Florida Building Collapses!– You can be sure of one thing .That one or more people saw this coming and said something.Then many people around including the managing contractors and regulators didn’t listen.We are suffering from an epidemic far worse than the Covid pandemic.! t is an epidemic of deafness.In fact if you go back and analyze the pandemic you will realize that it could have easily been prevented except for the deafness that occurred around it.May God help us!
The Argument against Covid Vaccination
Let me begin by saying that I am not an anti-vaxxer -something true btw of most people questioning the current vaccine program! I do not believe in black and white thinking.When I went on Umra to Saudi Arabia and found out about previous meningitis outbreaks I took the meningitis vaccine without hesitation..When I went to Egypt in the 90’s I tried to get my hands on the hepatitis A vaccine(Hep.B is more problematic) but it was just coming out and required two doses.So I missed it and got hepatitis! Not a pleasant experience,to say the least.So I appreciate the value of well-targeted vaccines.My objection to the Covid vaccine,for people not at risk-like healthcare workers and teachers AND parents of young children in daycare and public schools is based on the Precautionary Principle! There is so much we don’t know about these vaccines and so much that is kept hidden by the authorities in place that it appears to me foolhardy to take the risk- if the benefits are minimal.I have stated on numerous occasions that if I were still working in a hospital,I would certainly do so.
Let us backtrack a bit ,well before the Covid pandemic, on the whole vaccine question, to see why I mistrust the public health authorities.Literally for decades,I have been waiting for the only study that would really be definitive about the question of vaccine mandates for children.The study that obviously needed to be done was comparing vaccinated children to the unvaccinated ones-the children of the anti-vaxxers.All previous studies were done on single vaccines for short-term effects.Even the one long-term study about MMR and autism was done about one vaccine and one form of pathology.That is completely inadequate.What was needed was a study of the whole program of vaccine mandates.The authorities in place never saw fit to do those studies as it challenged their entire theology around vaccines.And now we have at least three(see my other article entitled “The Vaccine Issue” on this blog for the details.
The studies are consistent in their findings-4.2 times the rate of Autistic Spectrum Disorder ; 5.2 times the rate of Learning Disorder; 4.2 times the rate of ADHD( supposed to be highly genetic!);5.9 times the rate of pneumonia(despite the fact that the pneumonia conjugate vaccine is part of the protocol!)5.2 times the rate of asthma and 3.9 times the rate of allergies! Conclusive,no? For me it is conclusive enough to state that allowing one’s children to have the full vaccine mandate constitutes parental malpractice.
Now have the health authorities paid any attention to this issue and these studies?Of course not.Because their religion which I call ‘Scientism” has a catechismic belief which says:”Vaccines are Safe” period.Don’t bring us any evidence to the contrary( like all the payments of the U.S. government for vaccine-injured children and adults) because we believe vaccines are safe-by definition.
So we were getting off to a bad start even before the Covid Pandemic! Then we witnessed one after another of bad calls and misinformation by these public health and government officials.Some of these are still going on.Let us look at a few;
1)The Origin of the Virus.For a year and a half now first the Chinese government and then the W.H.O have been covering up the fact that this is a man-made virus -a product of “gain of function” research begun in the U.S. and shifted to China when it was banned in America.The research in Wuhan was subsidized by the U.S. National Health Institutes(read Fauci) via a covert strategy of redirecting the money to the Eco Health Alliance of Peter Daszak fame.On top of it all the U.S. state department knew the Wuhan lab was dangerously insecure according to its own reports(see the Washington Post 2018) but did nothing about it.So ironically this was truly a collaborative U.S./China effort that almost destroyed the planet! If it had been a more virulent virus like Ebola it might have done so!
2)Border Closures:The U.S. closed the border to people from China but negligently forgot to close the border to European travel and thence the terrible outbreak in NYC.Oops-thousands of deaths.Btw Canada did no better! Just before the pandemic was declared I travelled to Tunisia to see my Sufi teacher.The Tunisians were more on top of it than Canada! When we entered,they gave us a short questionnaire and took our temperatures.Two weeks later on returning to Canada there was still no concern at the airport! What,me worry lol?! As a McGill intellectual once said in a rare moment of clarity lol”Canada does one thing exceptionally well! Branding!”Our branding is starting to take a beating with the revelations about the Residential Schools for indigenous children but that is another matter!
3) Masks.At first there was no requirements.No peer-reviewed studies.It appears there still are none really.But the bureaucracy of Public Health shifted.I think they were right in that shift.After all the Asian countries have been using that strategy for decades lol.It was obvious.But the flip-flop was not designed to promote confidence in our health authorities!
4) The denial of very effective early treatment strategies for Covid. This may be the unkindest cut of all! Hundreds of thousands of people may well have died,because the Public Health authorities refused to acknowledge the success of hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Zinc and Vit.D in treating early Covid and in prophylaxis.”Trump said it so it must be wrong” goes the logic! Boiled down to the nitty-gritty HCQ lowers the mortality rate by 80%(Dr. Didoer Raoult of Marselles has been saying this from the beginning);Ivermectin lowers the mortality rate by 90%( see the reports of Dr. Kory and the FLCCC group) and it looks like Ivermectin and Luvox eliminate mortality! That’s right 100% reduction! But the health authorities in their rush to promote the vaccines and the expensive drug Remdesevir refused to acknowledge it.”No double-blind, randomized peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals”(their catechismic beliefs) they say! Many,many people died unnecessarily!
5) No animal studies were done to preclude ADE ( a deadly consequence in previous Covid vaccines).They excluded pregnant women from the studies and then in a panic over young pregnant women showing up in the ICUs across the country began recommending it.And now the issue of children in daycares and public schools, IMHO the major asymptomatic spreaders of the disease when they return home to their families, is now up in the air as they are only beginning to test them.
The list goes on and on.With all of those missteps and all the misinformation being spread by these authorities how can we possibly trust them?! They are in bed with the pharma companies and the vaccine companies including the FDA and CDC and as opposed to many other couples in the U.S.,their relationship seems to be tight and solid lol!
All that being said,does that make the Covid vaccine bad? Not necessarily.In fact it may turn out to be a good thing after all-as opposed to the childhood vaccine mandates where the evidence is now conclusively negative.But it sure makes you wonder.So personally,I will err on the side of caution for now! Salaams,Ibrahim
The Medical-Industrial Complex!
The entire medical Epistemology of the modern world is wrong! It is based on peer-reviewed studies published in prestigious journals.These studies are fundamentally corrupted.On the back end they are subsidized by pharmaceutical companies and government agencies with hidden,ideological agendas.On the front-end they are driven by ambitious “scientists”(like Fauci) trying to elevate their status in the academic world by publishing large-scale studies. If instead we paid attention to individual and health practitioner experiences (the much maligned anecdotal evidence!),and listened with the ear of Truth ,we never would have had this pandemic in the first place and once we did ,it would have been managed much more efficiently.”Corrupt to the core” as Shiv Chopra calls it but the “core” goes even deeper than the latter imagined! The core is a core of ignorance as to how we apprehend Reality.That is, the core is a HUGE Epistemological blunder.God be with us.Salaams,Ibrahim
Agnostics and Atheists ,Lend me your Ears!
Introductory note: This article is written for all the well-intentioned, kind-hearted A&Aers(we will use A&As as an abbreviation at times for Atheists and Agnostics during this article for the sake of brevity lol).They have been unwittingly sold a bill of goods by a very skilful and manipulative cabal of philosophers and marketers that have been operating for a very long time.I hope this article may serve to put a dent into their well-honed atheistic armour!
There is a common social narrative, in contemporary society, that religious people are brain-washed by their religious leaders and agnostics are free-thinkers! Actually,nothing could be further from the truth! For over two hundred years, at least, the Western mind (and now it is present in the East as well) has been indoctrinated with atheistic principles .From the French Revolutions ” Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité” which puts all the emphasis on the human position to Nietzche’s “God is Dead” to the Empiricism of John Locke and the so-called “Scientific Revolution”, the Western mind has been inundated with atheistic concepts that put man at the centre of the Universe as opposed to God.Ironically this is the polar opposite to the equally politically correct Copernican discovery that the sun was the center of our galaxy,not the Earth.As opposed to that great astronomical discovery,A&As assert again the centrality of man as opposed to his Creator.I guess human arrogance and self-centeredness continues to reassert itself in various and sundry ways!
N.B.Empiricism is a biggie here because it says that all you can know is what you can see and hear with your five senses.Only the outer and the measurable is true in this vision. “Evidence-Based” and “data based”-we hear those phrases over and over again like a tired mantra.Now science has taken up the flag of this Empiricism and misled many,many people who have lost touch with their inner senses.Working as psychiatrists and psychotherapists, we can see how that imbalance wreaks destruction on peoples lives as well as their general understandings.On a larger scale the politicians and administrative governing bodies, including those pf private corporations, are all corrupted by this point of view! No wonder we are in such a mess!
This philosophical brain-washing has been going on right up until the modern epoch.So we have the Existentialists like Sartre and Camus making the same case.In Britain we have the esteemed philosopher Bertrand Russell writing”Why I am Not a Christian”. And then there are the great scientific geniuses like Freud and Marx and Darwin (although in all fairness to the latter, he ,for one,remained a believing Christian up to his death) telling us the same story.In recent times we have been treated to the eloquence of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins repeating the same narrative.So anyone thinking that he,himself,came up with this narrative is seriously deluded or incorrigibly arrogant.The story-line has been developing for centuries!
Now,the story line goes something like this.”Religion has been a bad actor for millenia.It has caused countless acts of violence and sowed division across the globe.Now there is some Truth to that statement.I will spare you,for now,however the historical analysis of non-religious movements like Fascism and Communism.The historians that have investigated this have concluded that non-religious movements have actually caused more death and destruction than religious ones!- but that is a discussion for another time.
This story line also tells us that although religion is BAD ,spirituality is GOOD,What is ignored in that affirmation is the fact that almost all forms of spirituality come from religion! I discovered that for the first time when I studied Transcendental Meditation back in the seventies-advertised as a secular practice.I quickly realized that the meditation techniques being taught were permeated through and through with Hindu philosophy,language and rituals.So too is Mindfulness- related to Buddhism and Yoga to Vedantic Hinduism. Separating spirituality from religion is like separating breathing from lung function! Impossible.Can’t be done.
Another part of this atheistic narrative is that science can explain everything.Really!? So when we see the obvious contradiction in the image of the famous physicist, Stephen Hawking, almost completely incapacitated in a wheelchair because of A.L.S promoting the Big Bang Theory as a potent theory for origin of the Universe,we have to recoil in disbelief! The fact that we do not react with disbelief is a sign of how far we have dissociated ourselves from common sense! The Big Bang Theory may tell us what some of the early events were in the Creation story.But it certainly doesn’t tell us the Original Cause.
In fact None of the Great scientific theories can tell us the Original cause-neither the theory of Evolution, in biology, nor the Class Struggle, in political history, nor the Unconscious of psychoanalysis nor the Theory of Relativity in Physics..They only address intermediary causes.And thus they tell us nothing about ultimate Causation and even less about meaning!
Another interesting irony here- there is more diversity in religious theory than there is in A&A theory!The agnostic discourse almost always has the same refrain.”Religious people are deluded.They believe in order to make themselves feel better about their lives.And their religious leaders have put a blindfold over their vision” .They all,universally, say the same thing!
Paradoxically,in the religious domain,however,diversity abounds!Some religions(Hinduism and Buddhism for example) believe that our Ultimate goal is Enlightenment.Western religions hold that our purpose is to worship God and serve Him.Very big difference there!. Some religions,like Christianity,believe that God incarnated in the flesh.Judaism and Islam reject that idea categorically.Judaism believes in the chosen nature of its nation while Islam and Christianity believe in the Equality of all humans.The list goes on and on.But it is intriguing to see that are more substantial differences in the minds of religious people than that in the supposedly “free- thinkers”.How ironical?! All the ‘free thinkers’ come to the same conclusions.Makes you wonder about their supposed freedom!
Now,let us get to the crux of the matter-the Basic Epistemology if you wish.The idea that there is no God is just that-an idea.Any self-reflecting atheist will have to admit that! You cannot prove the non-existence of something.Even the Western legal systems have come to the same conclusion.You cannot prove the non-existence of a thing or an event.So the notion of the non-Existence of God is just that-a notion.
On the other side,let us forget for now about Prophets and Saints and mystics and angels and Holy Books for now-although that is admittedly factoring out a lot of data! But I know how much those entities are anathema to the A&A mindset.So instead let us look at the n.d.e experiences as I relate them in my book “The Big Questions:Evidence-Based Faith'”These are ordinary people,most often not particularly religious some even being atheists prior to their experience.
Yes I am well aware that there is a commonplace pseudo-scientific argument that these represent the delusions of a dying brain.Anyone familiar with brain physiology and pathology should immediately see through that bogus argument( if you need more ‘scientific’ proof you can check out the work of Bruce Greyson and Pim Van Lomel although I must say that if you need to go that far in your research ,you are probably a lost cause lol). All forms of brain pathology create dysfunction and perturbations and physiological disease like headaches and vertigo and epilepsy.This form has as its effect more compassion,more serenity and more perspective on human life itself.How could that possibly be pathological?! Au contraire, instead of incapacitating the individual,it improves mental health and clarity.
So… these ordinary people in life-threatening situations see deceased relatives ,the heavens and the hellworlds, and beings of Light and God Himself-sometimes as separate from them and sometimes merged in His Essential Consciousness.They confirm ALL the teachings of the saints and mystics.And they have no more doubts!Then they report back to us their discoveries- as witnesses.
Let me be very clear here.If you are still holding on to an atheistic or agnostic position you are believing in a philosophical theory rather than in actual human experience.IMHO,that is a really bad choice-a bad exchange.And the loss in the hereafter could be VERY long-lasting.May God help you see the light!
Addendum.Since the most common objection about the relevance of the n.d.e experience is that it must be a change in brain chemistry caused by the dying brain, let me give you what I believe to be an accurate and simple analogy.And btw, this modernistic,”scientific” reflex,about brain chemistry,is a thoroughly conditioned response.Where are you now Skinner,the father of the conditionned reflex lol, now that we need you to explain this to people lol?!
The analogy goes like this:It’s the beginning of the summer and a neighbour tells you that there is a new ice-cream shop that opened down the road.So what are the possibilities? The neighbour may be a compulsive liar or even a sadistic teaser.Or he could have mis-spoken (dysphasia lol) or bought new glasses recently and thought that the computer repair shop was actually an ice-cream place.Or again he could be a psychic who saw into heavenly worlds where there are always ice-cream shops on hot days lol. Those are the kind of obtuse explanations the “scientists” are looking for!
But, far and away ,the most likely version is that the ice-cream shop is a reality and you are best off checking it out ASAP! You see,the scientists are operating from theory and conjecture and ideology.The bottom line is they don’t want to believe in other-worldly realities because it goes against their attachment to Philosophical Materialism and Atheism.Actually,now that I think about it,Agnosticism is actually a sophisticated cover-up for Atheism.They,too, prefer their “mind-productions” to actual reality.May God help them to open their hearts and souls.On the other hand,if they just use their minds it will surely lead them astray!
Epistemology-Synthesis
What do most people say they want?They say they want the Truth.In Arabic the word is “Haqq” and it refers to both Truth and Reality.Epistemology is the science of accessing that Reality.From there,everything becomes possible! Without it,everything is meaningless!
Most modern people have been trained to think that the way to knowledge is to accumulate data and then analyze it logically.I like to call that the “Aristotelian Approach”I have found that way to be inefficient,defective and misleading .Watch the justice system operate if you don’t believe me.
So what do we learn from Sufism and Islam about this question?As I see it, there are three principal doors to knowledge-the deeper knowledge and the one that counts ultimately.
The first is the opening of the heart.We are talking here about the subtle heart -not the one of gross feelings like anger an d sadness and even joy.I won’t address the question of love for now as that can be very confusing and misleading lol.
The second is seeing”basirat’-the inner vision.Once that is developed we can see the inner aspect of what is going on-the good and the evil of it,the sincerity and the hypocrisy,the darkness and the light.
And finally the the third is hearing and developing ‘the ear of truth’ the entity that hears ‘the sound of truth’.When we hear that, we have to act on the truth we hear.(Remember the sequential formula-ilm(knowledge),amal(action) then hal(state).Without the knowledge ,there is no proper action. Without the action,there is no change in state!Our nafs will surely object but our hearts will say ‘yes!’
Now the Quran tells us about this.It talks about “those whose hearts are sealed” and those who are “deaf,blind and dumb”.And we can understand that this is not outer blindness nor outer deafness but rather the inner senses.If our hearts are sealed and we are blind and deaf,we will surely make wrong decisions and that is what we see all around us.
Is there a corrective?Yes,there is.It is spiritual practice beginning with what is obligatory in our religion and proceeding to dhikr and wird and listening to wise ones and opening our hearts to the hidden and the invisible.There is no other way! Reason will not get us there.Psychotherapy will not get us there.Motivators like Antony Robbins and Steven Covey will not get us there!
Only proper spiritual practice and virtuous ways will get us there.For then, as a reward,Allah will cleanse our hearts to feel properly, clear our vision- to see what is real- and remove the ‘wax’ from our inner ears so we can hear ‘the ring of Truth’ when it chimes.
As I pursue my path and observe others, I see clearly that most people,no matter what I or other mystics say,still trust their minds(ideas and feelings) and act accordingly.Although this is instinctive,it is a serious error!A couple of quotes, from non-religious people, are in order: “The right answer is often the opposite of the instinctive one”-Clint Eastwood-“The Million-Dollar Baby. “All your problems come from the same place.You believe the contents of your own mind”Byron Katie. So what are the alternatives.
The first two alternatives to “mind productions” are very difficult for modern people.The first is to tap into the will of God.Not an easy matter.Most people are so stuck in their own will and desires that the true will of God is completely obscured.Many do not even accept the idea that God has Will.
The second alternative is to trust in an intermediary like a Prophet or a sheikh or a guru.Once again the modern mind is trained to rebel against authority and to want to be independent,autonomous,”free”.
For these reasons I will suggest a third method -despite knowing full well the actual resistance I will encounter-the Scientific Method.Yes,that’s right-the scientific method,the real one! That involves real observation and experimentation and genuine conclusions-not statistical analysis,demographics and peer-reviewed journals.Observation and experimentation.Simple as that.Simple but deep!
I’ll give you a concrete example.When I first started to learn about the Islamic Istikhara practice,I did an experiment.I took 10 decisions I had to make.Then I analyzed the data I had,did some research on the subject and some thinking and came to a conclusion.After that I did the Istikhara practice.And then I followed the situation to its inevitable conclusion.My analytic decision was wrong 8/10 times! That’s right-I was one out of five -a 20% success rate.And I believe I’m reasonably good at that process.So all those wonderful decisions you make-are most probably wrong!
The Istikhara(it must be properly interpreted of course,which is another science) was inevitably right.When it wasn’t,it was due to misinterpretation!
Really folks,your whole process of making decisions is flawed!The one they taught you in school doesn’t work! Just look around you if you don’t believe me lol.You can observe it yourself.Admittedly,this takes deep observation and humility..It also takes a true open mind.
Medical Epistemology:I guess philosophy is important after all lol.My two favourite terms these days are Epistemology and Empiricism and its sister Philosophical Materialism.So my apologies to Wittgenstein and John Stuart Mills after all lol.
So( not supposed to use that word according to current anal grammarians .Another form of political correctness-this time in the world of grammar.).And yet(probably also banned as a term lol) it is SO useful .Maybe that’s why they want to ban it! (the conspiratorial epistemology-to be unveiled shortly).So,I repeat,the current pandemic gives us a chance to examine different forms of Epistemology.Epistemology basically means “how do you get to the Truth,The Realty of any situation or question?”(same word btw in Arabic-Truth and Reality=Haqq!)
So let us examine four forms of Epistemology as applied to the Covid pandemic and try to see their relative value.I will personalize these approaches in order to make the point more vividly and graspable.
- The Didier Raoult paradigm-information on the ground.For those that don’t know this fascinating character from Marseilles,he is one of the first doctors to promote hydroxychloriquine as a Covid treatment-mostly based on his clinical experience at a hospital in Marseilles.He even took the trouble to document his cases and show that at his clinic ,they had reduced the death rate by about 70% by this approach.Further studies done in the right way,using HCT early in the illness with azithromycin and Zinc came to similar conclusions-anywhere from a 60-80% reduction! All of this based on examining the facts on the ground.This principle is applicable to many other situations .Ask the people who are there experiencing it.But no! The current Epistemological paradigm forbids this! It is dismissed either as “subjective” or “anecdotal” or some other disparaging term. I was pleased to hear from my brother in NYC whose future son-in-law was himself working on the ground in a Brooklyn hospital where the doctors noticed that HCT was useful early in the illness and they were not even using it with antibiotics and zinc! But no,the CDC and WHO will hear nothing of this .They need their prospective, double-blind ,placebo-controlled peer-reviewed (i.e. non-existent studies) lol to arrive at conclusions.)
- The Chris Martenson (peakprosperity.com) paradigm.Unlike the former paradigm Chris is working from outside the battlefield.But he uses the on the ground workers as one source amongst others.Then he interviews people who have experienced the illness(how strange and unscientific lol!),looks at the research including the less high-profile journals and the non-statistical scientific reports.He scours the newspapers,TV Cable News and radio reports.From this vast array of sources he is able to discern the chaff from the wheat, pick out the B.S. even in hot-shot journals like Lancet and JAMA and then come to conclusions.He is almost invariably right and when he isn’t, he admits it. Oddly enough I have seen judges in the courts using a very similar process of teasing out the reality from an abundance of sources.And in my experience, they consistently understand the Reality better than the “expert doctors” who are supposed to be the experts in the area! That is because the doctors are using the next paradigm-the Fauci approach lol
- The Fauci and his acolyte Sanjay Gupta approach- also known as current scientific consensus.These people only believe in peer-reviewed,placebo-controlled,double blind prospective studies and Cochrane database metastudies and official organizations like WHO and FDA and CDC..They are very often wrong as has been Fauci all along in this pandemic.He got the mask issue wrong(not enough studies?!)the hydroxychloroquine issue wrong(looking at the wrong studies and ignoring the right ones) and the man-made nature of the virus(how he could get that one wrong is beyond me as HE was instrumental in creating it!). The problem is that most medical personnel and certainly the formal afore-mentioned institutions(WHO,FDA,CDC,NIH) are all using that paradigm! No wonder we are in such confusion and such trouble.
- I can’t complete this abbreviated list of Epistemological approaches without mentioning the Brian Rose,Sayer Ji Plandemic conspiratorial epistemology.These people see the lies and the deceptions of the official stories of government and health institutions but go way beyond the facts into paranoid projections.So the fact that there was a 201 Event meeting of government and public health officials and businessmen organized by John’s Hopkins University in October 2019 that simulated a pandemic to try to develop strategies to deal with such an event means for them that the pandemic was planned.Wrong! The fact that the Wuhan lab was under the control of the Chinese military means that this virus was a bio-weapon of war.Wrong again. The fact that Bill Gates screwed up with vaccines in India and Africa means that he is trying to depopulate the world so that he can better control it.Anyone with familiarity with the paranoid mind-set(I was a psychiatrist for 45 years lol) can recognize the cognitive errors in these kinds of distortions and projections.On top of it,they may be dangerous as they stir up unnecessary fear and anger in a situation where there is enough realistic fear and anger to go around already!
- Btw, each of these types of Epistemology can be used in many other areas of life as well.As I have indicated in other articles on this blogsite-which you are free to explore.In fact,I consider myself to be an Epistemologist of Spiritual Reality and Truth. In summary.we have all been conditioned and brain-washed into a form of Epistemology that is seriously flawed.Either we believe what the authorities tell us(Big Mistake!) or we over-use our minds and come to logical but wrong conclusions.We need to cleanse our hearts and ears and eyes to perceive correctly.And that requires a lot of inner work! God be with you.Salaams,Sufi Ibrahim
How They Are Not Listening? Let me count the ways!
There is currently an epidemic of deafness in human interactions going on. After observing this,I have been trying to understand why that is .This article is more about the “how’ than the “why”. Have a listen! lol
I could not have admitted this a while ago,when I was studying psychiatry,but I have learnt many deep and useful things from the psychoanalysts.One of the things they realized early on was that it was not enough to say the truth about the psychodynamics at play or about anything else for that matter.Firstly,you have to interpret the defenses i.e. you have to identify the barriers in the way of listening.
Now, ironically,there is something parallel in the Islamic tradition-yes the very same religious mentality that Freud liked to denigrate lol! It says”laillaha illaha”.(There is no God but the one true God).So you have to start by denying the falsehood-the various forms of idolatry.Then and only then,can you affirm the Truth -Allah.Ajib! Psychoanalysts and pious believers using the same approach.! What could be more reassuring lol,?
So what are these barriers to listening? I will list a few of the more obvious ones to begin with:
1-Denouncing the Source: so ,if you don’t like what someone says,you respond” He’s just ignorant” or “he’s a right-winger” or “he’s just too politically correct” or “he’s just a chauvinist, macho or a homophobe or an Islamophobe or a feminist”or any one of numerous categories that would discredit the individual from being a truth-sayer.The problem is that each and every one of those categories speaks the Truth at times.I could even add psychotics and borderlines and psychopaths to the list and not forget Mr. Trump-the Narcissists lol.So categorizing people does not necessarily help you identify the Truth or falseness of what they are saying! Be careful!
2-The Bureaucratic Reflex: (Purolator story).When we think about bureaucracies,we are usually thinking about government institutions.However,many of the large”private” enterprises (think banks and any large companies including social media ones) Here is one recent example,I can share with you.I order my meat from the only reliable halal,organic supplier I know-Blossompure in Toronto.They have taken to shipping it via a delivery service in Canada known as Purolator-supposedly a private company(When I looked into its ownership- out of total frustration- I realized it was owned mostly by Post Canada! And I thought we were living in a competitive capitalist society! Think again Ibrahim!)
Anyway,here is how the story unfolded.Purolator claims they do next day delivery to Montreal.More often than not,however,that takes two days.Not a problem as the meat is so well-packed that after two days it is still mostly frozen.However,this time when they arrived at my appartment block the driver realized that the appartment number was missing.Instead of leaving it in the hallway(possible solution #1) his instructions were to bring it back to the warehouse.Note that we are now Friday and Purolator is closed on Saturday and Sunday! I get an email notice that the shipment was diverted because of the incomplete address.So I call the tracking line but they know nothing about it except that it was diverted.So I call the local Purolator warehouse and mange to connect with an agent.”Can you call the truck driver and complete the address”(Possible solution #2).”Sorry sir ,we can’t reach them.””Can you text him and ask him to call me?”(Possible solution #3)””Sorry sir our system doesn’t permit that” .”The can I meet him at the warehouse(possible solution#4).”Sorry sir,he arrives after we close” Can you tell him I will meet him when he arrives(Possible solution #5).That’s not possible sir”. “Is there any chance you would have a small freezer in your(huge) warehouse?”(possible solution #6 No,sir,we don’t have that sort of equipment.” N.B. You can probably think of other possible solutions but the system doesn’t permit of any of them!
Sure enough I receive a call on Monday morning to come pick up the meat.It has now been five days in transit and the entire box of meat is spoiled! Such is the insanity of bureaucracy.In this case,the result was spoiled meat. In many cases,it is lethal!
3-“It’s not significant” So even if it is true,it doesn’t matter.We recently had an unfortunate incident of that on a bridge near my home.A negligent repair crew sectioned the “rebar” on one of the supporting columns of the bridge.The mistake was reported to the Minisry of Transport who decided it was no big deal.So they continued sectioning the rebar on other columns!.By the time that had been done on 10 other columns ,they needed to shut down the bridge-indefinitely -a vital artery in the West of the city. “Human error” said the Ministry.”Ya,right” Deafness on high.That is significant human error but by no means isolated to Quebec bridges.I just watched a news report on American television about the management of the Covid epidemic.Human error as well! ! May well have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.Deafness is a very costly disease!
4- Doesn’t coincide with one’s ideological schema. The preceding story of mismanagement of the Covid pandemic fits in nicely here.The ideology in question is “Double-blind,placebo-controlled,peer-reviewed,published in prestigious medical journal” ideology.They now call that “Science”.Oops,got that one wrong-500,000 lives later! Of course this doesn’t only apply to medicine.In Vietnam,we were fighting Communism,in Iraq they were fighting terrorism ! And what about Chile and Nicaragua and Iran (putting in the Shah). Oops,got a few of those wrong also- because of ideology,no?
5-Following your desires; most people can get there heads around this one lol.You continue smoking despite the evidence.eating too much sugar and refined carbohydrates for diabetics.Women looking for bad boys and men seeking out b–ches. Lol.That one is usually easy to spot.Especially if it is happening to others!
6- The habit reflex; The Islamic holy texts are full of this one! Our Prophet saws preaches to his people and they respond;” But this is not what our ancestors have done.How can we change that?!’and Allah responds “but they were in error and ignorant”(paraphrasing).”No matter” say the Quraysh.They are our point of reference.Of course,this is not just the Quraysh.All societies have elements of conditioned ignorance.When Dr. Ed Hallowell was asked how teachers and educators dealt with the ADHD population in the good olde days he responded”They had a standard approach-blame shame and humiliation”. That’s just what they do! Why would we change that?’ It worked so well,right?! So the ADHDers became drug addicts and criminals and low-lifers.Just the way it is,I guess!To extend the model into the field of nutrition,let’s take the French and Italian insistence on devitalized refined white bread and pasta.The way of their ancestors!But nowadays almost guaranteed Diabetes 2.! Worth changing habits? You bet!
7-:The Contrarians; You say white,they say black.You say up,they say down.Ever met one of those lol?They are all around us.Sometimes,it is specific to certain relationships-like toddlers and adolescents and their parents.But sometimes it is generalized to all people.And at other times ,it has a competitive aspect.The non-listening other just wants to prove that he/she is smarter or better-informed than you are.Besides being contrarian and competitive,this reaction implies a certain arrogance.”My idea is better than yours-by defintion lol”
These are some of the types of deafness.And they are legion.How to get to hearing?! That is a matter for another time.If you are impatient,you can start by reading any of the short articles on Epistemology on this blog.I am hoping to coalesce them all together soon.Stay tuned!
The Real Triad!
It is getting late here.I usually do not write at this time of night but today I felt the need to articulate this particular inspiration.There are so many conspiracy theories out there .From the New World Order to the Illuminati to the Freemasons,there is no lack of conspiracy theories as to why things are going wrong in the world.
For those of us who prefer to stay with observable phenomena rather than occult ones, ,the most popular theory is that it is all about greed and corruption.The greed is incarnated in the multi-national corporations-chemical,pharmaceutical,oil and gas companies to mention a few.The corruption is manifested by the government officials who are in the pockets of these unethical,greed- feeders.
But there is something missing in this analysis.Otherwise the ‘greed/corruption” sector would be called-out and neutralized.I used to call that third and most important element “ignorance’- to use a Buddhist concept as to the primary cause of suffering.But that term-ignorance- seems too general,too non-specific.I would now like to name it “the Asperger’s Factor”
This is the third bad actor in this evil -constellation.It’s clearest manifestation is in two groups-“the social media moguls” (think Gates and Zuckerberg) and the scientists( think Fauci and his henchmen-the other public health authorities-at the CDC and the NIH and the FDA).They may,in fact, not be as corrupt as the first two groups-the business people and the politicians,But they may be even more toxic! They are people who rely on their brains but have no hearts and souls.They are the zombie intellectual class.They have credibility in the minds of many( they are often referred to as “experts”) which makes their out-of-touchness even more dangerous!
So that is the “witches brew” we are dealing with lol. And only a new Epistemology as outlined in other articles on this blog or a personality who carries that approach ,can get us out of this destructive cycle! God help us all!
The Efficient Cause
The Efficient Cause!
N.B. This reflection was triggered by three separate ‘khalewah” experiences-one three day retreat in the countryside of the Gatineau region at a Wellness centre, one three-day retreat and one six-day end of Ramadan retreat at my apartment with Hadi. All three had a notable effect on the participants “hal” (inner state).The project manager/ MBA types would call that “proof of concept” lol
Aristotle is one of those personalities I love to hate lol. I consider his contributions to modern “civilisation’ (specifically at the level of syllogisms and logical analysis) to be amongst the most corrupting and disruptive influences around! Surpassing that of many other “geniuses” like Marx, Freud and Darwin! Nevertheless, he, like those just mentioned, also has articulated valuable concepts that can help us make sense of the world around us.
In the case of Aristotle, I am referring here to his classification of the Four types of Causes: 1) Material causes(the body);Formal causes(paradigms or blueprints like the species homo sapiens);Final causes(which are really purposes) .In this light, Islam would say that the purpose of man is worshipping and serving his Lord and finally “Efficient Causes” those that lead regularly to specific consequences. It is the efficient causes that we are addressing in this article.
I realized, in my recent reflections, that I have spent the last 45 years searching for the “efficient cause” of spiritual development. In this search I have tried everything I could find! From meditation, a very popular contemporary answer to this quest, seminars and conferences of all sorts, to sitting with the guru/sheikh to individual retreats of varying lengths. All of them have had some effects-some more spectacular than others- some leading to various “hals ‘(spiritual states) but none of them reliably and stably leading to the desired effect-a long-term persistent internal state of connectedness with the Divine!
So… in the spirit of scientific enquiry, not the science of peer-reviewed journals and obsessive statistical analysis but the science of observation and experimentation of Francis Bacon, I stumbled across another methodology! I call this approach the Modified Collective Khalewah! (MCKh if you need an acronym to remember it) That might sound like a mouthful but let me go over it word by word- in reverse order..
Khalewah is an Arabic word meaning retreat or isolation. Classically, the Sufis retreated into the mountains or the caves or in their individual retreat cells in the zawwiya and did their dhikr(meditation) practices for various lengths of time. In the case of Grandsheikh Abdullah Daghestani(the sheikh of Sheikh Nazin) he spent seven years in the mountains of Daghestan doing “laillaha illala’ 99.000 times per day ,fasting, doing “ghusl”-the major ablutions- with melted ice from the mountains! And breaking his fast with seven olives and a cup of tea and restarting the process the next day! Sheikh Abu-Hassan Ash-Shadhili did something similar in the hills around Tunis. And Abdul-Qader Jilani is reported to have done a total of 25 years of khalewah before he finally settled down into his role of teacher and father of a family of 49 children! Personally, I don’t think we are up to those standards nowadays lol!
I have tried these kind of individual retreats but nowhere close to those extremes. The longest retreat I have done is 40 days. But inevitably they all ended up at the same place-tired , burnt-out and discouraged. Didn’t work for me and I imagine the same is true for many other people if they reflect on their own experience
Collective: I have struggled with the Islamic injunction about the jamaat (collectivity) for years. As many other people have said to me as well: ”I am not really a groupie”. I get it. On top of it, we were raised in the West in a very individualistic mindset and although that can be problematic in some ways, it is salutary in others. When I travel to other countries and see the uniformity of the mindset of “traditional ‘ cultures ,it often shocks and dismays me. These countries mostly have the same thinking and the same opinions-about almost everything . I like to say: ”The Quraysh (the original opponents of our Prophet saws) are alive and well in the midst of the Islamic community! i.e. objecting to anything new!
But that is not the whole story about community.! There is an energy in the “jamaat” that you cannot find on your own! Through the support, encouragement and supervision of the group, we can find the motivation to keep going-something difficult to do by ourselves. So, when Islam and its Prophet saws encourage people to pray together, it is not just about group cohesion and community-building as I had previously thought. It is also about the group energy and transmission. That force needs to be harnessed for maximum “efficiency” of cause.
Modified: Why modified? Because we need to go on living our lives and interacting with the community around us! That is what the Prophet saws did. And that is what some of the cultish groups like Jim Jones in Guyana and Rajnessh in Oregon did not do! We must interact with the individual neighbours and the surrounding community- but with the spirit of “khalewah’(isolation in the crowd) and taqwa(God-consciousnes) animating our every effort. If we do that right, we should feel the effect inwardly and that is our most cherished goal-to improve our inward state!That is what we are aiming at ultimately.
Actionable Intelligence:(more American wisdom lol) At this point the specter of Empiricism raises its hoary head lol and asks:”So what do we do now?” Not wanting to disappoint the activists who need to concretize things quickly, here is the plan… We start with short sessions of modified khalewah- in peoples’ homes, in retreat centres that are willing to accommodate us-for short periods of time-from 2-10 days- and we observe the effects. Eventually, my hope is that we can form a community of like-minded people so that we can live this approach on a 24/7 basis .It is the closest thing I can imagine to the community around our Prophet saws in Medina!
Important Caveats:
1.Obviously a lot of glitches and problems will come up in the process of realizing this project. We must be prepared for that and not get too easily discouraged. If you need a model for how that occurs ,study the events that occurred in the life of our Prophet saws when he moved to Madina. Life is never easy or without its challenges. Courage and wisdom and even diplomacy will no doubt be necessary!
2.Attitude : The fundamental attitude needs to be “taqwa” God-consciousness, surrender to the Divine Will. Nothing else will work. Many communal projects have failed because they were based on individual or group ambitions(“good ideas but not perfect ones as Sheilh Nazim said about the project of Dar al Islam in New Mexico that eventually failed.)Other reasons for failure are addressed in the next section-on leadership.
- Leadership! This is the most difficult of all -as competent, skilled leadership is one of the rarest commodities on the planet! Many spiritual communities fail because the leader is corrupt in one way or another-the three most popular forms of corruption are around money, sexuality and power! But there are other forms of corruption around various forms of psychopathology-like obsessionalism(micromanaging and overcontrolling peoples lives);Aspergers(the leader being out of touch with the lived reality around him) and even ethnocentricity-the community only works for a particular nationality with a particular mind-set..
So.. there are many ways this can go wrong and only a very few options that can work .I am betting on that rarety in this project!
Ahlan. please feel free to comment and contribute to this process.
Salaams, Sufi Ibrahim
Addendum.I had a dream in which I saw a world-class clinic that was installing artificial limbs.But these limbs were not the usual ones of plastic and steel .Instead they were made of comfortable materials like organic cotton and flannel!
What I understood, from this dream, was that the limbs referred to the Modified Collective Khalewah I have been talking about.I have done many khalewahs in the past but there was always some obstacle that prevented me from arriving at the goal.
I realized that the major obstacle was that the process was too uncomfortable!For example,in the khalewah I did in Jordan the sheikh locked the door to the cell so that I not be disturbed. I told him I was afraid I couldn’t escape if there was a fire.But he made light of it saying that the materials of the building were not flammable! So much for empathy lol Needless to say,the result was less than satisfactory!
In other khalewahs, as well, the rules were so strict that the nafs revolted.Even the ones I designed myself contained rules that were too harsh -like doing dhikr at every moment that I was awake! May have worked for Grandsheikh but not for me or I assume most of us “normal folk”!
So,we need to design a ‘comfortable ” khalewah-not a slacker one but not an overly super-egoic one either.It should,despite the necessary effort of course,be enjoyable.Then people will want to do more! Rest assured that we are working on it. And long live psychology lol! Salaams,Ibrahim
Europeanism-The Great Scourge
Disclaimer: This article will fly in the face of everything you have been taught to think AND all your subliminal conditionning!You may already be reacting-just by the title! But hold on. It could also change your life in a positive way!It has done so for me- for the last 30 years!
Samuel Huntington(“The Clash of Civilizations”) was right! There is a clash of civilizations.But it is not the one he was pointing out-between Islam and the West.It is actually the clash between the secular point of view and that of the believers-regardless of which religion one adheres to.It is a clash between logic and faith.A clash between the mind and the heart.And ultimately the clash between good and evil- even if that evil hides itself behind a veil of “reasonableness” and “political correctness” lol
This “Clash’ was brought to my attention in stark relief by the profound teachings of my most long-standing spiritual teacher-Sheikh Nazim of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order.For the first time in my life ,I was confronted with someone with an alternative view of history-alternative to what we had all been taught in public school.According to Sheikh Nazim, the French revolution(Égalité, Liberté and Fraternité) was NOT the beginning of a great chapter in human freedom but rather the beginning of the end! The beginning of the descent into decadence and corruption and capriciousness which emerged from the denial of all forms of conventional authority-both religious and monarchic.According to him,we were now on a slippery slope to the Apocalypse of the end of times.Everything I have observed since then,has been a confirmation of that vision-even if it is taking some time to unfold!
Now all of this was the opposite of what I was taught to think !Our particular form of social conditioning(brain-washing if you wish) began in grade 6 of elementary school.We were taught that the Golden Ages of Athens and Rome were what we needed to emulate.The Europeans of the 17th and18th century heralded the Age of Rationalism or the Age of Enlightenment as a return to the Golden Ages of Classical Cultures! After sitting with Sheikh Nazim on multiple occasions, ironically mostly in London-one of the giant centers of Europeanization, I began to rethink my positions.
Greece and Rome,really?! Greece which was a pseudo-democracy where only its own citizens had power and where having relations with young boys was considered more honorable than relations with adult women?! Where a slew of dubious philosophical schools like hedonism and cynicism and stoicism(probably the best of the lot) fluorished .Greece where Socrates was poisoned to death for speaking the Truth.And Rome?! One of the cruellest civilizations known to man- where criminals- were crucified and Christians were fed to the lions! Yes,they developed roads(so the engineers can feel uplifted lol).And set up a Code of Law so our legal scholars can feel vindicated.For the Christians amongst you, reread the New Testament if you need any proof of the inhumanity of the Romans!
Now ,we can fast forward to the 20th century.The most deadly and devastating wars of all times!According to the historians, 100 million people killed! And endless destruction and misery.Almost all initiated by Europeans(yes,the Japanese climbed on board but they are well-known imitators lol,)No other civilization-neither the Chinese nor the Persians nor even the Mongols ever created so much death and havoc for humanity! And this is what we are supposed to honour.In the words of the current leading destructive empire,America lol,”Give me a Break”!
Another thing working in favour of the European delusion is “branding”. There is a whole series of catchwords that hide its nefarious influences- in all areas of life. Amongst them we have “Democracy”, “Rationnality”, “Due Process of the Law”, “Science”(yes even the hallowed science is a misnomer), “Freedom”,Evidence-Based”, “Progressive”-the list goes on and on.Behind each of these ideological slogans is a harsh and contradictory reality.The “democracy” is another pseudo-democracy like that of Athens,where the political agendas are manipulated an perverted by monied interests.”Rationality” which should have been discredited a long time ago by even a superficial reading of Freud and the psychoanalysts and which we can now see unveiled by the pro-Trump Republicans just to mention one clear-cut example.The examples are legion! “Due Process of the Law’ is systematically undone by an onerous bureaucracy in the courts of law,by obscene fees for legal services and by clever lawyers who are able to turn black into pale grey and turn white into dirty beige.Go figure!”Science” Another huge distortion.The original science of Francis Bacon et al. involved careful observation and controlled experimentation.Current “science” is about obsessive statistical analysis and ,research funded by biased corporations and government bodies with vested interests in the economy and often carried out by ambitious academics looking to increase their publication profiles!”Progressive has come to mean what is politically correct in liberal,left-wing circles.And “freedom” is the freedom to buy what you want -if you have the money. “Freedom” of speech” itself has been eroded by cancel culture.And “freedom” of action is limited by what the economy will allow you to do- unless you are hyper-courageous which is not the case for most people! So all of these slogans, when analyzed and investigated, turn out to be bogus!
It should be noted here,that those people who should naturally be on the side of the believers as opposed to the secularists are not necessarily so.That is because the school of Rationnalism has penetrated into the very fabric of all the major Western religions! We’ll set aside the religions of India(Buddhism and Hinduism ) for now.For example the traces of Greek philosophy can be clearly seen in the work of the Talmudic scholars of Judaism.In fact “traces’ is a serious understatement.The Talmudic approach to scholarship is more Greek than Judaic.If you need any proof compare the thinking of Moses and Aaron to that of Rashi and Hillel to name a couple. Christian theology,itself, is largely Greek thinking applied to the Judaic tradition that Jesus was trying to promote and elevate.And Islam itself began this process of degradation when the Greek texts were translated into Arabic during the Andalusian period.Islam has never been the same since.Again you can compare the Quran and hadith to the writings of scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Ghazzali to see the difference.Muslims believe that the only sect guilty of this deviation were the Mutazilis(The Rationnalists) but that just indicates the extent to which this was a covert if not unconscious operation.
So…once we see this- and “seeing” is key,what can we do?! The Hindu/Buddhist answer here would be “meditation” or “mindfulnesss practice’. That is not a bad place to start! Especially if you don’t get lost in their philosophical and theological distortions -like Advaita Vedanta or the non-existence” of the self” in Buddhism or the Dalai Lama’s proclamations of “We don’t need a personal God”. Yes,we do! However meditation can give us some distance from our thoughts so we can see them for what they are and not reify or deify them.
Another form of practice that can be very helpful is “tazkiya”– the purification of the heart.Once we can see and hear and feel again,we are much less subject to the vagaries of the mind.This is hard work however-involving a lot of “jihad-a-nafs” struggling with the ego.
Then again we can do any of the endless “mindless” activities like going into nature,planting a garden,praying,”falling in love”,having children,taking care of old people.Anything to avoid the plague of overthinking.
While I was conceiving of this article,I watched a recent n.d.e of an American lady who met her Guide on the other side She asked about the Covid epidemic and the Guide said the following”Don’t worry so much about the details of what is occuring.The real cause of this pandemic is the hardening of human hearts“! Ajib! Exactly what I was intuiting.The outer is a reflection of the inner! The Sufis tell us this It is the opposite of the current European Empiricism-that the outer is determinant.And the Virgin Mary in her apparition at Medugorge said more or less the same”If mankind continues on its way of materialism and nationalism,there will be more and more natural disasters”,she said.Not because of tectonic plates or global warming or El Nino wind patterns. .Because of mankind’s internal states.
So…. Time for a turn-around.It can only be helpful-if not in this world then the next! Will you join me?!
Ramadan as Process(An update to The Phenomenology of Ramadan)
Ramadan as Process:
I an writing this article because it seems to me that there is a major aspect of the Ramadan experience that our scholars are unwilling to talk about -except in the most fleeting terms-its difficulty lol.They much prefer their idealizations and their principles to the lived reality!On the other hand ,in sharp contrast,I was pleased to hear Sheikh Zaid Shakir recently mentioning “the rigours of Ramadan” The local Imam,when the mosque was operating at full capacity,loved,instead, to talk about how quickly it is was passing.”19 days” he would say:”and it passed like a brief moment”.Really?! Yup,a brief moment -of 19 eternities.
So ,all around me I would see and hear of events.Like my very first Tarawih prayer where the Imam fell to the floor writhing in pain.It turned out that the Ramadan dehydration phenomenon had crystallized a stone in his urinary tract requiring an emergency medical procedure.Or the woman who would mention to her friends that her husband, who said he was fine with fasting, was regularly losing his temper for nothing.Or the patients I had to recommend to stop their fast because their depression,which they were already struggling with, had gotten worse! All of this goes on backstage,while in the foreground the ulema are only telling us of the blessings and the benefits- which is also true.
Don’t get me wrong here! I think Ramadan is a wonderful practice- clearly ordained by our Lord for our benefit.But that benefit is spiritual- not physical.And it involves hardship and perseverance and submission to our Lord.If it were otherwise it would not be called “the month of patience”. It is not a beach-party of Divine Presence.For that, no patience would required.
So why do I bring this up?! Because I don’t believe in “denial'”. According to the psychoanalysts,denial is the most primitive form of defense mechanism.And in the Arabic language the root word for denial (k-th-b) is the same as that for lying! So we really don’t want to go there.This attempt at denial ends up being counterproductive! If the ulema were hoping to encourage us by telling us only about the positive aspects and not acknowledging the experience,they have the opposite effect.People who are having difficulty and pain then feel like they are defective,slackers and losers.Is that what we want?! To have a collective assault on our self-worth?That is certainly NOT the intention of our Lord or his Prophet saws
Now,once again,the point here is not to minimize the importance of Ramadan.Allah has ordered it for our benefit.The point is to learn how to manage it in a way that we get the maximum benefit and the least harm.We all know of people who cannot do it-due to diabetes,or migraines or circulatory illness or even in my experience people who are depressed and psychotic.But there are many more subtle and more common issues.Last year, I myself missed a large part of the fast because of the viral illness called Shingles.It was apparent that the fasting had triggered it and it would only get worse if I continued fasting .I had to make up the days during the year.I was content with my decision.And this year all is well,so far! Alhumdulillah.
Others are not so discerning.I remember being with an Irish convert in England who suffered from serious epilepsy.I advised him to do only a partial fast. He wouldn’t listen and had a grand-mal seizure in the Peckham mosque during tarawih prayers in the last ten days.That seizure elicited a huge fitna between the believers in neurology(including myself lol) and those who considered it was “jinn”.A huge conflagration occurred and the police(who were excellently trained unlike in America!) had to be called in to quell the riot!. That is not what we need as Muslims!
Admittedly most Ramadan issues are not quite so dramatic.They are more about managing our energy deficits,dealing with the headaches,the periods of constipation and loss of drive.All of those are reasonably frequent and need to be managed.For most people,Ramadan is a roller-coaster! Periods of loss of energy,loss of motivation followed by moments of barakat and peace and blessings.Some experience tranquility and calm.Others lose their will to to do anything! “it’s all grist for the mill” the psychoanalysts like to say.For us “it’s all service to our Lord”. But, we are not supposed to be increasing the pain through blindness and ignorance.And the blindness we are referring to here mostly involves blindness to our inner experience.
“So what does this mean concretely?”you may ask.And we ARE living in the era of concreteness! It is called Philosophical Materialism or Empirism-and it affects the Muslim psyche just as it affects the social psyche generally.Some examples.When I was still practising psychiatry,I would reduce the number of patients I saw /day and abstain from new evaluations and complex reports since that is what took the most cognitive effort.When I met some Iranian students of agriculture at the local university,they told me they started studying at iftar and studied through the night.”Clever ones” I thought! A member of the Tunisian Olypmpic team told me they did their athletic training at midnight during Ramadan-after the Tarawih prayer.Another brilliant move.But all of that requires awareness and breaking of habits-somehing that is all too rare in many circles!
One of the keys here is NOT to feel guilty about our experience.And not to be a”.Ramadan fasting macho”.The Imams seem to be specialized in making us feel bad! ‘You fasted all day but you had some bad thoughts about a friend.Fasting cancelled”. “You recited some Quran.Did you not know that Imam AbuHanifa and Imam Shafii did two complete Qurans /day.So you’re a slacker”! ” You left after 8 rakats.Don’t you know that 20 is better” And on and on .I call this “The Catholicization of Islam” as the Catholics were adept at making their parishioners feel bad about themselves and regularly sending them to the hell-fires! One of the reasons so many left the Church.
Sheikh Nazim used to tell us that the formula for life was 40 to1- pain to pleasure.My apologies to any hedonists in the audience lol.Ramadan may well be even more acute.But the reward is with Allah.I shudder to think what the outcome would be if it were in the hands of human beings.Actually if you look around at our planet you can see what that would be?! Gradual and systematic destruction! Tawakuultu Ilayhi Wa Huwa Rabb ul Arsh Al Atheem. (We trust in Him and He is the Lord of the Magificent Throne-i.e. the Ultimate Manager!)
So,Ramadan Kareem and Saleem.It’s going to be tough! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! But in the end it’s more than worth it.And it’s well worth managing it skilfuly as well!
The Phenomenology of Ramadan
“Phenomenology” is a relatively new area of inquiry- often associated with such personalities as the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Martin Heidegger(1889-1976).We will not even attempt to go into the the intricacies of their philosophical systems as this would fly in the face of my most profound conviction about the need for simplicity. I would prefer to sort out a chaotic garage or warehouse space(obviously of my own making lol) than to even attempt such an endeavour.
Nevertheless,I think these schools of thought do represent an important development in our own way of conceiving the world and more specifically the need for us to observe and reflect on our inner experience.This need does not seem to be very present in traditional cultures including Islam where correct behaviour and correct beliefs seemed to suffice.So for most Muslims ,the fact that Allah ordained fasting in the Quran(2:183) and the Prophet saws told us of its benefits and the scholars have determined that the first ten days are for “Rahmat”(mercy) and the second ten are about” forgiveness from God” and the last ten give “freedom from the hellfires” is sufficient.
Being in the modern world, however, some of us, at least, feel the need to go deeper-into the inner experience and this is where phenomenology comes in.We need to look at the inner,experiential reality .
As I reflected on this( it may well have been an inspiration) I realized that an interesting parallel to Ramadan is the experience of pregnancy.The trigger for this thinking may well have been a difficult beginning to this year’s Ramadan and my recollections of the accounts of Kate Middleton, the duchess of Cambridge, and her difficult pregnancies being bed-ridden for months at the beginning of each of her pregnancies with overwhelming nausea.The details of her experience are not what is important here however,no more than the details of the philosophical systems of Husserl and Heidegger.What is interesting is that the three trimesters of pregnancy provide an interesting parallel to the three ten-day sections of Ramadan and I believe this can be helpful to us in understanding the process.
So, in Ramadan,the first ten days especially the early ones can be difficult for people.Just as women often experience nausea(morning-sickness) during the first trimester fasters will have a variety of symptoms as they take on the fast-headaches,dizziness,weakness,lack of concentration ,etc. Depending on the state of health of the practitioner this may last only a day or two or may continue for a longer period of time,for some intermittently throughout the month.
The second trimester of pregnancy usually is characterized by a subsidence of the ‘crisis mode’ ,less symptoms,a calmness and a waiting.I would call this phase”paddling” and “incubation”. The baby is slowing growing and developing.The same is true in Ramadan.The worst is over.Now is the time of persistence and patience.
We all know where the third trimester of pregnancy leads! If we have had any contact with a woman going through it,we know they are literally “carrying a heavy load” ,exhausted,breathless at night and anticipating and fretting about the”apocalypse ‘to come.And then it is over.At this point the model breaks down somewhat as Ramadan is not as clearly defines in its finality.So for the last ten days to be more accurate I would add in the model of the Shakespearian play which builds up to its climax(Lailat al Qadr) and its dénouement(the few days left after Lailat al Qadr. And the the Eid celebrations-in both cases.However for the woman, as opposed to the faster,the work has just begun!That is why Allah and his Prophet insist so strongly on the rights of the Mother!
I hope that helps you understand better the inner process of the month of fasting and makes it a more fulfilling and satisfying experience.I feel like it is helping me to think of it this way.And I can’t wait to see the baby at the end! Salaams,ibrahim