Islam is not therapy Salah is not purely exclusively therapy now yes of course Islam is therapeutic Salah is therapeutic but it’s not just like part of this bag of oh yeah you can try this yoga yeah you’re a Muslim right yeah yeah you can try some Bitcoin and you
Know do what you want we’re not disparaging your mental practitioner the GP that you’re going to a psychiatrist you’re going to or even a psychologist at all that’s not what we’re doing at all we’re really trying to save mental health we’re basically saying that yes but not enough and it’s got some baggage
And if it were purified through an Islamic lens then it would actually completely hit the mark yes and welcome back to Dogma disrupted today we’re talking about the mental health industry now mental health is something that’s gotten a lot more attention in the last five to ten years
And with good reason with people losing their sense of what this life is even about we have people who are sort of searching for purpose and feel depressed more than ever and this is a touch the Muslim uh community in the west just as much as it says any other community
However in our Zeal to pick up and to pay attention to Long neglected mental health issues are we unwittingly swallowing dogmas and ideologies that actually undermine our faith to help us unpack this we’ve brought back to the program Dr zuhair welcome back it’s great to see you again
So that’s the the basic premise for this episode is that we’re sort of deconstructing the mental health industry um mental health is something that everybody agrees is important however mental health how we approach mental health is not there’s not just one way right so give us a sense of where the
Industry sort of is at what’s the default approach to mental health what are the stakes involved and are there ways in which we’re actually undermining our own faith uh in our attempts to take to take care of something that is really worthwhile so when you look at mental health as a
Concept or as a phenomenon in the west it has a very short history actually uh in the sense that um just as you mentioned for the Muslim Community starting to realize the importance of it and the importance to put resource into it and to actually think about it same thing from the uh
Western point of view in the academy um prior to the psychoanalytic analytic movement you had William James in the late 1800s or so uh who started to kind of focus on this idea of the mind and then you have the psychoanalytic movement so those are figures like Freud
And Jung who starts to speak about the subconscious elements of the human mind and how they affect our conscious elements and then you start to get of course uh the empirical Sciences start to really take over uh the the idea of psychology Nicole young said something very interesting uh which is that the
The West has lost its soul and it’s replaced it with this field of psychology uh and so he recognized that because of the disavow and the disregard of religion uh from the Western point of view their soul had essentially kind of been neglected and so Psychology was
Born out of this need to fill that space that was previously filled in western civilization with religion uh and with beliefs and with spiritual practices and so it’s interesting as the decades went on as I said the empirical Sciences started to really take over uh the idea of the
Human mind and the study of the human mind uh and so uh when we see today in the 2020s almost exclusively most of psychology is rooted in number one the Assumption or the world view of naturalism the idea that our mind states that we experience are can all merely be
Reduced to biological phenomenon uh and so this is I guess you can say the academic background or backdrop in a brief sense of mental health because of course mental health flows from the way that a person conceptualizes the Mind itself sure then we understand what is mental health and so mental health from
The Western point of view is rooted a lot of it in terms of the therapeutic approaches a lot of it is actually rooted in naturalism in terms of the frame work and these sorts of things even when people start to understand and recognize the need for multi-disciplinary approaches to mental
Health so not just medications but also social uh factors and also um individual factors and family and environment and all these sorts of things this is all done with the recognition and understanding that fundamentally you’re it’s all about the brain and whatever is good for the brain
And that’s how it’s studied so that’s really this is really fascinating if I might just pause here to zoom out and to give a sense of the stake here what we’re not saying we’re not saying that mental health is not important right and we’re not saying that um for example
That if you’re clinically depressed that you just need to uh to pray more you just need to or that everything is gin possession right because these These are sort of the tropes and stereotypes that unfortunately unfortunately there are parts of our community that respond to actual mental sort of health issues with
Um sort of the opposite problem and maybe we could say that historic history is almost swinging wildly back and forth between two pendulums and so uh or excuse me the historical pendulum is swinging back and forth between two extremes and what we’re simply trying to
Say is that let’s not get taken to the Other Extreme now and you know just because you know there’s an auntie or an uncle out there that thinks that everything is gin possession that doesn’t mean that absolutely everything is neurons and neurotransmitters and hormones and chemicals right is that they’re um you
Know we do have a paradigm an Islamic Paradigm that talks about who the human being is and the Western Paradigm is actually very very sort of in opposition to our Islamic Paradigm of who the definition of a human being is and so you’re saying that this this naturalism
Is like the first step like we’re making a laundry list right real real quick of what are the hidden or implicit sort of assumptions of this entire field uh or at least the vast majority of the field number one would be naturalism this idea that everything exists within the
Physical observable World maybe we haven’t developed the technology yet to be able to detect it but we’re certain that if we keep on going and progressing that we’re going to get to the point where we can explain everything in terms of natural consequences cause and effect this material stimuli right causes this
Material effect that’s is that fair that’s a very a good summary and also a very good kind of a way of uh of understanding this whole situation with recognizing we’re still talking we’re not neglecting the importance of mental health in whatever way you want to describe the you know uh the the mood
State and the and the the thinking patterns and these sorts of things of an individual um but as you said uh recognizing that when we are approaching this subject making sure we don’t come with the same philosophical baggage over the same ideological baggage you can say
Um as uh those in the west so as you said number one I would say there’s two main core pillars you can say we have the pillars of Iman of course right six pillars of Iman I’d say that the two pillars uh of mental health ideology
Um is naturalism from uh from a world view point of view So that obviously natural when we say naturalism uh that basically means that everything in existence as Imam Tom was mentioning uh can be reduced fundamentally to the elements to the to the fundamental elements like the elements that you see
In the periodic table uh everything can be reduced to those fundamental elements uh in essence the second pillar uh the second turken uh is humanism humanism uh humanism uh is essentially a um you can say uh it’s it’s the idea that everything that is done or everything
That is pursued should be done with the purpose of enhancing The Human Experience you can say um and in this very human-centered type of approach to things and so when it comes to things like therapy and when it comes to things like approach um generally speaking Western mental
Health is very focused purely on what makes a person happy I know that’s a very simplistic way of saying it but fundamentally that’s what it comes down to I could say maybe what maximalization of pleasure and the minimization of pain right to give just a concrete example
Like when uh you know because obviously I’m a convert and I have lots of you know all of my family is non-muslim whenever somebody’s sort of at end of Life Care the one thing that everybody talks about is pain pain management pain management pain management to the point
Where it’s almost mechanical and people aren’t talking about the soul and they’re not talking about dying well or transitioning to the next life or anything like this they’re talking about well how how much morphine to give and and Etc and well at least they died uh you know without pain that’s like the
Single only concern actually subhanallah I think there’s two competing kind of uh sub elements within this idea of humanism in terms of what a person should pursue Hedonism I think is a is a big one as you mentioned and it’s interesting you mentioned end of life uh
And the focus of this and that’s something I noticed as well it’s something that the medical fraternity recognizes and it’s one of the things actually that um they they mention as being unrealistic expectations from people uh and there’s this pushback to try and have patients recognize that uh sometimes completely eradicating pain is
Not realistic as a treatment goal and that there’s going to be some level of pain and discomfort but um people uh are quite pain phobic I mean obviously who likes to be in discomfort right but it’s interesting because it’s become the ultimate goal essentially as you mentioned within
Humanism it’s almost like sorry to interrupt again but I’m not just trying to follow the thoughts no please do feminism which draws us to the life of this world as opposed to the life of the of the next world it’s that pain loses meaning meaning right because
Um pain if the primary sort of you know world that we exist in is this Dunya right this worldly life and and therefore it’s you know the ends or the the sort of um you know the outcomes that were being attuned to are not the ultimate outcomes of the next life their
Outcomes in this world then pain is only an obstacle pain is only something that really stands in our way or is annoying or unpleasant whereas when we bring in sort of a fundamentally spiritual worldview then pain is actually purposeful right and we have throughout the Quran and throughout the Sunnah
Right various types of pain that if you’re patient that you’ll actually accrue virtue you will you know raise and rank on the day of judgment or in the afterlife so so pain what makes pain tolerable is that it actually has a Telos it has a purpose to it and when
What we’re saying is that the humanistic framing of mental health or any sort of medical Enterprise removes the purpose from Pain entirely and therefore can only be sort of a miserable experience subhanallah so beautifully put and as you mentioned there’s so many a Hadith uh that emphasize this point of
Um the meaning behind pain pain is Redemptive and as you said pain can be virtuous if it’s buried with patience and it can lead to Virtue like you know it’s interesting when you read the I thought of the companions visiting each other when they were sick
Um and they would all uh mention this point I mean the general the generic that a person is meant to say when a person is visiting the sick there are many other duas in that area as well I was just reading actually there’s a chapter about visiting the sick and whatnot
Um and uh it’s very interesting how much the focus as you said is not on removing the pain it’s actually on increasing the meaning in the pain it’s two very different things right like they’re not trying at that point and obviously they don’t have access as well to be able to
Do that but it’s interesting that even when they did have access so we have the the instance where the there was a sahabia who was suffering from what appears to be epilepsy as she was getting recurrent seizure episodes and she had the opportunity to remove the suffering completely what was it it
Wasn’t some medication it wasn’t um you know uh the uh the deer Optics that we have but it was the Dua of the Prophet salallahu which would have been and it would have been completely removed and it was a very interesting uh thing that the prophet saws gave her the
Option look if you’re patient you have Jannah in front of you and she said okay just make Dua that my aura doesn’t get uncovered subhanallah um and so and so she went on with it afterwards and the narrations of some of the time that they would see here in the
Kabad around the cabinets and that was the lady that was the famous lady she became like a legend uh in the area because of her decision and and as you said I think what you said is so beautiful which is the idea that pain is an excellent point here that shows the
Difference between humanism and between to hate which is that and this is everything in life right it’s all about endowing meaning to things in life uh and so it’s not about removal completely of pain and if that happens that’s good we always take the easy option the prophet saw someone who’s confronted
With two situate or two decisions you would always choose the easier one Allah wants ease and not hardship 100 we take the easier way but we recognize if it has to be born then we’re going to Bear the um the pain with recognizing its meaning
Now one of the things I want to mention just within this idea of humanism as the as the second rooken of of the mental health Dogma you can say um is that uh even those so there’s a push to recognize that Hedonism is ultimately doesn’t make a person
Actually happy in the long term even in this life like we talk about long term in the next life and people recognize that um and people have recognized that for a long time actually so you they know you they know Mia which is basically the um the the alternative to Hedonism uh which
Is this I this Greek concept uh that is a universal concept but it was a Greek constant attributed to Aristotle which is the idea that the happy life or the good life is the life that’s uh lived with virtue uh and that’s where true pleasure is is derived from rather than
Just kind of the lower kind of hedonistic pleasures and this is something that you see within the mental health industry as well which is encouraging kind of quote-unquote meaningful activities and volunteering and helping others but here’s the thing and this is the thing that we need to recognize it’s all it’s so important
About the framing of it see for them it’s in the human pleasure is the end mental health and mental well-being is the end that is their goal as a civilization at this stage their goal is mental well-being that’s why mental health has become so big because they
Reckon this is this is for them this is their Dunya this is their Jannah right even the prophet saws mentioned that right this is their Jannah and so for them mental well-being is the most important you know by the way the most common issue that comes to a general
Practitioner and I work in general practice uh now in Australia I’m pretty sure it’s the same in other countries as well is mental health that is actually the primary concern that a person the most statistically most likely that a person is going to walk in with so this
Is a huge issue what does that say about about diagnosing where we’re at in terms of history and civilization I mean I know correlation doesn’t equal causation but the further and further the West has gone away from religion and God and spirituality and any concept of revelation of course they were from the
People of the book they had some remnants of that truth and guidance the further and further away they’re getting from that it’s almost like you see that the curve of depression and anxiety and it’s increasing more and more um you know one in seven children under the age of 12 would have experienced
Some sort of mental health issue or crisis this is statistics in Australia um it’s uh it’s it’s something that uh this the when you look at the statistics it keeps rising Rising rising and you have to just scream out the people don’t know why they’re here there is this
Genuine sense of nihilism of what is the point of life and it’s trying to and and what the mental health industry is doing is it’s trying to actually provide therapy not by pushing people along this path and trying to actually discover their purpose but by completely ignoring
It and giving them tools and and drugs and uh therapy and distractions to distract their mind from those sorts of questions which is the very interesting thing they are uh turning and to therapy uh and Medicaid they’re medicating people’s pain internal pain with this now I want to be very clear
Here by the way um I I think this is an important distinction to make as well um everything we’ve been talking about particularly this and what I’ve been saying now um it’s not referring to those more biologically rooted mental health conditions and here’s the thing that people need to recognize people think
And it goes back to the naturalism point so the record number one with naturalism which is this idea everyone thinks oh all depression is biological even some Muslim speakers have heard say this like oh depression don’t think that this is like you know spiritual or whatnot you
Can you know and this is true statement you can have you know hi Iman but still have issues with depression and these sorts of things it’s biological this is an incorrect kind of way of framing it uh because it look here’s the here’s the challenge this is one of the things one
Of my um one of my psychology used to say uh which is that every mind state is a brain state but you don’t know which way the causal arrow is pointing right like if you so if you say oh everything’s all biological that’s because everything that’s in your mind Allah has made some
Correlation in your brain this doesn’t mean mean that that everything is fundamentally reduced to your brain at all as they say correlation doesn’t equal causation as you said earlier but then anyways and so uh with this it’s very important to categorize depression into two generally different types and actually you find this categorization
Very early on in the Muslim tradition actually was one of the earliest I believe to actually have made this distinction you see this distinction also he makes it as well which is the difference between endogenous depression or biologically rooted depression and reactive depression there are many different terms to describe these sorts
Of things but basically one of the types of depression is something where the person’s life is totally fine no sad event has happened it’s not like they’ve got this life of trauma but their their experiencing quote-unquote the symptoms of depression and usually this this kind of symptom
Um this usually this kind of symptom face is is is is is more the focus on fatigue can’t get out of bed you’re in bed for like 18 hours low energy G completely lethargic just low mood no motivation not because of anything else this is something that’s a lot more the
Idea and there’s nothing that’s happened they might even have a religious you know good family everything this religion what not this is something that seems to be more naturally rooted and more biological in its in its nature and it’s etiology uh and it’s something that mentions actually and he says that for
These uh conditions because they’re coming from nature and whatnot then it’s dawa is also found in nature as well and they had different kind of Remedies and stuff that they would use actually quote-unquote antidepressants and whatnot that they were used in their time to help boost mood and these sorts
Of things but anyways that’s one side but there’s a second side and this second side uh is something that is very clearly not necessarily by no it’s it’s very clearly linked to actual issues either dealing with trauma loss of a loved one or like if you look at the
Content of their thought and illumination that purposelessness of life and the fact that they feel like what’s the point of of these sorts of things and and these and it really seems this kind of a way of presenting it really seems like they’re crying out for looking for some purpose looking for
Some meaning in their life so these are very different things and sometimes what happens is actually sometimes this is what’s happening which is that we are pathologizing as a as an industry in the west they are pathological what does that mean what that means is that the pain that a
Person feels in their heart because they don’t have sorry the bunk that they fear of like a lot of references in the Quran that you feel or experience when you turn away from Allah’s remembrance Allah tells us that there are tangible palpable consequences to turning away from his remembrance and what you’re
Saying is that the industry standard of mental health is basically slapping a pathologized sort of a diagnosis on it and then saying well you just got to take this pill or you’ve got to find a hobby or you’ve got to start you know dance lessons or something like that and
It’ll solve this underlying fundamental existential crisis that you’re kind of experiencing that Allah actually created in you to experience in order to propel you to try to figure out why you’re here in the first place beautifully said beautifully said and that’s that is the that is the big issue
That we’re seeing actually here when it comes to the issue of mental health um and so uh as you as you were saying so the way of dealing with this existential angst you know one of the Criterion for major depressive disorder is nihilism that’s like a correct so there’s
Basically the way it works to get this diagnosis which by the way there’s a lot of debates as well about the way that mental health is categorized and the way mental illnesses are categorized in the diagnostic labels in medicine every other disease is categorized based on etiology based on its cause what causes
It um not based on symptoms we don’t like look at a a set of symptoms generally speaking and say oh yeah you’ve got coronavirus because you’ve got a headache and a sore throat and fever no how do you diagnose coronavirus you actually go and you see there’s a cause
Of chronovirus and it’s the actual coronavirus itself there’s a Cause the fluids influenza a or the B there’s a cause of a heart attack quote unquote at myocardial infarction and there’s ways to investigate to actually see the etiology that is causing the disease and causing the symptoms we don’t diagnose a
Heart attack just based on chest pain I’ve got chest pain it’s this no you do further investigation and then you find the cause and say Yep this is the cause and so categorization of diseases are based on causes on etiology but when it comes to Mental Health categorization of diseases are not based
On etiology they’re based on symptoms and the reason is because they actually don’t know the etiology they have different they have different models and different ways of trying to understand what causes it and this is the thing people in popular kind of mental health people just assume oh yeah it’s
Biological hooded no they don’t know why this happens that’s okay I need to tease out the consequences of what you’re saying because that actually never occurred to me before that you know they are operating on a paradigm that is purely naturalistic so they’re you know they’re they’re operating on Paradigm
That everything has to be caused biologically and yet they’re taking the causation of a mental illness on complete faith there’s no um there’s no investigation there’s no tests that’s being run no one’s scanning your brain looking at the different balance of chemicals this chemical that chemical this hormone that hormone in
Your brain and say oh yes not enough of this oh yes too much of that oh no yep this is in the wrong place which would sort of seem to be the end game of a naturalistically rooted mental sort of epidemiology they’re literally just taking it on
Faith right like that’s very very and actually so what you said about straight in the brain technically best practice is to actually investigate but not for a mental illness diagnosis to see whether or not those symptoms are caused by a a more medical or you could say uh organic
Cause they call it blood tests that are true mental illness is that it wouldn’t no it wouldn’t be yeah it would be like yeah that’s the interesting thing right so they’d be like oh the reason why you’re feeling like this is because actually your iron’s really your vitamin
D is really low uh or you scan your brain oh you’ve got this you know tumor or something in your brain or and that’s what’s changing your personality or uh they check your thought or your thyroid is really low that’s what this is hypothyroidism it’s not depression so
You actually once a patient comes you actually rule out all the actual organic causes and once you’ve exhausted your list of potential causes then you say okay yeah you fit the credit and then you look at the criteria who makes these criteria it’s called the diagnosis statistical manual it’s basically
Convention of psychiatrists that come together and whatnot uh and they basically make these symptoms go forward they speak about their practices and look at the statistics and whatnot and they basically make these Criterion they I wouldn’t want to say they’re completely arbitrary obviously they’re not completely arbitrary but based on
You know their practice and experience and whatnot they come up with symptom uh profiles uh and they have these criteria who came up with these criteria just human beings it’s not like it’s something like oh 100 like and so they so for depression there’s two ones that
You have to have at least one of them which is anhedonia loss of pleasure and you know uh regular types of activities and depressed mood and then there’s all these other ones uh that you that that you that you can see and if you even experiencing them for a certain amount
Of time months and months and uh you’ve excluded everything else then you’ve been given this diagnosis of depression and as we said it’s not based on etiology because oftentimes they don’t know the actual biological cause they can’t find one and so this comes to that issue when it comes to naturalism which
Is something that they recognize themselves and by the way you know in the global Health Initiative of things where people are trying to increase the General Health and well-being of the world in places of lower socioeconomic status to have more Equitable Access to Health Care like we have in the west
Which is very Noble Pursuit there’s this idea of global mental health which is okay we also have to do this for mental health but you’re actually seeing from within the industry uh a lot of post-modern critiques um being applied to the mental health industry which is interesting it’s
Almost like it’s uh I can imagine I mean it would just be like law and like um you know development work and Aid work which which all has very substantial critiques about first world third world global North Global South this is an imposition because it’s not just that the people making these diagnostic
Criteria are just human beings that’s one aspect but they all tend to come from a certain place and they all they all start to operate within a certain metaphysical paradigm a list of assumptions about as we said who is the human being what is real what
Is not real is there a soul are we going to take those into a consideration so if you come to a place that is maybe more traditional whether it’s in Africa or an Asia and somewhere else and they might say you know like oh yeah this this
Happens like and this is from jealousy or this is from this other sort of spiritual malady even a sickness of the heart right um then they would epistemically not be able to even consider that as valid knowledge right so there’s a coloniality of knowledge that’s going on where
Certain things are legible as knowledge and fact and truth and other things are completely rendered illegible uh in those sort of paradigms yes exactly exactly how you put it um and so this is the big issue because then you’re gonna enforce kind of this they uh they call it uh medical
Imperialism that you’re enforcing uh your way of looking at mental health based on your cultural context and the way you understand things because there’s a recognition of you know you’re not categorizing based on causes you’re just doing symptom profiles right and then you’re saying this is what it looks
Like and everyone recognizes this anecdotally at least many of the psychiatrists I trained with they would say look if you go to so you took a look at something like schizophrenia uh which is characterized by a lot of psychotic features um so delusional thinking auditory hallucinations and these sorts of things
Um and so it was interesting uh uh one of the psychiatrists I was trading with he basically said that if you look at uh schizophrenia here in the west it’s very different than you see people coming from Asia coming from Africa and when they come with schizophrenia I was like
What do you mean he’s like here in the west schizophrenia a lot of the people very aggressive sometimes is misdiagnosed because a lot of it has drugs that are kind of put together with it it’s a lot more of an aggressive form uh versus if you look there he’s like
That’s true schizophrenia you see that because it’s not the drugs that are there they’re withdrawn they’re very quiet they’re very to themselves and these sorts of things um so it’s interesting because of course culturally it can manifest in different ways and sometimes Muslims will take this idea because as you said
Um you know if you go if they go to traditional culture say oh this is not evil eye or this is this this is just depression it’s biological this is a huge issue and we should not be saying phrases like this because this goes against even our way of understanding
Our own mind and the things that influence our thoughts and everything like this and so we have to be very careful here it’s not as scientific as many people think it is this is an attempt and and this is an attempt uh I’m not trying to be completely cynical
Of the mental health industry here it’s an attempt to try Ai and deal with this epidemic of depression and anxiety so mostly mood disorders epidemic of depression and anxiety how can we help the people because of course when you’re living depressed and anxious it’s not good for society it’s not good
For the person it’s against their concept of humanism of living well as well and so they’re doing their best in terms of trying to understand trying to then create programs create therapies one of the biggest things that disproves naturalism is actually uh the the things that are used to help uh treat mental
Illness and particularly mood disorders so we talk about so people are saying oh it’s all just biological it’s all just biology it’s a physical phenomenon one of the things that’s really interesting is that I’ll never forget one of my psychology professors uh Dr Davis’s name uh for those who haven’t went to
McMaster might be watching this uh Legend legendary psychology professor and he is he was very critical of uh the way that people would claim certainty about things like in reducing mental illness to just biological points and he used to always say that when it comes to uh the issue of neurotransmitted you
Know imbalance and and whatnot and the medications that are given to try and correct this imbalance this is not even the main kind of uh aspect that has been shown to actually improve symptoms like if you correct that imbalance it doesn’t even necessarily improve symptoms and
You see a lot of the research that’s coming out with that from a purely biological point of view and he’s saying which is correct we don’t know why a lot of these drugs work we’re just taking it as you said on faith but it works and we see in the
Trials a person’s mood is boosted and whatnot what is the mechanism they’re not sure yet and I’m sure they’ll find a mechanism I’m not saying that there’s not but this is the point about trying to think too much about this is by this is all biological and here’s the the really interesting thing
Which is when a person undergoes therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy which is an interesting term by the way cognitive behavioral therapy uh changing or adjusting your way of thinking or your way of interpreting the world your beliefs and your actions right like this is this is the active
This is meant to be religious activity right right adjusting your thoughts and whatnot to make it more aligned with your purpose and your actions as well so they call it CBT cognitive behavioral therapy why when they look at it that actually changes as well unitransmitter uh
Profile and these sorts of things so how is it that something metaphysical like thought right no physical content there you tell me what a thought is made out of yeah it’s not made out of anything it’s immaterial it’s metaphysical how is something metaphysical causing physical changes in your brain
This is the one of the most amazing things that actually disproves naturalism because why is any conscious thought affecting your brain right and how is it that your brain is going into a metaphysical you know realm and causing something metaphysical where is the interface here between the physical
And the metaphysical and mental health becomes an area where actually this becomes very palpable where a person if they if they if they notice and pay attention they should think wait a second why is this working why is therapy changing the neurotransmitter whatnot so this is the point I’m trying
To make when we talk about oh yeah it’s not that this person just doesn’t have their purpose in life or is distance from Allah or anything like this it’s because there’s imbalance in your transmitters it’s like well how do you know that it wasn’t that the fact that
They’re distant from Allah and the fact that they don’t know their purpose in life that it caused the neurotransmitter disbalance that has caused this chronic changes in the brain because it goes both ways the biology can affect your thoughts but your thoughts can also affect your biology right yeah this is a
Classic sort of thing that a lot of scientism and a lot of naturalism falls into um confusing the answer of how what the answer of why right and so you if you discover a mechanism and you you claim to have solved the riddle of well why something happens but you really haven’t
Accounted for it holistically you’ve just sort of uncovered the mechanism by which it is achieved right and that doesn’t do anything you know you can simply back up the the car the chain of cause and effect further than that to get into other Realms right um and that is very very interesting so
It seems like there’s a very deeply hidden contradiction in probably the standard operating procedure or the assumptions of most of the mental health industry and it’s sort of based around this definition of what is the mind and really the problem of Consciousness which is something that a lot of people
Bring up there’s only really you know a small percentage of the population that would go full hard materialist on this issue and say that even your thoughts are simply the the the sum of individual neurons firing and stuff like that most people uh intuitively recognize that thought as something that escapes the
Physical world even if it has structures or organs that assist it or facilitate or things like that um and so what we’re seeing here is that we have a whole field of knowledge and this affects intervention and affects medication and affects you know um sort of
How people are going to try to help people and it’s only operating both it’s only operating on a naturalistic sort of assumption even though its own methods belie that assumption and demonstrate that there is more to reality than just the physical natural world exactly and what’s really interesting as well is that
Um you look at something like mindfulness um so before I get there as you said it’s very interesting that their methods start to Delight this kind of actual epistemological kind of foundation of the way that they they’re very kind of selective and inconsistent and the way that they understand things
Because the push of this field is going Beyond naturalism 100 they’re recognizing the need for the the social aspect to be uh um adjusted your environment your family um therapeutic relationships with different people they’re recognizing all of this and oftentimes this is what happens a lot in medicine which is that
Medicine advances beyond the science a lot of the times and the science catches up after this is what evidence-based medicine really really means which is the idea that we’re not going to wait for us to recognize and understand the framework and the mechanism of things we’re going to go based on the trials
And whatnot this drug works it works the outcomes we want occur that’s it we don’t know mechanism that’s fine the science will catch up and it usually does but it’s interesting because in mental health it’s the same push so there are going and they’re focusing on you know evidence-based things what are
Actually things are going to boost mood and whatnot and you find they’re moving further and further away from medication Focus only and they’re starting to incorporate other things and the recognition of the need you know exercise and that’s something actually that I personally uh published in uh in
A few journals um lifestyle types of interventions things about the gut brain access and exercise and prediction I did a literature review exercise mild and to moderate depression in terms of the severity exercise is as effective as an antidepressant wow um and you have um uh and CBT they’re
All like equally effective if you look at actually they have a pie chart of all the ingredients of successful therapy there’s a very small component that’s the actual therapy which is interesting that’s actually the minority part but what’s a larger part is your relationship with the doctor the psychologist or the psychiatrist your
Therapeutic relationship is ability you have trust is there a sense of um you know feeling of all these different things that they they they put as ingredients of the therapeutic relationship that’s far more important but it’s like wait a second if this is all biological why is this the relationship affecting the actual
Biological this is the point we mentioned earlier but the point I wanted to say here is that as they’re starting to recognize these things they don’t have a mechanism for it and and when it comes to this it’s not going to catch up because it’s going to recognize that
There is this aspect of that there is something more to human being than just biology but mindfulness meditation coming from the Buddhist tradition this has become like almost a Mainstay and something that is part of therapy now you have apps and all the event apps they all include mindfulness and if you
Look at mindfulness it’s so interesting because it has the illusion and the appearance of something spiritual like truly spiritual um you know taking or you know taking some time away uh and and the goal of mindfulness and it’s it’s really in in opposition to the law because the goal
Of mindful is really this idea of making sure that you basically don’t with your thoughts you don’t try and grab onto them you don’t try and wrestle with them you don’t try and adjust them just basically observe them exactly right this idea of observation of what your
Thoughts Victor is an active uh Pursuit it’s an active ritual it’s something that is totally different mindfulness there’s no purpose in life is there there’s no purpose to anything you’re doing it for what reason the end is mental well-being but there’s a purpose you’re thinking about your purpose you’re thinking about Allah
Certainly in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest but they will never recognize that or say anything in this regard and and this is the thing that’s really interesting Muhammad Assad mentions this um and many of the other kind of 20th century early European converts to Islam
Uh they mentioned this point that basically uh the West in Europe has an inferiority complex to Islam which is why they’ll never recognize it and they’ll be quicker in this interesting prediction they’ll be quicker to adopt near Eastern traditions and start to bring that to fill the void of their
Spiritual death then Islam and why is that the case they give different reasons so Muhammad Assad says that it’s because Islam reminds them of their failure because Islam is so similar to Christianity Islam is so similar to Christianity in terms of its belief system it has a
Theology it has a practice they failed to make Christianity the driving force of their civilization and they’ve completely and they they said that the only way forward is to remove ourselves from the abrahamic Semitic push of the prophetic movement Islam on the other hand has a world view it has a theology
It has Law it has ethics whereas Buddhism and Hinduism has none of that it just has you know the uh the just the the meditation aspects the world view there’s no theology or anything like this right uh yeah yeah I mean uh so you read my mind because that was going to
Be this whole train of thought was going to be my next question because in the beginning we were talking about how you know therapy by following evidence and not waiting around for the you know the mechanism the biological mechanism to be discovered has gotten uh ostensibly at least in Optics more faith-based than
They you know their sound therapy and music therapy and and um and then this recognition of religion and now you have therapists that are actually advocating for your own personal religious practice and then practices like yoga and meditation etc etc I was going to ask the question
Though you covered part of the answer which is someone could be tricked right a Muslim could be tricked and say well look there’s no contradiction between the mental health industry and my faith because look they’re actually supporting uh my practice of Islam and if you would
Indulge me to fill on the other half of your answer I would respond to that by saying well but look at the secular power that’s being demonstrated by equating your practice of truth that Allah has revealed with yoga with meditation with music with going to a church and praying
To a Crosser etc etc etc so you know people misunderstand you know like secularism and secular power and obviously you know I’ll this is my my hobby horse that I’m always uh that I’m always writing for that that um you know they misunderstand they expect secular power to look like other
Types of power that they’re maybe more familiar with um you know someone coming down really hard and forcing something down your throat etc etc but secular power is much more of a power to categorize and a power to play referee right and so when we said that you’re in the the the
Therapy room and you’re not allowed to bring certain knowledges into it you’re not allowed to say well someone gave me the evil eye and now I’m really bugging out right that that’s a location of secular power that gets to say that is not knowledge sorry you can go believe
That you know it might have functional benefits right maybe it gives you a sense of calm to be able to think about things that way right but we can’t recognize it as truth that’s one place where secular power shows up and the other in the in the ability to
Categorize things and put things into the same cat basically to put Iman and kofor in the same category and to say that your genuine preserved you know religious rights and and beliefs and things that are actually objectively pleasing to the creator of the world is the same as doing this sort of Godless
Exercise and we can have an argument and say that maybe in a distant past it was some practice that was revealed to a prophet that’s now lost and weakened okay good but now what does it mean to people it’s not a practice of prayer it’s not a practice of orientation it’s
Simply I do yoga either to look good or to feel good I do meditation not to look good just to feel good right and this is the the secular Paradigm and the humanist Paradigm sort of invading rearranging these things in different categories and exerting control over
Sort of our choices in our whole process us exactly and it even comes to the point where a person is doing Islam for therapy Islam is not for therapy that’s not the point of it right Islam is for us to submit to our creator and this is one of the things that sometimes
It’s amazing there is definitely I mean if you look in our Sharia there’s hekma throughout all of it from the beliefs to the practices to the laws to the ethics everything there’s hakama everywhere because Allah and it’s something argues foreign School uh this idea that there’s hikmah
In the actions of Allah and that means in his decisions and in his commands there’s hikmah there’s wisdom there’s Justice there’s a purpose uh and so 100 and I think it’s an incredible scholarly Endeavor that many scholars uh throughout history have gone and they’ve uh they’ve tried to derive more and more
Hecam and the wisdoms behind all these different practices you have as well recently these works that look to basically draw out the hecam of you know all the things that we do but it’s important for us to understand that that’s not why we do
Them that is not why we do them and we do our practices out of submission a loving willful surrender to Allah recognition of our weakness and our vulnerabilities and a trust a trust a deep trust and a love in Allah that’s why we do what he tells us to do then
Later on we discovered the thing it’s like we have to justify to people oh you should lower your gaze because it has these benefits and then your marriage will be better and then you know your and then causes your brain to to look in different ways great I actually love
This lion investigation and if you look at some of my work you know I’m guilty of this type of stuff as well but we have to understand that no it’s lower the gauge first because Allah said that in the Quran and then afterwards you reflect and you say subhanah what an incredible uh
Wisdom in this and so this is important Islam is not therapy Salah is not purely exclusively therapy now yes of course Islam is therapeutic Salah is therapeutic and it is something that is useful in this regard but it’s not just like part of this bag of oh yeah you can try this
Yoga and if you know maybe you’re a Muslim right yeah yeah you can try some Bitcoin and you know do what you want no but when it comes to these things it’s important for us to kind of anchor ourselves and recognize that this is the main Way Forward when it comes to issues
Of mental health and feelings of you know low self-esteem and these sorts of things um and and coming back to something um which is again because I want to emphasize this and maybe I’ll emphasize again at the end because I don’t want anyone to misunderstand us here at all and more
Misunderstand me uh which is we’re not disparaging the mental health uh you know your mental practitioner the GP that you’re going through psychiatrist you’re going through even a psychologist at all that’s not what we’re doing at all and as I was saying oftentimes because you have all this money and and
Research being put in a lot of the things are very helpful it do help people especially when they’re in real severe kind of conditions and stuff like this um I mean there’s mood disorders that are mild to moderate that is probably a lot more relevant to what we’re
Describing right that mild to moderate anxiety mild to moderate depression but there’s obviously severe depression The Psychotic depression the schizophrenia there’s Mania with bipolar and these sorts of things very serious mental health conditions in which case you do find these these uh do not attend and they’re not as relevant to what we’re
Describing like mental health is a very broad term we’re really focusing on the majority of mental that we see in the population we which of the mild to moderate depression and anxiety and whatnot this is what we’re talking about the more kind of uh severe uh types of
Menthol this is not what we’re we’re describing um and it’s important of course to recognize I’m not we don’t want to disparage Trust of course in in people if they’re having like a nice psychologist or whatnot and they feel like oh my God it’s all gone and all
These things no no that’s not what we’re saying at all what we’re doing is we’re critically examining the knowledge structures and foundations of this and and we’re showing as as you said so eloquently the secularizing force of the West and how it applies to this as well
Um and really reflecting on that you would have purpose you would have all of the um latent benefits the functional benefits of you know etc etc but more important than that you would be in a submissive and loving relationship with your Creator and you would um attain to
The highest good which is Paradise um Insha’Allah right so it’s um it’s it’s really just about trying to save something um so so maybe you can take us through so what is you know we talked about epistemic asymmetry and the coloniality of knowledge and things like that what
Are some things I know you had some some in mind that um are excluded that we would include if we’re going to save the mental health industry and we had our own sort of truly not just you know slap the Islamic mental health label on the front of it
But if we had a truly Islamic mental health what are some of the things that we would see as being Incorporated and included in it that are systematically excluded right now excellent so we would include the biology part of it and so when we talk about natural human reduction we’re not
Against the idea that there are biological elements in the formulation of a person’s mental illness that’s number one we do recognize the biological element and this is within our tradition as well this is not new this is not o in the 21st century we’ve become you know enlightened about this
This is something that’s been recognized within the medical tradition and within mental health in the Islamic tradition Dr Malik passed away very recently he just he was um uh part of this project that discovered this manuscript very recently just like a few decades ago by abuzad which is basically a diagnostic a
DSM you can say from the I think he passed away the early third Century uh if I’m not mistaken or second century it was very early um he has the categorization of mental illness and he recognizes the endogenous more biologically rooted depression and as I mentioned as well
Also recognizes this so this is part of the formulation which is our biology sometimes Allah might create a person with a predisposition to experience more extremes of the emotions to be more neurotic this is one of the personality traits as well and the Big Five personality in your autism and so there
Is a certainly the way in which Allah creates it there’s certainly a biological component to it and we can observe that but that doesn’t mean that it’s the ultimate cause of that and that’s the important point that we’re making that distinction because what actually can cause metaphysical things
It’s a bit strange that something physical can cause something metaphysical so there’s clearly some other things that are there there’s clearly some aspects that we don’t fully understand we don’t necessarily fully understand it it’s a very difficult philosophical problem the second aspect of course is to recognize the spiritual
Reality to things that we have a rule within us and that’s through what is the life support of this rule this rule is fed with the dikkar of Allah it is quenched its thirst from the Fountain of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam through knowledge to through remembering Allah to connecting
With Allah this is the way that is kept alive and not uh you know diseased uh and of course the effect of things like jealousy and arrogance and narcissism and these sorts of things as well on the soul and that the soul has an effective course on these aspects of our mind and
Our Consciousness the soul has an effect on the way that we feel connected with Allah that way if we feel distant the way we feel withdrawn if we feel lonely and these sorts of things so there is a spiritual element there that is part of this entire picture and in fact it is
You can say the core of it and this rule is connected in some way to our biology and this is recognized in our theology if you look at the discussions of what’s there is many of the alamat they came up with this idea that when it mixes with the Baden becomes the
Nafs and when it is separated from the body then it is and so this interesting separation that there’s a different phenomenon of a SP of an Ex Human Experience that when the soul mixes with the body that there’s an effect of the body and the soul and the
Body and the soul and the body as well and it produces what we know today as The Human Experience with the shahawat and their desires and all these different things into our brains now the third thing that I would say is it’s part of this of course is the social
Environment as we understand our relationship with others as Allah mentions as well the womb is actually derived from that the Allah the effect of Allah in this world is found in the family and so if you’re seeking if you’re seeking healing that’s within relationships that’s within family that’s within within Brotherhood so
There’s a social element there of course in this relationship and and speaking to others and this is recognized within mental health as well the last thing I’ll mention because others as well but the last thing that I’ll mention which is very important as well that I find as
Well speakers will go to either extremes on this and people will go to extremes with this it’s a bit of a a controversial thing to say but the world of Angels and Demons the angels as a Believer this is like the second in the arkadel Iman to bilah
This realm is not just a theoretical realm it interacts with us on a daily basis the angels and the Jinn and the shelping are around us on a daily basis if you look at the Sunnah of the Prophet saws a lot of the are made to protect
Ourselves from a lot of the evil effects that can come from this realm the angels are there to protect us in this realm you know if you say Kursi before you go to bed there’s an Angel that’s there in your bed warding off demons that may
Come to you what do you think what kind of effects do you think a demon will have on you right or shaitaan that will have on you they’re going to be things that we call today mental health and mental symptoms no doubt about it this is something recognized throughout our
Tradition even just a bad mood you wake up sometimes and you have a really bad mood you saw a bad dream the prophet saws said that there’s three types of Dreams one of that type is something that comes from the shaitaan right exactly and there’s a beautiful form of this
Different forms that come from the Sunnah one of them is interesting because it mentions three things from the shaitaan you say I would have been damaged Upon A regime from the hands of the shaytan and Allah mentions this in the Quran uh what is the hams mentioned this is the
Poking and the prodding of the shaytan and enough is the blowing of the shaytan and the Nath is like the singing and the music of the shinita now anyways I want to focus on this hums aspect here the hums of the shaytan when you look at the definitions and
This is something you find in a classical tradition they say that the hums is the poking and the prodding of the shaytan that drives the person insane that drives the person insane now here’s the point we’re not saying and here’s where people get extreme we’re not saying all mental health is just
Shaytan so you all you need to do is just you know just focus on the Shale theme we’re not saying that and we’re not saying the opposite which is that the shaytan has nothing to do with this just go to your doctor and you know take the tablets around no what we’re saying
Is your soul and your body are intricately connected and they both affect each other and your soul can affect your body and your body can affect your soul and the shaitaan can come and perhaps and this is interesting from a from a Muslim psychiatrist actually he had this
Thing he called it he was one of the psychiatrists I trained with and he called it the brain vulnerability hypothesis he said that perhaps that there are certain brains that are more vulnerable to the Amazon that this is the interface for them that they can if a if a structure genetically
A person’s a particular way the Shale thing can affect them a bit more the prodding and the poking of the shaitaan can lead them to be a bit more depressed can lead them to be more anxious can even lead to psychosis it can even lead and he was interesting to say the
Chronic pain you know fibromyalgia and these sorts of chronic pain syndromes there’s actually no biological cause found for this at all the the structures your physical structure is completely normal in fibromyalgia but you’re in excruciating pain where is this pain coming from but anyways the idea is that this is a
Dimension that’s there as hypnotamia said in his time if you were to lift the veil you’d find the shelkin are affecting and possessing the majority of people wow and this is the point we’re not talking when we talk about gym possession everyone goes and thinks about The Exorcist from like the exactly
Yeah they oh no yeah I mean Christian sort of imagination right I mean we have that concept as well definitely but when we have the idea of the possession of the shelteen the vast majority of possession is not like that it is found in obtrusive negative thoughts in negative thinking patterns in pessimism
In low mood and these sorts of things this is a portion that a shaytan may have over a person now here’s the thing how do you then produce the therapy and this is the thing that the the psychiatrist mentioned was interesting that is not evidence-based as anecdote
So just take this what I’m saying with a grain of thought um for the grain of thought with a grain of salt um and so the idea is that you can tackle mental health from two angles you can do it from the biology aspect if you change the person’s biology in the brain
And whatnot then perhaps this lessens the effect of the shaytan or you can go and attack it from the shaitaan aspect and the best thing to do is together holistically where you work on any deficits or any vulnerabilities that can be um addressed from biological point of
View but also from this spiritual point of view as well and this is one key message that I want to put for every for every Muslim that may be dealing with something uh and for the the speakers of Dua out there as well that are trying to
Spread awareness of this issue of mental health and it is a big stigma in our population and they don’t seek help for it and it’s something that has existed for a long time it’s not something new but of course modern living has exacerbated a lot of the things that
Make us feel a bit more depressed and whatnot and there’s lots of different reasons that people may give and who knows that’s not a topic for this discussion about what lifestyle factors and food and and process things and all these sorts of things that may go into
Modern living that make us a bit more miserable than other people than than people in other uh times in epochs but the point is that um you know we’re we’re wanting to basically uh recognize and keep to our principles we don’t need to neglect about this idea of your morning and
Evening at Cars part of therapy um you know you know the idea of making sure your environment is inviting the Angelic presence what is going to ward off the sheltene better than the angels and so what is your home environment like is there music blasting is there
You know are there pictures all over the walls I know this is if this issue mix it up but for like yeah I mean majority of people and these sorts of things these are things that repel the angels from coming into your home is it messy
And dirty uh you know are you smelling offensive and whatnot and these sorts of things what are the things that you can adjust to actually invite the Angelic presence towards you this should be part of mental health therapy because when you look at the reality of it no doubt
The xiaolthen are a part of it because what does a Khan make us want to do the shaytan wants you to fear him and his allies and his awliyah so anxiety is a goal of the shame wants you to feel anxious and fearful should not want you to feel depressed
And so obviously this has to be a very important part of things and it’s it’s not just and so this is the point we cannot as Muslims secularize our own knowledge and for some reason when it comes to mental health they have this boundary that they’ve put forward that
Cannot be penetrated yet here’s the bubble of that black box here yeah for some reason if you’re sad and anxious go through this back box and you know Islam you know it’s there you know it has it doesn’t have anything this is a biological problem this is what we need
To really recognize that it’s quite possible this is the poking and the prodding of the shaitaan and the point is to address all sides holistic care right as they say and this is something that is very clear from our own tradition this is speaking with their own principles and our own values the
Way that Muslims have understood it for many centuries this idea that there’s a biological element that can be then used biological things to treat people and so it can require medication and that’s not a problem even sometimes to be able to do the spiritual work a person is so lacking
That motivation they need a bit of a boost in their energy so that they can do that spiritual work and and sometimes that can be in a form of a bill what’s the difference between a pill and the things that they would take you know from centuries before to boost their
Mood they say there’s things about tabina and these sorts of things and people have this idea of like um you know drugs are are bad because they’re like man-made and these sorts of things nothing is man-made in this world everything Allah has created men just put things together and mix things up
And whatnot and then package them um you know like lithium for example which is used to treat is the best uh is the first line therapy uh to treat um bipolar disorder where is the what is lithium lithium is literally dirt that’s that is what lithium is right it’s
Literally found in the soil it’s an element and it’s given as treatment um and so these are things that you know we shouldn’t be necessarily averse to but at the same time we should recognize of course the holistic aspect effect uh from when it comes when we look at the
Spiritual realm as well and that’s a very strong and and I think uh uh a great place to end the conversation to be honest with you I think that what we’re saying is that truly Islamic Health uh truly Islamic mental health not just lip service but truly Islamic
Mental health is truly holistic mental health is that it takes into account the entire reality of human beings of the afterlife of both physical and you know non-physical causes and uh you know in addition to having um you know benefits for our lives in this world that’s only that’s small
Potatoes uh compared to the ultimate goal which is you know pleasing our Lord subhanallah and trying to get closer to him um Dr Zahara another fantastic conversation thank you so much for joining us today I’m always happy to be here may Allah bless you and all the work you’re doing
I mean may Allah accept it from us Allah
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