” A much overused and abused term!
In our “Progressive, Woke” world there are a number of tired ideas that keep getting used and abused. Terms like “Be reasonable”(which usually means “agree with me” lol) ; ‘Take your time”( which usually means I’m not really into it .Let’s procrastinate together” lol) and for our purposes today” Be respectful”(which usually means “do it my way”).Of course there is a lot of hypocrisy involved but most people talking that way don’t realize it. They are unaware, unconscious.
One of the places like to start these discussions is with scriptural sources. So the Buddhists talk about “compassion”. The Christians say “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.And the Muslims say” honour man because he is a creation of God”.None of these are even remotely related to the modernist notions of respect.
Let us look at them one by one. “Compassion” is definitely part of all religious traditions. But it is not at all the same as “respect’ for others- regardless of their behaviour or ideas. In fact, for Buddhists the cardinal sin is “ignorance”. So putting up with the foolishness of people would be promoting sinfulness! For Christians “Doing unto others” is not equivalent to modernist “respect”. Would you like others to tell you you are right when you are not?! Would like others to tell you that you are right when you are doing the wrong thing? I don’t think so. I certainly wouldn’t? No. In fact, it is Christian and Buddhist and Islamic to push back and call out each other when we are on the wrong path. For Muslims honoring mankind does not mean not confronting them with their false ideas and bad b behaviour. In Islam we have the principle of “Amr Bil Maruf wa Nehi al Munkar”( Enjoin the good and discourage evil) No political correctness there!
One of the great saints of Islam, founder of the Shafii madhdhab Imam Ash Shafii was once asked how he had attained such good character. He replied : “Every time I was criticized , by friend or foe alike, I looked within to see if the criticism had any validity, and if it was so, I did my best to correct it” Now, none of this could have occurred if he was only surrounded by adabist students lol
So lets look at how this plays out in various scenarios
- The parental role.
Parents are now reluctant to challenge and train their children. Out of “respect”. So the children become disrespectful! No surprises there. You can see it any time you go out in public! I even saw a 3-4 year-old probably Bangladeshi child chewing out his parents in an Indian restaurant! Horror of horrors. And the parents said nothing! One of my clients, in my last years as a psychiatrist, was a school teacher. She was complaining about how disrespectful her high-school students were, In their school the children were allowed to swear at the teachers! Only when it became physically violent were there consequences! I then asked her: “How many times in their 11 years of public school education, have they been told to respect their elders. Crickets The answer is zilch! Respecting the elders is old school. Not the new school of transgender and equality and self(i.e. ego) expression!
2) The respect for authority! If there was any of that left before ,the Covid Pandemic has wiped it out. We were lied to over and over again-about early treatment with Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, about the safety of the vaccines, about the origins of the virus etc.,etc. And every day on the news Trump and his coterie are telling us how good the economy is when people know it aint. The American Academy of Pediatrics are telling us that the vaccine mandate is harmless where there are many credible studies to show us they are harmful. 5G installations are being protected while many people are being made sick and there is evidence that the RFs emitted are carcinogenic. And no one ,but no one, wants to study electrical cars health effects because of the potential economic impacts. So to be respectful of contemporary authorities is simply self-injurious!
3) The Sociology of Respect.
I was raised in an Ashkenazi Jewish family. We were taught to be forthright and honest. Americans and Italians I believe are similar .But during my life’s journey I cam in touch with what I call the “adabist” ( “adab” is the Arabic word for polite behaviour) cultures-the British and ,the Arabs ! (I believe the Japanese are similar).They believe in courtesy, politeness and good behaviour -at least outwardly. I was married to a British woman for a long time and have covorted with the Arabs throughout my long history as a Muslim. Through that experience, I have come to appreciate some of the wisdom in that approach. We shouldn’t go around speaking the Truth to people when it is hurtful and unlikely to change anything meaningful in the other.
On the other hand I have seen the hypocrisy and mischief that lies beneath the surface. Even some of the Sufis have fallen for this distortion of the Truth- making “adab” the center of the path. No,no and no! Truth-seeking is the centre of the path-not courteous behaviour! One of the worst cases of this phenomenon was a muqaddam of our sheikh who would go visit him him and say things like; “I am not even worthy of the dust at my teachers feet” and 5 mins. later I would find him doing exactly the opposite of what his sheikh told him. That is how bad it can get when you are an adherent to “adabist” culture!
The irony to be noted here is that the most “adabist” cultures( The British ,the Arabs and the Japanese) have been guilty of some of the most violence to others. A recent posting indicated that the British Empire killed more people than either Hitler or Stalin or Mao. I was surprised myself. Then again it lasted a lot longer than the others! The Arabs have been unfortunately involved in much of the terrorism of modern times and the Japanese were abysmally cruel during the Second World War. So if anyone thinks that politeness is the cure-all think again!
A British example. I had a long-time friend with whom we crossed paths on the Sufi way many times. One time I was in England where he lived .I had written to him a couple of times before coming so he could free up his schedule for a meeting. When he eventually found time in his all-too-busy schedule to meet with me ,at my mother-in-laws house in north London ,he stayed for all of 10 mins. My mother-in-law, surely one of the “adabists” extolled his politeness and courtesy. But I was furious at his lack of consideration.. I came from 5,000 miles and all he could afford was 10 mins, And especially since we had so much in common, so much to learn actually from each other .But that is the culture of politeness! Rigid, ritualistic, unaware of appropriateness to context.
4) The psychoananlytic angle. The psychoanalysts and Gestalt psychologists were very aware of this issue! They know clearly about the tricks of the nafs ( ego).And one of the tricks is the “yes, but” responses. “Yes, I agree with you but…” The psychoanalysts refer to this as “On the Other Hand” responses. So Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt Therapy and one of the most astute clinicians used to say; “When there is ‘but’ in a response, it erases everything that comes before it.” The response sounds “respectful” ,but actually it is undermining the Truth in the original statement. The Freudians warned us that if we made an interpretation and the client responded with “On the Other Hand” this represented a form of resistance. They were actually trying to disempower the interpretation!
Conclusions: So how do we go forward? People who are aware of my thinking know that I am against “all or none” responses! We can’t throw “respect” overboard completely, nor can we deny truth in the name of not hurting peoples’ feelings. So we need to find a middle way! At the same time we have to be conscious of priorities! The ultimate respect needs to be not for peoples sensitivities but rather respect for the Truth(which is another name for God. “Haqq” in Arabic. Anything less will lead us down the wrong path-to more misery and suffering. So learn the art of the gentle but firm pushback. That is what I am practicing and likewise teaching my students to do the same .God be with you! Sufi Ibrahim
AI vs. Human Intelligence
AI is already superior to the intelligence of most human beings! Why is that?! It is NOT that AI is programmable. Humans are also programmed! But their programming is MORE rigid! When you take into account their genetic programming, their ethnic/national programming, their professional programming and the programming by their immediate environment, you can account for at least 95% of their speech and behaviour! AI is more flexible!
So what does this mean for us?! It is incumbent on the human being, for both his human and spiritual development, to become aware of his programming and to begin to correct the negative aspects. This is no quick or easy matter! I have been at it for 50 years myself! From the first time my girlfriend told me I was a “positivist ( my scientific programming).This work is never completely finished. Some of our conditioning always remains but this is the true sense of the Sufi term ‘jihad-a -nafs ‘( the war with the ego). Most people don’t even get started! Time to get going!
Stock Market Speculation-The New Religion
Stock Market Speculation-A Modern Religion!
Yes, a religion! Why do I say that? Because whenever you challenge it, people get really upset! Either they block you, stop talking to you or accuse you of arrogance. I even had one woman call me “crazy” which was , in fact, an honour because that is exactly what they called the Prophets of old, Peace be upon them all, whenever they revealed the Truth.
So all around us we can see the rituals of this religion. Checking the figures at night and at the beginning of the day, all the main news stations covering the ups and downs of the Dow-Jones and the Nasdaq, special TV shows and even whole stations devoted to the financial markets, people with their own 401 k’s (in the U.S.A.) and RRSPs in Canada. Trump going up and down with the waves. People jumping up and down when the figures go up like Evangelicals at a Church meeting and pulling their hair out when it goes into bear market and a crash seems imminent. This is the modern world. Finances rein supreme! .Even wars, like that in Iran, seem to be mostly about fuel prices. This is the modern world-in all its craziness!
In fact this religion is the love of wealth, something all our religious teachers from the Buddha to the Prophet Mohammed saws have warned us about . But who needs religion when greed is the driving force lol?!
Personal experience: Personally, I have not had a lot of experience in this area. The one time I got involved was just before the crash of 2008 where I lost about 20% of my RRSPs. And no, that is NOT why I am writing this article. I am fully aware, as all my investor friend enthusiasts like to remind me, that the market has done well since! And I am able to separate myself from my personal losses and have been doing that work (we call it “jihad-a-nafs” in Sufism) for a long time.
I also have two brothers who have been MBA professional portfolio managers, both of them heavily involved in investments for decades for large investment firms! Both have become increasingly disillusioned with this type of activity. One of them left a large Canadian bank and has largely been involved in property development since (definitely a lot more socially productive then betting on the future value of a company share!). He left saying “this is simply sophisticated gambling” I couldn’t agree more! The other brother left a six-figure job in a large investment firm and has downsized considerably since them. Neither of them have an elevated view of their profession! Then again I am not much impressed by doctors these days lol.At least the profession is potentially helpful-if you can stay away from the drug company propaganda which most can’t as it has permeated the entire profession!
The triggering event:
I have had my suspicions for years about this kind of activity but never really looked into it in depth. Then I ran into a blog called “New Polity” And three individuals, young, smart, well-informed and most importantly conscienciously Christian and I found what I was looking for. By contrast when I looked up books on Amazon I could not find a single one that was critical of this kind of speculation. All the books were about how to make more money on the stock market! Surprise , surprise lol!
The three people involved in the discussion were a former Wall Street banker, William Bednarz and two podcasters , Marc Barnes and Jacob Imam. And this podcast contained more truth (all of which I had intuitively felt) than anything I had seen previously. So here are the bullet points of their discussion!
: The first company to sell shares on the market was the Dutch East India Company in 1602! The American Stock exchange was founded in 1792 with the Buttonwood Agreement
: Before that all through the Middle Ages and before, there was no distinction between a shareholder and a partner i.e. every person involved in the company had to participate in it’s management, it’s decision-making and its work . I call that “Real Investment”..
:in the United States 10% of the wealthiest people own 93% of the stock market! The lower 50% own 1%! i.e the stock market is contributing seriously to the disparity in wealth. As say the Marxists and others: ”The Rich get richer and the poor get poorer”!
Some notable quotes:
Charles Dickens:
Share ownership is perverse and is used to oppress everyone beneath them
:A Papal encyclical( Jean-Paul II
“The ownership of the means of production becomes illegitimate when it is not utilized or when it starts to impede the work of others in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society (i.e. when it does not increase social productivity”)
P.S. It must be said here that the Catholics are ahead of the game in their concerns. Two popes have written encyclicals about the sub ect and it seems that the current pope is working on one himself.
Meanwhile the Muslims and Jews and other Christians believe that the only important thing is not to invest in companies that are producing sinful material like gambling and pornography and alcohol for Muslims. What a narrow, superficial view of things! :
:In a study done by the National Bureau of Economics, it was found that between 1989-2017 the stock market value increased by 100% while the GDP increased by only 25% and part of that 25% was in financial activity! –by definition non-productive!
So what does that mean! That the stock market is in no ways a reflection of the actual activity and buying stocks is a speculative adventure that in no way benefits anyone outside of the investor.
: Given that the stock market value increases make more money available, by definition this investment increases inflation with all the negative downsides of that reality!
:Second quote from the Pope! 1986 “Merchants who desire scarcity and rising prices cannot bear to to be the only ones buying and selling so they encourage others to do so, in order to sell more dearly and buy more cheaply”
Christian fundamentalist view: Not to be easily dismissed! Any superfluous wealth we have belongs to the poor.-not to be used to make thr rich richer but to be used to help society .In Islam we have 2.5% zakat which is a minimalist requirement. The Christians had the “Dime” which was 10% But actually from a moral point of view the entire amount should be put to good use . An example of that may be the philanthropic activities of people like the Rockefellers and the Melons and more recently Bill Gates and Warren Buffet although in many of these cases the philanthropy ended up being self-serving and ideological. At least they started on the right foot lol
: Most insightful thoughtful people( including my brothers lol ) have seen through the justification of these investments as “efficient allocation of resources” as they teach in MBA schools across the country. That ranks up there with vaccines being”safe and effective” i.e more B.S. from the sold-out intellectual class!
The Buddhist Contribution. The Buddha taught the eight-fold path and one of those principles was “Right Vocation”. This is how it is defined: In Buddhism, a “right vocation” or career is known as Right Livelihood (Sammā Ājīva). It is the fifth part of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. It means earning your living in a peaceful and honest way without causing harm, cheating, or bringing suffering to other living beings.
I would add in here, that the activity needs to be socially productive . We could also add the Christian idea that “You shall gain they daily bread through the sweat of thy brow” i.e you should work for your money-not simply buy an investment product and wait for it to grow. That can legitimately be called “profiteering”. So if we are going to do a serious deep dive here, we would have to look for intentionality. No-one should have any doubts here! The intentionality is making profit-not contribuating to the social good,
What is “Kosher investing then?
Since most people are not willing to simply give all their superfluous wealth to the poor, what remains as ethical investments. I see three avenues
!0 Real investments like in the good olde days! One begins a project or an organization that contribute to the social good. The bloggers called these “societas”-groups of people working together to build something useful! One invests one’s time and effort and money into this project or company. And one participates in the day-to-day management. Ironically, some may think, this is how Elon Musk and Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg got to be billionaires-not by investing in other company’s shares and waiting to reap the rewards but by developing their own products! What they do with their money afterwards is another matter!
2) Property development– buying land or real estate and using it productively. Both of my last two spiritual teachers Sheikh Nazim and Sheik Abu-Qassim were into that. The former bought olive groves and the latter bought land to develop into date farms!
3) Sheikh Nazim, being an Ottoman at heart, liked the idea of buying gold lol. Gold used to be the standard currency before the American dollar took over.
Much, much more to say like about the doubly corrupting effect of bitcoin investment which adds the dubiousness of crypto to its non-productivity socially but let’s leave it there for now!
Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim
The Two-Legged Tripod – Where is the Ikhlas
The Two-legged Tripod of Current Islamic Practice
Umar ibn al-Khattab reported: We were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, one day, a man appeared with very white clothes and very black hair. There were no signs of travel on him and we did not recognize him. He sat in front of the Prophet, rested his knees by his knees, and placed his hands on his thighs. The man said, “O Muhammad, tell me about Islam.” The Prophet said, “Islam is to testify there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, to establish prayer, to give charity, to fast the month of Ramadan, and to perform pilgrimage to the House if a way is possible.” The man said, “You have spoken truthfully.” We were surprised that he asked him and said he was truthful. He said, “Tell me about faith.” The Prophet said, “Faith is to believe in Allah, His angels, His Books, His Messengers, the Last Day, and to believe in providence, its good and its harm.” The man said, “You have spoken truthfully. Tell me about excellence.” The Prophet said, “Excellence is to worship Allah as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He surely sees you.”
I feel like, without pretension inshallah, I have become the conscience of our religion?! At least to me and a few people near to me. That is NOT because of superior knowledge or piety. Many of my co-religionists have more of both of these! But rather because I am a convert and am able to see things from numerous perspectives. Having been through secular Judaism, left-wing politics and Marxism, Humanistic Psychology, Buddhism, New Age Sufism and finally traditional Islamic Sufism I have experienced the world from numerous perspectives. On the other hand, most Muslims have lived their entire lives in an ethnic echo-chamber. Even when they immigrate to a Western country they resist the local wisdoms in favour of their cultural platitudes! So I can see more than most!
Therefore, when I go to the Muslim venues including the holy sites of Mecca and Madina and the grand mosques of Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Turkey, as well as local mosques, I have noticed the following phenomena-relating back to the cited hadith
1-The Iman is good-almost everywhere in the Islamic world and even in the West! The mosques are full for jumaa prayer, overfilled for the Eid and well-attended at Tarawih during Ramadan. This tells me that the faith is there! By contrast, at the churches, including the one where we do our group dhikr(another issue to be explained further on) the pews are empty. Some of the Evangelical Churches may well be better attended but that remains the exception in the Christian world!
2- Islam, i.e the outward practices. Most of the Muslims I meet are trying to keep up the outer practices-doing the obligatory ones and avoiding the prohibited things. Most Muslims do not gamble, do not drink alcohol or eat pork. Most Muslims avoid fornication and adultery even though the modern world prevents them from having second wives and concubines- like in the days of the Prophets. Verdict: Islam, the behavioural component, is well -respected.
3-Ihsan?! I look around the mosques at jumaa prayer and rarely do I see people of light?! The same was shockingly true in Mecca when I did hajj many years ago. I kept walking around the Kabaa looking for people of light. The site was luminous but the people were not! Finally I ran into a group where it was manifest! They were a group of Bangladeshi Naqshbandi Sufis. I found a similar small group in Madina not far from the Prophet’s mosque! But overall the people were in a pitiful spiritual state. The maqamat (the holy sites) were luminous but the people were not!
Interestingly enough, John Bennett tells the same story about the great Indian saint Shivapuri Baba who visited Mecca in the 1890’s! He made the following statement which concurs with my own observations” The pilgrims at Mecca are inspired with true religious fervour (strong Iman) but I do not find myself attracted to Islam as it is today”. This was before the end of the Ottoman empire when the Wahhabbis had not yet done the damage that they eventually did to the spirituality of Islam. I guess he did not have the occasion to meet some real Sufis! I believe he would then have felt their camaraderie(like-mindedness) with his own aspirations!
The Causes: How did we get here?! This is, no doubt, a complex question! Our Prophet saws had warned that each generation after him would be worse than that before. Nevertheless, there have been great Sufis throughout the ages from Abu Bayazid Bistami to Abdul Qadr Jilani, Ibn Arabi and Jellalludin Rumi.and Abu Hassan Ash-Shadhili-all many generations after him saws..I think it is safe to say that they all had a high degree of Ihsan! So what happened?!
Did the corruption of the Ottoman empire have something to do with it? Or the wealth in the Muslim countries that our Prophet saws feared so much? All of that is possible.
1-But the one unavoidable factor is the rising up of Wahhabbism/Salafism that started in earnest after the defeat of the Ottomans in WW1.By 1925 they had taken over the holy sites and began imposing their dry, lifeless, despiritualized version of Islam throughout the Muslim world-via their petrodollars.
Nowadays, even when you go to far away outposts of Islam like Trinidad where I spent some time, you find people who know nothing about Sufism and retain a negative image of it! They have lost the essential tool for developing Ihsan! I consider Wahhabism as the extension of the Khawarij heresy into the modern world. It appears that the great scholar of Islam- Tahir al Qudri- agrees with me on that one.
2- The second obstacle, a descendant I believe of the Mutazili heresy are the movements like Ikhwan Muslimeen. Like the Mutazilis, even though they are not often recognized as such, they emphasize reason beyond anything else As Joshua Philipp, of Epoch Times, pointed out in his astute reporting on the Islamic Brotherhood, Sayeed Qutb studied social sciences in the U.S. and then brought Marxist thought into the Islamic paradigm. ( Quite an achievement of understanding for a non-Muslim!) From there, we start hearing more and more about political Islam -the very type of Islam so popular in the modern world that my sheikh-Sheikh Nazim denounced every time he met them!” You do not understand our religion” he would say! “People get the governments they deserve .You cannot impose Islamic governments from above”. What insight that man r.a. had!
3- A third source is the modern world-full of Materialism, Empiricism and Rationalism. The scientific paradigm, economic planning and all other types of over-planning and overthinking. When we consider this “toxic soup” of Wahhabism, Ikhwanism and Scientific Materialism , we should not be surprised that the Islamic world is in such a pitiful state spiritually!
The Consequences : I will make a bold statement here! I would state that almost all the problems in the contemporary Muslim world and yes that includes Palestine and Iran and Lebanon etc.,etc. come from this loss of Ihsan (P.S. I will be writing a future article on the Causal Nexus as most Muslims have bought into the logical version of causality rather than the moral one.) What we find is a lack of subtlety, a lack of refinement, a lack of empathy and a lack of the true sense of the sacred. It is like we have a body without blood and without breath. Emptiness and Deadness. Men addicted to porn sites. Hijabi women walking the streets of Western cities looking miserable and bitter. Parents who do not understand their children and marry their daughters to the first rich man they can find( Yes,it’s still happening!) Dissatisfaction everywhere!
The Solutions:
So what are the answers?
Bring back the Sufis! They contain the lifeblood of the religion. Bring back the group dhikr and the Samaa and the Hadrat. Bring back the private dhikr with the name of Allah. Push back on the critics of Sufism-whether they be Wahhabbis or Ikhwanis or Orientalists. What we see instead is the glorification of scholarship! Scholarship has its place, no doubt. But it is not the highest nor the deepest part of the religion. We can learn our Shariah from them , how to recite Quran with proper tajweed, how to do wudhu and ghusl. But mostly they are cerebral people with limited hal-for those who can perceive hal in their souls.
The real Sufis, however, are glowing and energetically powerful. The first one I met, in Jerusalem, put me into the hal of fana immediately and the second one had me in a state of ecstasy that made it difficult to find myself in the streets of Philadelphia-the city he was residing in at the time. These are the people of God! These are the carriers of the most intense forms of Ihsan. These are the people we need to align with. Not the people who have memorized the most Islamic ilm. These are the people who can revive the nation. The others are more like University professors and less like true awliya of Allah. May Allah fortify and invigorate our Ihsan.
Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim
The One Body metaphor
The Metaphor of the Umat as one body!
Narrator: An-Nu’man bin Bashir (RA).
- Sources: Found in Sahih al-Bukhari (6011) and Sahih Muslim (2586).
- Arabic Text: مَثَلُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي تَوَادِّهِمْ وَتَرَاحُمِهِمْ وَتَعَاطُفِهِمْ مَثَلُ الْجَسَدِ إِذَا اشْتَكَى مِنْهُ عُضْوٌ تَدَاعَى لَهُ سَائِرُ الْجَسَدِ بِالسَّهَرِ وَالْحُمَّى
- Translation: “The likeness of the believers in their mutual love, mercy, and compassion is that of a single body; when one limb suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever”.
Since the recent events in Gaza this metaphor has come up over and over again. When I would criticize the policies and actions of the Palestinian leadership, as often did my Sheikh-Sheikh Nazim-I would be reproached on numerous occasions: ”Don’t you have any empathy for their pain?” Of course I do- like any normal human being would have. But that was not satisfactory. I would have to display my loyalty by blaming Israel and America and never putting into question what the so-called Muslims in Palestine were doing!
My own Sheikh-Sheikh Nazim- would regularly criticize their behaviour. I recently saw a video of him being asked about it shortly before his death- in a weakened state” What they are doing I am not understanding” he would say. ”This is not the way of our Prophet saws nor is it Islamic war. I don’t know what to call it” Then he hesitated.. ”It must be …..corruption” he said. And he spoke the Truth.
Mohammed, our Prophet saws went, once he got to Madina, from victory to victory. And yet the Arabs in the Middle East have gone from defeat to defeat. Something must be wrong! But they are not reading the signs as we are instructed to do, over and over again in the Quran. The Muslims are acting from pride and vengeance not from wisdom-the true inheritance of the sunnat. Our Prophet saws never took on the Persian or Byzantine Empire in his time. He knew they were too strong. The Quran itself says explicitly not to take on enemies that were more than twice their size (8:66). So the Palestinians and Iranians take on Israel and the U.S.A -How much stronger are the latter-100 times or 1000 times. These wars are pure folly!
Now to expand the analogy from the hadith about feeling the injured limb. What do you do then?! Let’s, for arguments sake, say that you had a broken leg from a car accident. Now you have to use your intelligence to deal with it . Does it serve any purpose to blame the car, or the brake manufacturer or the other driver?! Useless . Get to an E.R. quickly and get the fracture set and a cast put over the injury. Instead, the Muslims are content to blame others and go even further. ”To avenge your broken leg, go kick the other driver’s car. That way you will get your vengeance” That is what is being recommended .Reinjure your leg in the name of Justice! What foolishness?!
2- Simultaneous in timing with the hadith about empathy are the exhortations in the Quran and hadith to unity. I see all kinds of well-meaning Muslims saying: ’We have to be united to gain strength.” United with whom and with what? In this body of the umat I see a cancer of Wahhabbism (see my previous article about Ihsan) and an autoimmune disease(call it Systemic Lupus if you wish lol) -the Shiism of the Ayatollahs. Are you asking me to unite with my cancer and my autoimmune disease?! No way! I want to detoxify them quickly and extirpate them from my body. Asking me to love them because they claim they are Muslim is anathema to me. My loyalty is to Truth not to tribe.
Let me add in one final but crucial note. Muslims including our scholars have a lot of difficulty with contextualization. Because we believe the Quran is for all time and all places, we forget to take into account what was actually happening at the time of the Revelation(“asbab al nuzul” it is called in Arabic).So when the Quran appeals for Unity, the Muslim nation was weak ,vulnerable, under what we now call “an existential threat”. At this time however, Islam is very strong and robust-no matter how the Muslims feel about it. There is NO actual threat to our religion! The real threat is from within! We are 2 billion strong! So what is needed is not unity-but cleansing! What use is unifying with disease and corruption?!
May Allah make us people of awareness and practicality-not purveyors of tribalism and bigotry. That is NOT what our religion is about!
Salaams , Sufi Ibrahim
“They really don’t care about us”!
Context: Michigan Church shooting. The real reason for all the shootings in the USA. Courtesy of Michael Jackson.”They really don’t care about us” !. With all the bureaucratic hurdles, with all the automation, with all the transhuman insensitivity, with the huge income disparities, with young men and women unable to find suitable partners and jobs it is very easy to understand why some individuals,more than we think, can realistically assume no-one really cares about them Hence the desperation!
The Adversarial Position
The Adversarial Approach-
The Great Hoax of Modern Times
One of the most commonly accepted truisms of Modern Times is that the way to the Truth is through the Adversarial Approach. So, on the legal front, you have the prosecution and the defense. In politics you have the Democrats and the Republicans or alternatively the left-wing and the right wing. Somehow through the confrontation of these opposites, one is supposed to be able top discern the Truth. This is a deep-seated error in Epistemology. In reality, instead of getting to Clarity and Truth, this approach leads to confusion and animosity. If you don’t understand what I mean, just look at what is happening in America currently. But like lots of consensually held illusions (think of the sun revolving around the Earth lol) they die hard. Partly because much of this conviction is Unconscious.
If you need a concrete example of this process watch the Senate hearings in the United States.These hearings were intended to seek clarity .But instead you have a bifurcation of expressed beliefs. The Democrats have one point of view and the Republicans have another. So what is being set up is a game-the game of who is the best debater. In the end everyone is a loser-especially the public that is just either more partisan or more confused after the event.
Another instance of this can be seen on the news networks. Just watched an interview by Dana Bash (left-leaning CNN) and a Republican senator. Each speaking over the other. Neither of them listening except as an occasion for a gotcha moment that can be played over and over again. The best part is at the end of the interview Dana, who by now has certainly built up a pile of animosity, states in an obviously hypocritical way.”and thanks for coming” Ya right. Now she can make a dartboard out of his picture to be able to release her frustrations when needed lol
There is a strange irony in this adversarial belief-system. We could call this belief, from a philosophical point of view , “Dialectics”. Dialectics claims that from the thesis-antithesis clash we get to synthesis on a higher level. But that is exactly what Marx and the Communists call their point of view. ”Dialectical Materialism”. So we are on the same plane-the plane of ignorance! Have you noticed that wonderful synthesis in China and Russia LOL?
In the field of Sufi Islam, we are repeatedly warned about this approach. The teacher of my Sufi teacher, Sheikh Abdullah Daghestani, says in his book: ” Argumentation destroys faith” In traditional Islam, one of the four great Imams, Imam Malik was known to walk out of the mosque if some-one started arguing. And in the Quran Allah says:” Man is mostly disputatious” He swt was surely not encouraging this bad tendency!
Now, when I examined my own learning process, I realized that I had learnt very little from discussions with opposing points of view. Mostly those discussions led nowhere and created more animosity than clarity. So I asked myself the question: ”How did I learn?” Yes, I do believe I have learnt a lot in this life journey lol. And the answer came back in an irrefutable manner.” Through listening to people who knew a lot more than me about the subject”! No, not discussing with them, debating with them or even interacting with them! Simple, honest, open-hearted listening. And that shifted my life course on several occasion.
People who are familiar with my approach know that My Epistemology is based not on logic and rationality, certainly not on debating, but on “Seeing”, “Hearing “ and” Feeling”. Let me give you a few examples
1-We will start with Hearing.
Two examples-neither from great scholars. lol In my pre-Islamic days like the people of my generation I had a girlfriend who was both highly intelligent and depressed. Her treating psychiatrist invited me in for a session one week. ( Did he think I was part of the problem lol. Maybe!). I outrightly refused in a way that can only be described as ironic given what followed. ”Psychiatry.That’s a bunch of bunk .It’s not even scientific” was my response. Have come a long way since then. My girlfriend, suitably upset, then went to talk with her also intelligent girlfriend and came back saying:” Me and Miriam decided that you are a “positivist’! I didn’t even know what positivism was! But it hit me hard and I knew I had to find out!
Now, if I had read a little, I could have come back and debated the issue. I could have defended Empiricism and debated her philosophic and Artistic Idealism. But for some reason, I didn’t. Instead, I began a long research project starting with a Sabbatical from medical school-a research project that is continuing up to the present moment. This research has made me question the so-called scientific process. Instead of debating, I heard the Truth of it. And I have not regretted it for one moment.
Another “listening event. I was in California looking to learn about the latest alternative psychotherapies. I didn’t go to Esalen but I went to the Esalen bookstore in Haight Ashbury.There was a young lady serving at the bookstore (probably early twenties) who noticed that I had a non-Californian accent and asked what I was doing in San Francisco.” I’m here to study Gestalt Therapy” I said, somewhat simplifying the process. She then looked at me with utter contempt and said: ”Gestalt Therapy, that’s not where it’s at, man” (typical language of the day lol).I thought to myself: ”This is the dumbest chick I have ever met’(also typical language of the day lol) and decided to leave. But as I was walking out of the bookstore shaking my head in disbelief, I turned around and said: ”Ok then where’s it at?” “Spirituality man, that’s where it’s at”. I walked out of the store still shaking my head ! However, the phrase kept repeating itself in my head like a beloved song from high school. ”Spirituality, man. That’s where its at”. Sure enough, soon after I got back to Montreal I met my first spiritual teacher, a Buddhist Lama sent to Montreal by the Dalai Lama to attend to the Tibetan community in Longueuil! And the rest is history.
Now if I had done what the current zeitgeist would recommend (Discussion? Debate? Conversation?) and debated the issue-spirituality vs. psychology) in all likelihood it would have led to an impasse and bad feelings .Instead, this seemingly banal interaction led to a life-changing experience!
2- Example of Seeing. I am in Jordan. I am out shopping when a Muslim “brother” meets me and invites me to dinner. It doesn’t take long for his small group to go into their Wahhabbi discourse and begin criticizing Sheikh Nuh ,my spiritual teacher of the time. I do my best to defend him (the debate mode lol) and after a few more minutes, I look at the group and say “ I can see no nur(light) in your faces. How am I supposed to believe your words.” And I left. Btw I had a very similar encounter with a Shia group in Montreal!
Example 2- a secular one. I was a Marxist at the time?! I am in a large meeting of left-wingers. All the local bigshots are there! I look around and at the Front Table only to realize that these people are worse than the democratic liberal government under Robert Bourassa. And that it would be a catastrophe to help them into power! End of my career as a Marxist!
3-“Feeling” (Alternatively could be titled “intuition” or “knowledge of the heart) I am in Plateau Montréal -the “in” area of Montreal, still searching. I go to a bookstore dedicated to the works of Alistar Crowley. I knew nothing about him before entering. But I knew it felt weird, very weird and I didn’t stay long. Later I learnt that he was a well-known Black Magician from England. My “feelings” had led me to the right conclusion!
Now, there are some prerequisites to achieving these kind of perceptions.. Some people have good instincts to start with.It is like a genetic endowment. Most of us have to work at it . Firstly we must be able to listen. Most people are listening through the veil of their belief-systems. Seeing and feeling are the same. If the ideas do not conform to what is already in their mind, they reject them. Many, many people simply reject anything new or unusual. And they are stuck in that way.
So what can we do to enhance our openness to the Truth. That is the Essence of the Sufi way. We pray, we do dhikr( mediation),we listen to wise teachers. But, most of all, we oppose our nafs (ego).It is called jihad-a-nafs. This is no mean feat. Most of the Muslims I have met don’t have a clue! They think wearing hijab and eating halal meat is enough. But the process of jihad-a-nafs goes far beyond that .It goes to the essential task of character-building. People who do that work seriously are like precious gems as opposed to stones. And you can learn to see them as such.
May Allah be with you on your journey. Sufi Ibrahim Kreps
American Delusions
Disclaimer: Throughout my life, I have had a deep affection for America. As a child, I used to dream of subways going to Boston where my cousins lived. I learnt so much in medicine and spirituality from travelling to American conferences and workshops.. And I always respected American ingenuity and open-mindedness and science. But something has gone really wrong there. And the seeds were well-planted in history!
Delusion #1 : There is no place in American politics for violence!
Are you kidding me?! America was founded on a battle against the British Monarchy, the exploitation of black slaves and the genocidal attitude towards indigenous people. All three were based on violence.Then there was the Civil War that cost 750,00 lives, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King! Not to mention Medgar Evans and Malcolm X. So to say violence has no place in American politics is utterly absurd. It is as American as Apple Pie and cheerleaders lol.
Delusion #2 America is the greatest country in the world or alternatively America is the greatest country ever! Really?! Well the UIN Human Development report regularly puts America in last place amongst the developed countries in ALL social parameters! That includes Infant mortality rate, levels of violence , levels of poverty .efficacy of the medical system etc.etc. As to the Division of Wealth America again ranks last of the developed countries although there are several third-world countries that outdo it! No honour to America there!
Delusion #3
The best way to arrive at Truth and Understanding is through discussion and debate. I would say that this is NOT a particularly American viewpoint .It is common to all post-Enlightenment countries but is it true?! Think about your own life process .How many times has your opinion been changed by discussions?! Personally, I have yet to see it! In most cases, people get more virulent and entrenched in their points of view through debate and discussion. It can even end in hatred and violence! Isn’t that what just happened with Charlie Kirk- a great advocate for “dialogue”.
In my experience, and now my thinking, the real learning happens in a totally different way! One person who has more insight and understanding speaks and the other(s) listen with an open mind. That’s how I learned medicine ,psychology and spiritually. Isn’t that what the Prophets and the saints of all religions did?! The Adversarial position which America is so fond of and is used in both political and legal settings is a total failure! For those wanting to understand more, I strongly recommend my articles on Epistemology at www.sufipilgrimsprogress.com
There is much ,much more to say but let’s leave it at that for now! Think about it!
Autism is Everywhere!
Autism /Aspergers is Everywhere!
According to current medical statistics, Autism Spectrum Disorder is now at 1/32.That is in contrast to the 1/2500 we were taught when I studied psychiatry in the 80’s.. The sceptics say that this is just because we are looking for it more or alternatively because the diagnostic criteria have changed.
Rubbish! In fact according to my observations, the rate of Autism is much, much higher than that! In fact, I would argue that every single child exposed to the equivalent of the American Vaccine mandate schedule has some features of autism!
As an example of the underdiagnosis phenomenon during my practice as a psychiatrist I remember having referred at least two clear-cut cases of autism to specialty clinics to confirm the diagnosis. Both cases were told they didn’t have Autism. In one case the man was superbly rational and knew how to avoid the specific criteria thinking it would be detrimental to his career aspirations. In the other case, of a Muslim man, who oddly fasted Monday and Thursday but didn’t do his salat on any regular basis. Any practicing Muslim could have told them that this was odd indeed. So they also could have confirmed this oddity, amongst others, if they had asked his wife! But they never did.
All of this brings me back to the comments of my highly esteemed psychiatry teacher, Dr.Heinz Lehman, when the DSM catalogues of diagnosis were first being used on a systematic basis .”We are now going to enter a period of ‘cookbook medicine” he stated. And sure enough we can see that all over the medical field.
So , bottom line a whole generation of children, possibly now the beginning of a second generation, is being seriously harmed! When confronted with these oddities, especially amongst young boys , another explanation given is that its due to “the screens”. It’s all because of too much technology, they would say. Oddly enough ,there is some truth to this hypothesis. Actually the vaccine-injury syndrome (mostly as there are other toxins that contribute), and the universal presence of electronics, are synergistically interacting. The more autistic features, the more interested in screens. and the more screen-time the more the children begin to look autistic!
Funnily, the Imam at our mosque has noticed this as well! .Not usually very aware of psychological issues lol,he recently stated in one of his khutbahs: ”How come there are so many cases of autism in our mosque?!”. He noticed but the doctors and pediatricians barely notice. Bring on the bonuses for more vaccines?!
So why are the numbers so underestimated. Now RFKjr. gave a presser recently on the more severe forms of autism, which he claimed were 25% of the group(an overestimate in my view). Many autistic people were very offended because he was saying that this group had no prospects for the future. They would never have careers and families and be independent. These were, in fact, the types we saw hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals when I was studying psychiatry! Now many of them are in group homes or under the care of exhausted overstressed parents. RFKjr. was trying to indicate that Autism was a serious problem and needed to be attended to. And I congratulate him for that effort.
However, the vast majority of Autistic spectrum/Aspergers are much more subtle. And that is why they go unnoticed. In fact there is a tendency to normalize the problem. And we all pay the price for that normalization- by continuing to deny the real cause(causes).”O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive (or to deny in this case)”!
So, what are these subtle signs of Autism. Many of these do NOT figure in the DSM criteria or do so in a very non-specific way. In a more global view, the central defect of the Autistic person is that “they don’t get it”. This is often extremely frustrating to their partners. So if we look at the world of politics, for example and some hugely successful Autism/Aspergers people, we see that Bill Gates did not get what evil was lurking in Jeffrey Epstein. It ended up destroying his marriage. And yes, there were others like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump who didn’t get it either-but for other reasons. Then there is Elon Musk who didn’t get it about Trump until well into his mandate. And then he didn’t get the proper way to leave either. Or how he cannot manage relationships with women whom he was well able to inseminate lol but unable to maintain relationships with.
Soft Signs
Even before the specifics, someone with inner vision can see the autism in the facial expression of the person and in the way his body moves-the gait. Dr. Lehmann claimed he could diagnose schizophrenia just by the gait of the patient as he walked in the office, He didn’t need the DSM criteria! The same is true for Autism.
1-Pickiness in eating. Yes, many children have some of this when they are very young. Much of this diminishes as we grow older. I remember myself as a child, I would only eat meat and potatoes lol.I hated fish and seafood was anathema. As I grew older, most of these preferences diminished and died away. But often I had to work at it. I still remember when pizza first came to Montreal. It was made with strong parmesan cheese as the Italians do. The first two or three times I ate it, I vomited it up. But because everyone around me was enjoying it, I persisted. The same with fish. But the Aspergers personality often maintains these preferences throughout life!
2-Incapable of genuine emotional expression -either love or sadness or anger or enthusiasm.( This feature can be worked on however as we will mention in the later part of the article)
3-Oddities of behaviour. (The DSM does mention that one but the oddities can be subtle) Think of Mark Zuckerberg’s hairdos lol .It’s a giveaway. Or Musk coming on stage with a chain saw! Or people who insist on wearing the same clothes all the time. I once had a brilliant psychoanalytic teacher who only wore a dark-blue blazer and grey pants. When asked about it, he said he wanted to keep the environment stable so he could correctly observe “the transference” lol Is psychoanalysis an Autistic cult then?! Some would argue such!
4-Unwittingly saying the wrong things in public-often things that are offensive to others! We had one of those in our medical school class. When I mentioned the possibility to another of our colleages at our 50th year graduation celebration, he would hear nothing of it. He wanted to continue hating on the man.
5-Having difficulty finding partners-especially for the males. The females do not have the same difficulty as men tend to be lacking in the same social awareness as ladies: ”If she’s sufficiently hot, he’s into it-regardless lol .The women, however, pick up on the oddities and have a negative reaction. They prefer a full-blooded macho braggard to a gentle, subtle soul-despite all their protestations!
I’m sure there is a lot more to this part of the story but let’s leave it there for now!
The Positive Side:
When I looked back at my friendships over my life history, I realized that most of my long-term friends were in all likelihood Aspergers people?! Why is that?!
Let’s look at the alternatives lol. There are the Personality Disorders- Narcissistic and Psychopathic like Trump. No thanks. Then there are the Obsessional Rationnalist Organizer types .They are the ones I find most annoying lolAnd then there are the “hale and hearty” athletes and party-goers. How boring and tiresome.! So Aspies may in fact be one of the better options. They can be….
1_ Intelligent -a la Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
2- They are often enough spiritually open-unlike the Rationnalists -my favourite group to hate on- especially since they have so much credibility in this messed up society!
3- Not aggressive as opposed to the Narcissists and psychopaths. They rarely bear grudges and can easily move on after argumentation despite their inherent stubbornness.
Treatment
Autism and Aspergers are notoriously hard to treat! I think that this is because our current paradigms are inappropriate. In children the ABB treatment is more like dog-training then pediatric therapy. And in adults neither psychoanalysis nor CBT has much to offer. So what can we do?!
I would propose a regimen of humanisation which would include the following
1-Staying away from “screens” and IT as much as possible. Unfortunately many of the most talented people in this area including A.I. have autistic features. For those who earn their living in this way, the therapy will have to take place outside of work hours lol .Alternatively if it is possible for these people to earn their living in more concrete ways like the trades or the heath professions or in services it would probably be more healthy for them to do so!
2-Engage in Relationships. This, of course , will be difficult-especially for the partners lol.
3-Spend time in nature or with animals. Anything that is ”organic” is likely to be helpful. Anything unreal and synthetic like videogames and board games and card games is likely to be harmful,
4-Identify emotions. Anyone spending time with an Aspergers person will begin to see glimmers of emotion-which the autistic person is likely to be unaware of. ”I saw some irritation in your face” you may say. Or “you seemed to really like that idea”(after seeing a hint of a smile).The Aspie will deny it, of course. But don’t be discouraged. Ultimately you will have some impact! Nothing like persistence! Especially if it doesn’t cross the line into harassment. You can also model for the “normal “emotions-like enthusiasm and sadness and even anger if it is not directed at them personally.
All of this is a beginning. As say the French: ”Ce n’est qu’un debut. Continuons le combat” (This is but a beginning. Continue the battle)
Salaaams, Sufi Ibrahim