Shi'i Spirituality: The Psychological Disconnect Of Living In A Secular Society

Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim. Allahumma, Salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad. As-salam alaykum to everyone who may be tuning into this short video and hello also to anyone who may be interested in listening to the few words that I am going to be saying for the next few minutes.

This is just a short video to continue talking about a book that I brought out recently called "Shi'i Spirituality For The 21st Century". And this book consists of 20 lectures that I've given over the last 10 years, as well as two articles as well. All of these lectures were delivered to live audiences and considered the relevance of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and also his family members, those who came after him.

We very much need to, in this day and age, reflect upon the age that we are living in, and think about the practical application of these teachings, but not just the practical application in terms of actually doing specific acts of worship, or a'mal, or reading to du'as, or Ziyarat, reading supplications, for example. But we also need to very much understand the philosophy of this way of life, and have a philosophical conception of the age in which we are living.

If we don't understand the context in which we are living, then we cannot effectively apply the teachings of the Holy Prophet and his purified progeny peace be upon them.

So I am just going to continue with a few words from the first chapter of this book, that was a lecture that I delivered a few years ago, and I am just looking at it now on my laptop. Transforming Our Way of Being. And so I have already posted up a couple of lectures on this, or a couple of short commentaries on this first chapter, in which I have reflected upon our relationship with death, our relationship with the shortness of this life, and the necessity for acknowledging the enormity and the reality of the fact that we are here temporarily and that we are going to leave this world.

The next couple of points that I was going to make are that first of all, Muslims living in a secular environment, are just as much influenced as anybody else by the elements of that environment. By the mentality, by the atmosphere, by the underpinning philosophy of a secular society.

Secular societies often purport to be fair, and just, and perhaps even fairer, and more just than religious societies. Secular societies purport to equally support all religions, or to equally allow the practice of all religions, as long as everybody respects each other's space, doesn't hurt anyone else, and ideally practices their religion in the privacy of their own home and doesn't inflict it on other people.

I think this is one aspect of Islam, again, that I liked when I visited Muslim countries, might have mentioned it before, but one of the big aspects that I did like about Islam is an aspect that has come to be a majour taboo, particularly in Northern European culture, the taboo about talking about religion, the taboo about even mentioning the word God, and certainly the taboo on discussing religion, because there is this automatic assumption that just because you are talking about spiritual matters, you somehow want to impose that on other people.

So there's quite a visceral reaction, oftentimes to people who are outwardly adhering to a prophetic path. What I liked about Islam, or we could say Islamic culture, was this very openness, ironically in European culture that purports to be free, and purports to support equal opportunities, and equal practice in religion, in reality, in order to meet that criteria of equal practice, or even tolerance, people must at the same time suppress the natural expression of their religious practice.

If you are practicing a spiritual way of life, then if you are not practicing it when you step outside your front door, you are automatically suppressing that aspect of yourself that is connected to the spiritual dimensions of existence. If you are stepping outside your front door and you change from say, the clothes that you are wearing at home, to the clothes that everybody else is wearing outside, I mean, nowadays it is the tight jeans and trainers that pretty much universally across the globe everybody is wearing. In the name of being free, of course, not realizing that they are all looking like clones.

So if you do change your identity from the identity or let's say who you are at home to who you are outside, you are actually having to live a lie to an extent, or you are having to act apart when you step outside your front door. I am thinking of countries like France where they have a much stricter definition of what a secular society is than say, United Kingdom, where due to its colonial history, there has always been a little bit more of a so-called allowance or tolerance of religious practice. This is because the British like to keep a little bit more lower profile of the way that they control people.

France, because of its colonial history, are a lot more overt in the way that they control people and their behavior, and a lot less apologetic. So quite upfront, it will be no so-called religious symbols in public spaces. Although a scarf, I would argue, is not a symbol. A turban is not a symbol.

This is the psychological dishonesty that goes on in a secular society that is purporting to be more honest and more rational in the way that it organizes its populations.

And so, therefore, whichever prophetic way of life or whichever spiritual path people are adhering to, if there is an overall top-down consensus that in the public space you don't discuss religion, you don't express yourself as a spiritual being, you pretend to be secular, you pretend to just be concerned with the outward trappings of this worldly life, then that means that we are in effect living a double life.

We are having to, as I said, suppress a majour part of who we are as a human being. And so Muslims are just as much under the influence of this top-down method of organizing populations. And everybody who is adhering to a spiritual way of life has to somehow play a social game or play at complying to this top-down consensus that we're all living in a secular society.

It is a psychological, spiritual, political, social game that you have to play, in order to be able to survive in that society. I found it a lot more refreshing, contraryly, in a Muslim country where Muslim countries are technically more repressive or more totalitarian or more controlling. Ironically, with regard to expressing the spiritual dimensions of what you are as a human being, there is a lot more space for that. There is an openness, there is a love, there is even a passion for it. And I find that more spiritually and psychologically healthy than actually suppressing a fundamental component of what you are as a human being in order to fit in to other people's definitions of what you should be as a human being.

And so, Muslims learn to adapt to a secular environment just as much as anybody else does, especially anyone who might have a spiritual practice in their private life. Therefore, even if you might be a practicing Muslim, you are still somehow adapting your mentality, your character, and your way of being, to that predominantly secular environment in order to keep everybody happy.

This means that as one particular writer who I have mentioned before in this series, Sheikh Hamidou Kane, who is a Senegalese writer, he has used this term, and I have mentioned it before, but I love this term. When someone who is following a religious practice, or living a spiritual way of life, or a religious way of life, is kept because of the secular way of life or the secular society is prevented from living that connection to higher dimensions of existence, they are in danger of being exiled on the surface of reality.

Do you feel that when you are going about in your daily life, you are just living life on the surface? You are just living life in a kind of a shallow pool? It has no particular substance? This is the feeling of being exiled on the surface of reality.

And the Holy Qur'an talks about how societies, even back then, in the time of the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him and his holy progeny, only knew a little of the surface of this existence. This is what a secular society does.

It prevents you from living out, from embodying a human being who is connected to deeper dimensions of existence. You are prohibited from doing that. You must only live on the surface of reality and outwardly show that you are living this surface way of life, in order to survive, like I said, in order to keep everybody happy. So that is why it is necessary for us, every year, if we can afford it, to get out of these societies, to take a break, to go for Ziyarah, to get out of that psychological control.

And this is a few more comments on the content of my book: "Shi'i Spirituality For The 21st Century". InshaAllah, I'll be loading up more short videos and thank you for listening. As-salamu alaykum.