Spiritual Health
What is Spirit
This is the million-dollar question “What is Spirit?” This question was asked hundreds of years ago, and we are still asking it today.
ويسألونك عن الروح قل الروح من أمر ربي وما أوتيتم من العلم إلا قليلاً (الإسراء: 85)
And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the soul. Say, “The soul is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind has not been given of knowledge except a little.” Chapter (17) sūrat l-isrā (The Night Journey)
إِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلَآئِكَةِ إِنِّى خَالِقٌ بَشَراً مِّن طِينٍ * فَإِذَا سَوَّيْتُهُ وَنَفَخْتُ فِيهِ من رُّوحِى فَقَعُواْ لَهُ سَاجِدِينَ
When your Lord said to the angels; Surely I am going to create a mortal from dust: So when I have made him complete and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down making obeisance to him. (38:71–72)
ألَّذِى أَحْسَنَ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ خَلَقَهُ وَبَدَأَ خَلْقَ الْإِنْسَانِ مِن طِينٍ * ثُمَّ جَعَلَ نَسْلَهُ مِن سُلاَلَةٍ مِّن مَّآءٍ مَّهِينٍ * ثُمَّ سَوَّاهُ وَنَفَخَ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِهِ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمَعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَ الْأَفْئِدَةَ قَلِيلاً مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ
(It is He) Who made good everything that He has created, and He began the creation of man from dust. Then He made his progeny of an extract of water held in light estimation. Then He made him complete and breathed into him of His spirit, and made for you the ears and the eyes and the hearts; little is it that you give thanks. (32:7–9)
The Spirit is from Allah. We can’t comprehend it. All we see are the physical impact of it. Love is spiritual. You can’t produce love in labs or even measure it. The same for Happiness, Grief, Contentment, …
Understand Our Brain
Our brains are intelligence machines. When we try to clone them, we create Artificial Intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence is an algorithmic model that takes data and produces results accordingly. Our brains do the same but we do not have the source code and we can’t re-program them. Therefore, we feed it with the data to produce certain results. For example, bodybuilding. Our brains are programmed to maintain the used muscles and give them resources as little as it needs and then save the extra into fat. Our brains are created and programmed for survival. This is why bodybuilders try to give it the data that will cause the brain to move the resources to the muscles. They do that by adding stress into the muscle they want to grow. The brain will think this muscle is under stress and needs more resources. It will move the resources to this muscle to grow. You can’t just look at the muscle and order it to grow (This would have been amazing to do :) ). Instead, we feed the data that will cause the brain to grow the muscles for us. Any unused muscles will decay. That is why people in a coma will find it hard to move when they wake up.
Similarly is mental health. When we are under stress, the brain acts differently by releasing Cortisone and other hormones to fight or flight. That is why you need to give it new data that you are safe in case of false alarms.
Spiritual health has different synonyms such as: Mental health, Purification of the heart, Emotional health, Spirituality, psychological health …
Our ancestors wrote books about spiritual states, the most famous one is the States of the Divine Seekers by Ibn ElQaiem (https://MyIslam.net )
Example of a Robot: You can feed it as much data as you want and the reaction, but you can’t make it alive.
How about Spiritual Sickness?
What is the Spiritual Sickness
Since we do not understand the spirit, we can’t understand its sickness and how to treat it. Grief is a spiritual sickness. It affects the soul (heart). This sickness we can all see its mental and physical effect on us. However, there are other sicknesses that happen because of disconnecting the soul away from its creature, such as Heedlessness.
How to treat Spiritual Sickness
Researchers studied how the brain reacts to grief, stress, happiness … and tried to simulate this mentally and physically. Mentally, by trying to feed it new data that will reduce stress and grief to produce the happiness hormones naturally. You can also treat it physically by giving those hormones to the body or things to reproduce them like sweets, barley flour (Talbeenah)…
“Talbina gives comfort to the aggrieved heart and it lessens grief.” Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 5101; Muslim, 2216.
رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَقُولُ “ التَّلْبِينَةُ مَجَمَّةٌ لِفُؤَادِ الْمَرِيضِ تُذْهِبُ بَعْضَ الْحُزْنِ ” .
