Trauma & The Transcendent | تجليات الحق - The Lacanian Real / Ibn Araby - Islamic Psychology | MALM

mean. All right. All right.

Okay, people. Yeah, Jama'a. I've not been salaam Mufti Nabeel Khan. Gee, is that Sheikh Ustad Nabeel Khan? I've not been on for ages, right? Well, welcome back. Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhaban. I mean, all right.

Let's go. I like that. I like that. Um Clear as always. Marhaban bik. And ahlan wa sahlan. All right. And Richard Anthony, love you for Allah. I love you too for Allah. So, you've helped me change my life.

Shukran. Shukran. Allah bless you and bless your journey and bless your life. Speaking of change for the better in spite or in the face of circumstances. Well, that's what we're going to be taking a look at today, inshallah. All right, let me just get this out here.

Right. So, I'll wait for people to tune in. Click like and share. Till then, I'll bring up um what I'd like to discuss today. Oh, not responding, Yacela.

Allahu Akbar. Trauma and the transcendent or trauma and transcendence. Allah, Allah, the real. These underneath I guess are like, I don't know, hashtags or words that will be or themes, sorry, motifs.

Theophanies, tajalliyat, Islamic psychology, Ibn Arabi, Lacan. Uh Lacanian psychoanalysis. These are some undercurrents, some underpinnings of what I'd like to take a look at today. God, let me just I'll give a a second or two for other people that are joining in.

Um Hashim says All right, what was the real story of Ibn Arabi saying "Anal Haq"? Uh Ibn Arabi didn't say that. Um what who you're speaking about uh is Said Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj al-Hallaj um often just known as Mansur al-Hallaj, but that's uh sorry, Hussein Abu Said.

Now, his actual name is al-Hussein, but he's known often as Mansur, his father's name, Ibn Mansur. It's his name, al-Hallaj. The kind of laqab, I guess. So, he predates Sheikh Muhyiddin ibn Arabi by maybe the better part of two centuries, at least, you know.

And he is a just an amazing this you know, this this legend of a personality I don't know if misunderstood is the right word, but one that just suffered unnecessarily.

You know, one could what he's often been likened to by academics to almost the Christ of Islam. In the sense that the um this the similarities of his tribulations and what he was doing. And he's calling people to to God, to a a gnosis, a noetic understanding that he has.

And in turns, he is you know, he's tormented, tortured, imprisoned. Um betrayed. And eventually crucified, put on the cross. You know, where he he dies. And it's a tragedy and a failing of this ummah that such a tragedy, whether people agreed with him or not.

You see. And in fact, even Sheikh Muhyiddin ibn Arabi, who does mention him on a number of occasions in his Futuhat He does not um is in all of him and considers him one of the true mystics of this faith, but he does say that his his trial was that he you know, he tried to square a circle for lack of a better term.

He took to the masses an understanding that they could not comprehend. So, this this aspect of non-duality, which is misunderstood, mischaracterized as a kind of shirk. It's not shirk. And that's not what's meant by it. Um you know, when he said "Anal Haq" or there is nothing but "Al Haq".

Um and people, you know, or if he said and and he took it to you see that if we're to summarize and we should at one point at some point do an entire session on uh Sheikh Hussein ibn Mansur al-Hallaj. He You see, but to to briefly encapsulate it, his experience was so

uncontainable for him, yet ineffable where he lacked the expressibility of how to say it. The way he went about expressing it caused a fitna. You see, so that Now, that's important to understand what's being said there.

Experience and part of what we're going to look at today, experience and the apparent stimulus response may not be what it You see, may there may be other mechanisms at work. So, what he experienced, this tajalli, this of, you know, this theophany, this um beingness of Allah that he encounters.

Like anybody, it is ineffable. That means you cannot put it into words. It is inexpressible. So, as has been said, you know, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should be silent. Because words will only betray you.

If something is But then on But the the joy, the wished the well wish to share this with others, it can take the better of people. And just And this is why by many academics he's been likened to the Christ of Islam. In fact, his book by um What's his name?

The famous Louis uh Louis uh which is called Passion of the Hallaj. of Hallaj, which is uh by um mystic and martyr of Islam. Uh that's it by Louis um uh Massignon, Massignon. I believe that's how it's He's French. And I I believe it's four volumes.

And it's an expansive coverage. I mean, what Lou Louis uh Massignon or Mazignon um did for Hallaj he really you know dedicating a lifetime of study to this profound individual misunderstood individual which was almost which was truly a debt upon this ummah but this person and I believe he does embrace Islam himself as well Louie Massignon

in any case Hallaj tries to share and this is where Ibn Arabi is critical of him as well so Ibn Arabi in his Futuhat is critical of Hallaj he's not critical of his his his kind of love and energy or his mysticism he's critical of the fact that he you see he went about this excitement this ecstasy that he experienced he wanted to share it so passionately with

people around him and because it could not be framed in words it is a mystical experience how do you and he's one of the early mystics of Islam you have to remember a lot of the tradition is in the making so what it did is it created a fitna the hadith of the prophet that hadith got a holy him speak to people on par or in a line with their reasoning faculties

in accordance to their intelligibility would Do wish that Allah and his messenger are denied? See, you're trying to you're trying to impart a love, a passion, but because of this ineffability and the way you put it into words, which in Hallaj's case may not have been the best suitable terms

and sentences to express that in. So, it became not only a fitna, but led to a great, you know, this this upheaval, a tragedy, a betrayal, you know, put a lot of people into and and results ends in this crucifixion, which had never happen. You know, this even if you disagree with people, it is enough, you know, if you believe in the light of God.

Allahu nurus samawati wal ard. If you believe in the light of Allah, in the power of his deen, in the might of this message, you will never fear any opinion, no matter how contrary it appears. You should have enough iman that this faith of ours has stood the test of time.

Doesn't matter what anybody brings, we will meet it with equal and opposite force of argument. That this deen, it is not weak and feeble that we need to kill people to prove that even if we disagree with them. It is through its love and through the might of its argument that we can overcome and we can conquer hearts.

So, even to those who disagreed with Hallaj, to have him crucified is is it's such a tragedy for this ummah, really. It's a failing of everybody. Yeah. So, here with that in mind, right, let's um

Right, so let's move on to today's. I want to discuss with us trauma and transcendence, or trauma and the transcendent, taking a look at the real, al-haqq. Okay. Now, what I want us to do today is one further our understanding of the legacy of the great, you know, unfathomable personalities of this

faith, like Sheikh Muhyiddin ibn Arabi. Um in addition to trying to get our head around a bit of psychology, but also, how do we apply that and what benefit is that to your or my life? Like you and me learning this, apart from learning knowledge and terms and information, does it benefit us? So, that's what I want to show real-world benefit on how each and every one of us either has been through some trauma, immense some very difficult trauma in

life, or we know somebody who has. I mean, it's inescapable. So, what does that mean for us in this journey of ours we call faith? So, that's something I want to take a look at today. Right. So, expanding on this Borromean knot, this three uh tripartite understanding of how we, through our consciousness, understand this world or navigate through it.

There's the three key um elements here. And this is taken from psychoanalysis. Uh and I've synthesized it, you know. This is not just This is something that I have kind of fused myself over time in trying to bridge these sciences and these great, you know, great traditions and just taking good from where you see it and bridging it.

So, you have the imaginary. You have the symbolic and you have the real. And this is in Lacanian psychoanalysis of linked to the conscious linked to our psyche or consciousness. Psyche is a term used often in Youngian psychology to refer to both the conscious and the unconscious mind.

So, sometimes in you know, in swift talk, we might use one term for the other. So, to understand that, how does our consciousness work in this world? Um these are the three kind of foundational elements. The imaginary and I've fused them to give us a a better grasp of our deen through the teachings of Ibn Arabi, Sheikh Ibn Arabi.

And that is alam al-khayal. And that this this world which we inhabit, which is actually you know, contrary to what we might think, more in our minds, in our consciousness than it is tangible. Alam al-mithal, which we covered previously. So, my first the session on alam al-khayal, the khayal hyperspace, which um is connected, which is the the unconscious mind.

And the barzakh, which Ibn Arabi refers to that the the kind of crossover, his response to Descartes. How he bridges or overcomes, sorry, circumnavigates the dualism problem of mind-body where he places this one in the middle, Sheikh Ibn Arabi does. One of the only, you know, profound thinkers to have ever bridged and traversed that problem of the mind-body dualism, Sheikh Ibn Arabi.

And that is the khayal hyperspace. And we've spoken about that. And then alam al-mithal, we are And what I've done is I've extended them from that into this world as well. Like the holographic principle, and I spoke about that last session about the So, before the meet up about the algorithm from above, the alam al-mithal, the symbolical or the language coding, uh symbols, how all these things, how we are built to find meaning, intelligibility.

And all of this, we covered this. This brought us to the real. Now, when Lacan or in psychoanalysis, they use the word real, they don't mean by it what we think is the real. What So, when you ask people, what is the real? So, they might say, "Well, you know, here's a keyboard in front of me. This is real. This phone in my hand is real.

They they would argue actually that's not the real. That that is the material surroundings you have. But two in psychoanalysis they see the real as something which is the rupture when all this world in front of us breaks down. And I'm going to come back to that in just a moment. And the Sheikh Ibn Arabi parallel to this is Al-Haqq.

The divine. The the true being, true wujud. And remember our being is an epiphenomenon. It is a contingent property. Allah's being is the real being. We in comparison quasi exist. We are like a reflection. We exist and don't exist at the same time.

So but obviously to us in this configuration we do exist and everything is real. And I'm not saying by this we don't exist, but I'm comparing existence when compared to Allah's existence is not the same. Okay. So just before we move on to um the real here.

So I want us to explore a bit of this. I'll just bring this up. And this and this should conclude today. So a a brief definition of the real must once again be apprehended in its experience of rupture between perception and consciousness. What that means is when the imaginary and the symbolic break down.

I'm going to share with you a very quick vignette, a you know, just a a snapshot of something being said to understand how much of our world is it's actually part of the hayal and symbolic hyper space. So, here's a vignette, a kind of scenario. And a person says to his colleague that

about you know, that he thinks he's come across the one. The love of his life. And he is now considering to settle down. So, he's he's in his his kind of sharing this with a colleague to muster up the courage so as to do that.

So, he's aware that this woman is or this person, whether it's this is a woman or a man, but in this scenario, let's say it's a man, that this woman, she practices certain rituals which are or appear somewhat oriental.

So, he asks her, you know, he now that he's getting serious about her, he asks her that have you become a Hindu? And she responds, "No, I've become Batman." Now, this this vignette, this this kind of short snapshot the sketch may sound absurd.

But each and every one of us understood it. If you for a moment dissect this, what is going on? So, you start off with this concept of You start off with this concept of somebody thinking they've found the one. What is this the one? It is an idea. He's then thinking of settling down.

This is an idea. It's a construct. He wants to get married. It's an institution, a psychosocial reality that exists in our minds. He notices this woman has, you know, does certain rituals. Oriental culture rituals. These exist in the mind.

They're not that they are given they are symbolic of the mythic order. Symbolic order. He deduces from that perhaps she is of a mythology. She's a Hindu. So, he asks her, "Has she become a Hindu?" To which she responds, "No, I've become Batman." Now, that sounds absurd.

But you see there's so much to unpack with this vignette with this kind of sketch. And we can we'll only do this very briefly. Maybe in another episode we can come back to this. You see, to an alien that conversation would be complete. Who is listening to us? Why is that absurd? At the end she says, "Well, I've become Batman." So, because Batman isn't real.

But is Hinduism real? Are rituals real? Is the one real? Is an institution of marriage real? Why did we not find the other parts absurd?

Why this at the end? Also, what when hearing that that I've become Batman, why does How does the person respond? I mean, well, from one perspective, it could be humor. Humor is a social construct. It doesn't exist outside of our minds. If the person was not being funny and they said that, you might think that they've got some mental health you know, mhm they've got some mental health issues.

And I've become Batman. What now? You've drawn a judgment based on some words that a person has said. And up until then, they could be saying other words and everything was fine. They could have been saying, "Hey, I've made a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and I've done this and I've done that and everything's fine."

And then they say, "I've become Batman." And well, how does the person apprehend that? Well, one way is they're taking it to be a joke. But if not that, why does the tone suddenly change? How would society view that person all of a sudden? As insane.

Mental health, maybe, you know, I don't know, certain delusional disorders. They need psychiatric help. Now, this whole scenario is all in our minds. It doesn't exist in the in the tangible world.

Yet, it's far more important than the tangible world. It's more important than this cup. You know, so that is the reality, the imaginary and the symbolic, which we've covered. Now, right, so right, so now with that in mind, moving to the real.

The real is seen as something which ruptures when to your sense of the imaginary, this world we have with all its safety and with all its stability and its kind of ijma, you know, it's kind of consensus starts falling apart.

What you experience, the anxiety, this trauma is experiencing the real. And at so you so often the real will be something that shocks you, that you can't fully and you can experience.

Now, just to give a a poor approximation, this is not how they explain the real, but I'm just trying to show you certain things that are not sometimes about the words, but about the experience. There is a poem here that look, just to take some poems as an example, "Nehi Mila Nehi Mila Hai Koi Tujh Sa Aaj Tak Mujh Ko." That I've never managed to get somebody quite like you up until, you know, till this very day of my life.

I've never managed to have or to get anyone like you till this day of my life. "Nehi Mila Hai Koi Tujh Sa Aaj Tak Mujh Ko." "Phir Yeh Sitam Alag Hai Ke Mila Tu Bhi Nahi." You see, so then it he says, "And then this tragedy is a part that I didn't have or get you either." So, this kind of volta, this twist of what you're expecting

that it breaks down. This image breaks down. The imago, it breaks down, shatters. It creates a cavea, an experience. Now, I'm just trying to bring to to just experiencing, that's all, because this is really to do with that. Very briefly, a definition of the real and then we'll take it to um to our tradition, to our tradition, uh and explore that.

The real, very unlike our conventional conception of objective collective experience. In Lacanian theory, the real becomes that which resists representation. What What is pre-mirror, pre-imaginary, pre-symbolic, what cannot be symbolized, what loses its reality once it is symbolized, made conscious through language. That you can't truly capture it.

So, I was just showing the these poems are really just to that they're a poor approximation. It was just to show emotions that when something breaks down, our image uh at a very poor level that you've got this poem of They left for Soda. The war uh Dil Fozard at the war deck case Colikin.

Omar Bar Konja Konha Sira. You see, this is talking about that you that two people they meet after a lifetime. And he when he sees this woman or she sees him arguably, they've become old. They've lost that beauty. They've lost that charm maybe. They've lost that you know, age has taken the better of them.

The world has taken its toll. And and he says that it you know, it the heart grieves. Dil Fozard at the war deck case Colikin. You know, looking at them, my heart the grief it felt Omar Bar Konja Konha Sira. But you know, there is this fact that who forever returns it remains eternally youthful, eternally beautiful.

And the point this is just a poem to show that a volta once again, a switch of emotions, a breaking of the image. But it's not really a definition of what we're talking about. Coming to our tradition, what we mean is we have this world which is created in our minds and then intersubjectively between the minds of others.

This khayal and mithal hyperspace. The real If this broke down, what you would experience is the beingness, the true being cuz if this being Ironically, these this imaginary and symbolic world is there for our protection.

We are built in a way that we This is what we can experience. If we try to experience the real, the pure tajalli, the divine, beyond that realm, beyond this realm of ours, we cannot handle the divine.

We cannot handle. We cannot We're not built that way. So, what I'm saying is the real is the being, the tajalli, al-haqq. It is the divine, the transcendent. Okay.

Now, and what I want to highlight, we're going to come to trauma because this is an important point. But before we get to that, we've got this verse here from Surah Shura, uh verse 51, "Wa ma kana li basharin an yukallimahu Allah." That humans it is not befitting for them that Allah will speak directly to them "illa wahyan" except as a revelation.

And notice wahyan is nakirah, which means except as a revelation. Cuz revelations can be of many types. There's the divine revelatory like prophetic revelation coming through angels, coming through the Quran scriptures. There's also a wahi which continues in the form of dreams.

A lower form, not in the same not in the scripture sense, but in the Hadith in Bukhari that it ends revelation ends except in good dreams. That's in Bukhari. Now the verse says illa wahi except a kind of revelation. Aw min wara'i hijab.

Or from behind the veil. This veil of this reality around us of the imaginary. The veil of the symbolic around us. It is there in a way to protect us. Aw yursila rasulan for you bi idhni. Or that Allah may send messengers and reveal unto them ma yasha what he wills.

Innahu aliyun hakim. Indeed Allah most exalted, most wise. Now you see this verse clarifies that there is this veil always between God and people. And so it is so keeping that in mind and you have this verse. Right, let me just bring this up.

Right, okay. From Surat al-A'raf. And 1 3 4 that you see that walamma ja'a Musa wakallamahu. And this is when Moses went to speak to to Allah. And he says qala rabbi arini anzur ilayk. Let me see you.

Qala lan tarani. will never be able to see me. You think here is something that in your world is perceived as so mighty, so stable. If this mountain can remain firm, then maybe you too can see me.

When your Lord appeared this theophany removed the veil for this mountain. It became dust. And Musa fell unconscious. And when he regained consciousness

I turn to you and I am the first to say openly that I have faith. Now this this verse you see here, it's speaking about the tajalli. This divine expression of God. This is what Sheikh Ibn Arabi will speak about.

That this whole that the creation beingness it is a tajalli It is an epiphenomenon. It is an emergent property. Because as a tajalli from Allah being His being is the only true being in the true element of the sense of being.

We do We do have a sense of beingness. We do exist. We are real. As far as we are concerned, we're as real as it gets. But then, when we start, you know, taking things apart, we realize, well, we're actually this world is like a dream. It is a configuration.

La'ib. It is a game. So, you see here Sheikh Ibn Arabi saying what the tajalli of Allah li kulli wa tajalli Allah li kulli man tajalla li kulli man tajalla lahu min ayyi alamin kana min alamin al-ghayb aw ash-shahadah. And you see, one tajalli of Allah is His name al-Zahir.

Allah is the apparent. He is al-Batin. He is the hidden. So, he is the explicit and the implicit. Al-Zahir, al-Batin. Says, "Innama huwa min al-ism al-Zahir." Right. And then he goes on about ism al-Batin. Right. So, and I'm going to tie this up and bring this back.

Um So, amma tajalli Allah al-haqq fa lam yura fa lam yurid fi al-Qur'an nassun yuthbituhu li al-khalq. Bal hina talaba Musa alayhis salam al-rabbi an yara Allah ahala Allah alal jabal. So, this the true tajalli of Allah cannot be handled by His creation. The true tajalli of Allah cannot be handled by His creation.

Um So, and here Ibn Arabi gives an example of the of the mountain. Why Musa alayhis salam was referred to the mountain because it's seen as much more stable and firm. Um So, Allah does not His tajalli in that sense of His true tajalli is not for any bashar, for any human.

Um but it is in other forms. One may say that there is a tajalli of his of Allah in the sense of beingness that we have or in the beauty that we see in the world or through his message or through his signs, we see this tajalli of Allah.

But not his true, like his true self, his true being, we cannot ever um we are far too weak to ever apprehend something like that. So So the tajalliyat of Allah, there are tajalliyat of Allah in his creation.

But they these are In English, the word theophany for tajalli. It is the expression. So Allah's tajalli is in his We see it in his creation as in we see kindness, we see compassion, we see mercy, we see beauty, we see justice.

And this whole sense of beingness, wujud What about being? Actual being, the fact that things be is a tajalli of Allah's beingness of Allah's being. So we Just as we see compassion, which is a tajalli of Allah's compassion, we see mercy, it is a tajalli, a theophany, of Allah's mercy.

We see creation and in it we see the beauty of the creator. So and this is um um uh uh from the tafsir of that verse So, the hijab is removed in that moment.

Um and this is just to show that it's impossible creation cannot handle that. And we have that same verse which we've Now, what's interesting is what if we got closer to this kind of tajalli of Allah?

It would be terrifying as you see the mount if the if the actual veil was to be removed the mountain would broke down. So, what do you think of the closer a person gets to that tajalli? This is a um This here is from the fatawa of Ibn Taymiyyah that I want to show is that you see Allah's glory

both terrifies and incredibly fascinates. Jalla Jalaluhu. So, Allah you know this mysterium tremendum et fascinans. The great mystery that you know, it terrifies us in awe, but it you know, it it it captivates us at the same time.

And that here you have um an explanation and I'm going to bring this back and you'll see how this ties in where Ibn Taymiyyah is narrating um from Ibn Abbas he's showing You see, it leads to terrifying his people on behalf of little earth.

Allah reveals some almost some he doesn't completely remove this veil, but some kind of opacity if you like there's some kind of shine of this this light in a way partially coming through. It terrifies his creation. There will be earthquakes.

There will be that we are incapable, but the reason I'm mentioning this is it's important to understand. Because this what I'm giving you here is like a a kind of preamble to what we're learning. And that is let me just move this for a moment. You see what I'm show what I'm trying to explain here

is trauma. Let's stop all of this for a moment and come back to the topic of trauma. When what is trauma? What is it? And you may say well it's a horrific incident.

But the trauma is not the actual incident. So there could be a horrible incident, you know, there could be an act of violence. They could be an atrocity. Physical, emotional, mental, sexual. They could be It will it and it may trigger trauma.

But the trauma often is bigger than the actual event. So the actual happening of the event, the trauma of it, is much more hard-hitting than the event itself. So although this event triggered this trauma, this experience of trauma, the trauma itself is a it's larger than the sum of its parts.

Is Is this making This is important that we understand this. So when So if somebody underwent a traumatic experience, let's say there was a robbery or there was something. Now the person experiences trauma. But the trauma itself is greater than the sum of these parts.

So it's not just, "Oh, the person had this robbery." The trauma of it is sometimes worse than the robbery itself. Or there could be horrific incidents of assault. There could be sexual assault. There could be rape. There could be killings. There could be all of that are witnessed by other people.

And And it's although in It's not to say that the person in these scenarios you're saying that the the incidents aren't hard-hitting. They are, but the trauma of them it's a it's often a-temporal. It will last a lifetime. The action itself may not, you know, it will be fit within a a specific time frame.

So what is happening when people are undergoing trauma? Because every single one of us either has personally at some point in their life experienced trauma. Or they will certainly know somebody close to them that has. Now, we know psychologically what happens is

a state of complete helplessness is experienced. When a person is completely helpless in that moment, they can't do anything. This generates trauma. Well, that's the explanation, the general kind of definition. Now, that the state of complete helplessness.

But, let's bring it now to we're going to from that definition, we're bringing it to a psychoanalytic lens, and then we'll take it to our Islamic understanding. So, in the psychoanalytic sense, to understand that you see, this helplessness means that this world that we've created around us, this imaginary symbolic it crumbles.

It breaks down. That sense of safety, which was a part of the symbolic order, the imaginary order, it's gone. It crumbles. You are experiencing what they will call the real. You are experiencing what the absence of these.

Now, let's shift this further to the Islamic. What I'm saying is when the imaginary, the khayal and the symbolic, the mithal, start cracking. This So, what's happening here is this incident in the world, which is horrible.

Let's say some horrific incident is happening. It's causing pain, suffering. And keep in mind that because trauma is not always experienced um symmetrically. So, not every person that experiences the same thing experiences trauma in the same way. So, this horrible incident is happening, which is triggering a response.

Now, but at the same time, this person, their world as they know it is breaking down. So, when this khayal and mithal hyperspace start to crack, the being, the ontological reality behind it, the tajalli, the real, it is ultimately the tajalli of the divine,

which compounds this fear and inexpressibility, it compounds this trauma in that moment, the terror. Because we are not designed to be at a to be at more of a proximal closeness to the real, to the divine in that way.

Now, ironically, this horrible action here, because it's breaking down this this cobweb, this bayt al-ankabut around us, a glimpse of the tajalli peers into our world.

And this is a because of it it's so powerful and non-understandable, it just adds to that. Like we don't understand it. We see as just one. So, what I'm saying is in these moments of terror, what we don't realize is we are actually from a perspective

closer to the divine. This is why, you see, when a person is oppressed, da'wat al-mazlum, if he cries out in du'a, or she cries out, their du'a is not returned because the veil is not there. You see, almost as a double blade, the trauma that we're experiencing, it's crippling, but

it contains within it the power of transformative transcendence. It is so powerful. equally This there's this term of enantiodromia. We've covered it previously where things contain within them the potential for their opposites.

And it's used in Youngian's psy- psychology as well, enantiodromia. So, you can see here Let me bring this back. that And this Hadith, which is in Tirmidhi, that Qultu ya Rasul Allah, ayyu nasi ashadd bala'an?

Who faces the most trauma and tribulation? Qal al-anbiya. Said the prophets. Thumma al-amthal fa al-amthal. Then those most similar and most similar. Fa yubtala al-rajul ala hasabi dinihi. That people will face trial and tribulations.

They will face trauma. They will face suffering. of different sorts and kinds. But you see here in this Hadith from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, which is in Tirmidhi, that this trauma here is being defined as associated with the divine. It's not about causing. It's not that God is causing the suffering.

Remember, the people are It is It is not God that is afflicting the prophets. The people are turning on them, punishing them, torturing them, killing their loved ones, doing horrible things. But that state that those people with that suffering are opening and exposing that state, that trauma within it has this immeasurable

nuclear power of transcendence. You see and you see this I will I want to bring this Hadith to our attention as well. Here is a Hadith that uh is in Bukhari and I believe it's in Sahih Muslim as well. That Ar-Rahim shijanatun min ar-Rahman.

That the womb is a shijina, a kind of branch to from that is coming down from ar-Rahman himself. Ar-Rahim because the word is drawn from the word ar-Rahman. Allah says man wassalaki in the feminine because the womb is feminine in Arabic.

Man wassalaki wassaltuhu. You know, who who met their ties with you, I met you know, I met their ties with me. Wa man qata'aki qata'tu. Whoever cut their ties with you I cut my ties with them. It's a Hadith but the first part Ar-Rahim shijanatun min ar-Rahman that the womb is a branch coming from the ar-Rahman himself.

Because in Arabic ar-Rahim is the first word of ar-Rahman. And you see an explanation wa fi hadhal Hadith yukhbirun Nabi an ar-Rahim shijanatun ay shu'batun muttasila. It is a a a part that is connected to Rahman. You say well, how is the womb create connected?

And that's for you to understand. See that there is this in its one could say almost in this kind of tajalli sense, it has this bond. And the noun it is taken from the word Rahman and you see here Allah says in another Hadith and Rahman, I am Rahman.

I created the womb or Shaka Allah is man is me. And it's as if I tore its name from my name. And you see that the roots, the kind of whether you want to say like a the branches or the the kind of roots going into of a tree, the kind of mycelium structure that you have by which trees communicate and that's the metaphor here of a Shaka.

Which today they found out now in the last decade that trees actually communicate. They have a mycelium structure underground through you know, this kind of expansive mushroom the underground mushroom roots which they call mycelium. Which absolutely inhabit this earth. They connect these trees with their roots and trees if a particular tree is having less water they divulge and their resources to it or they find this particular one is dying, they try to help it.

So similarly in this kind of hyper space the wombs have this symbolic mycelium kind of roots connected to Rahma. Now, and what what what I'm showing here, and what's fascinating just on a tangential, I'm not going to really go into it here, but you see that there was some narrations that those of you that become interested can research them where the word is used that um it says in this particular narration here, those of you that want to look

into it um can do so. You can take a screenshot. This is in the way of Ahmad. The waistband the region of Rahma. Now, what does what does that mean? Now, um you know, Albani obviously commenting on it in another way how cool is where you tie this kind of waist region as well, where you tie the the kind of the lower garment.

This this region that it is the Rahma, the womb is something that is holding on to that region of God's space. Now, what does that mean? It's symbolic language, of course. It's talking about the the kind of uh Khayal, Alam al Khayal where things are symbolic, but you do have a discussion. What's fascinating, you got a paragraph there by Ibn Taymiyyah saying this hadith is from the hadith of Sifat.

He considers it from the hadith of Sifat. I mean, you see this is where we can go into this discussion another day. Um and he says um Let me just bring this up. All right. Can I enlarge this? Cuz on my screen it's um And he says that he refutes Khattabi and others who interpreted uh sorry, who interpret this Hadith.

And he says uh um So in and in another narration, as you can see beneath there, he's quoting from Qadi Abu Ya'la as well, who says that um in his book Ibtal Ta'wilat Ya'lam anna ghayr mumtana haml hadha al-khabar 'ala dhahirihi. He says it's not wrong to carry this belief in this literally, that God has this waistband region or um you know, and and I you see the ironic thing is the mystics of Islam

would actually agree in the 'alam al-khayal sense, in the barzakh sense, the deep unconscious where we picture God in different ways. That is not the true likeness of God, but that is however we picture him, it doesn't really and I've covered that. So the Hadith where the prophet said, "I saw my Lord as a young handsome young man." It in that khayal hyperspace, anything can appear.

It's like it's the dream space. So if something can appear, God can appear as something, it doesn't mean he is that thing. That's his true likeness. So all this imagery is to do with that khayal hyperspace, the 'alam al-khayal. But the reason I'm uh that was a bit of a tangent going off on that theory about the But coming back to this, because you know this Hadith that ar-rahim shijna min ar-rahman, it is this deep root.

But shijna comes from the word shajan, which means grief. It means sadness. Shajan. Shujun, ashjan. You see, because the roots are often, if you think about it, they are overwhelmed with this grief and sadness in is they're almost characterized by it in trying to keep alive

this structure. And that is the womb. One could say the mother is always in a state of heightened, you know, grief, concern, worry that, you know, for her offspring, for her children. Always. And this bond that no matter where the children are spatially, it's beyond the probability factor that when the children something as as as adults as well, if they're in some kind of a trouble, the mother suddenly knows something's wrong.

She doesn't know exactly what's wrong, but she knows something is wrong. Because the rahim, there is this shajna with its draped in shajn to do with this grief and sadness and concern. It is it bonds her to her children.

The children to her. And her womb to rahma, to Allah. As the hadith states. So, it's fascinating that this word shajna that is used, it comes from this that comes in the hadith, it comes from the same root. Now, and root and these words all have these reasons this they're chosen.

You know, you take this as an example. Allahu nur samawati wal ard. And, you know, with that, the very famous verse from surat al-nur. Uh you you take a similarity, you know, almost a nur and nar from the same root. Fire and light, although, you know, fire it in part is an element of light, but light is different. It is not just fire, and Allah is not light in this light sense.

But just I want you to just think of those concepts, and just very fleetingly you can think of the alleg- you know, Plato's cave. The whole thing about how some light, if they escape the cave, it appears hurtful to them. They can't take the light. And so as to want to almost return to this saddened reality within, which was not true reality, but they thought it's reality, you know, inside the cave.

And similarly, that people we get trapped in trauma. We get trapped in in this hurt, in this suffering. And it's but what we don't realize is it has this force, you know, this kind of strong nuclear force almost within it, to be equally liberating.

That you are in more proximal, you know, closeness to the divine, to the transcendent, whilst in a state of suffering. But to harness that power, to use it to pivot in your life. You know, a person when they're feeling trauma, anxiety, and at a lower level this could be anxiety.

It's the same thing. You know, at a lower level, at a higher, more intense level, it's trauma. People think, "Oh, how do I do this? How can I Where do I get the strength from?" Allah is with you. What more do you want? Do it. Pivot. Take that leap. See, we don't realize this game, this configuration that we're within.

Everything we need, we already have. But we just don't you know, it's we don't we don't realize it, that's all. So, that this trauma, this suffering, this anxiety, this anxiousness, take it at a very low level, anxiousness.

Because almost this world, this imagine, this is glitching, what I'm trying to I'm hoping for us to understand is that any state of suffering that we experience, whether it's low, you know, resolution, high res low frequency, high frequency, it is equally a proximity to the divine.

Because this world, this cobweb of a configuration, is glitching for us. And the light that's kind of seeping through is from the tajalli of the divine, of the real. And this quote that the world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places, from Hemingway.

You know, and so it's about flipping that switch almost. Harnessing this energy. And sometimes seeing things so differently. And there was this poem which it's I mean it's just to show how people if they you know they they could have a horrible situation and they see something which breaks this world we have, this kind of configuration cobweb.

It breaks it because we're not expecting them to It's like somebody's suffering from anxiety. You're not expecting them to suddenly harness that as a sense of power, empowerment in their life and and to move forward. You're not expecting There was There's this poem I've read it. It actually made me laugh but but I thought oh I see the you know it said that

that you know the soothsayer, this kind of person who reads palms, he looked at the He read my palms and he said Wow. He said you're going to suffer and suffer and then eventually die.

I mean look at that. What a What a soothsayer, huh? Talk about being a bit positive. He needs to lighten up a bit. But he said you're going to suffer and suffer and eventually die. And the poet says you know I I just spontaneously laughed and I asked him

Said I I laughed and and asked him spontaneously, so I will die there. You see, your imaginary breaks down cuz you don't expect people to to to to picture death like that. Because truly death is the ultimate where you exit this khayali mithali configuration.

Now in a stage truly closer to the divine. And you're not picturing that. And you know, in this world of ours, in this game of ours, in this simulation configuration, we're so caught up. It's the as it's described, you know, it's something it's the the it's doom and gloom, death, literally.

So, in this poem, this volta, this kind of punchline that you're not expecting of of the way they apprehend the world. That they they they see a this absurd positivity. And you're not picturing that, you know, mera So, I will die there.

He says, I said you know, so I will eventually die. He's So, this flipping the switch kind of almost inversing the tragedy to think not that because of this, but in spite of this. There's a years ago I when I was studying Arabic in Damascus, I um remember going through this book Kalila wa Dimna.

It's an amazing book. It's a kind of uh what do you call those It's It's a bit like uh you know, um Aesop's Fables. It's this famous book that's arguably, they say, 1 to 2,000 years old from this tradition coming from, I think it was the Persians to the Indians back to the or the Indians to the Persians to the Arabs.

And it's used in in A-level Arabic within the UK. Extracts from It's a beautiful book written by Ibn al-Muqaffa. And it's incredibly eloquent, and it's all about, you know, these stories on the tongues of these animals. So, and and they're full of wisdoms and stuff. But in it, this one story of I mean, this one lesson, they know it's all got these kind of wisdoms, these gems and nuggets where the person says that he he tells the person who's fallen down that, you know, when you fall down and hit the earth, it is the very same

earth that you then press on to rise back up. You see, it's it's all perspective. It's all perspective. Um yeah, this was just a quote I thought. Um just to get the mind going. But to bring us back to circle it back around that

how we understand our world. And today's session is really to explain that trauma that there What is the real? The real is the kind of cracking, the veneer cracking of this imaginary and symbolic, this really mythically realm.

And the light that seeps through at that stage, experiencing that is the real. And we're not built to really experience it. So, it creates an inexpressible, ineffable, one that cannot be truly put into words, experience. And this not always, this can be experienced through a heightened sense of elatedness, a heightened spirituality can be experienced through a you know, a sense of profound

uh ecstasy, this kind of blissful state. It can be experienced, maybe a person can enter this through a deep meditative, reflective state, a mindfulness state. Sheer joy and happiness. One could be at such a point of profound bliss in the joy that they experience this the al-haq, this kind of tajalli, this you know, this seeping light as this this world they are so in the now that

this imaginary starts to slightly disappear. But often, you see because one thing that's certain in this dunya is that we will will face some suffering. You know, it's it's not it's it's interesting because it's like the default position is a negative.

It's not neutral. So, it's not that we're neutral and sometimes we face negative suffering and something, but one could say that the default setting is one of suffering. And then it's how you manage and rise above that. But to understand that in that state, one experiences this. So, you know, even at an anxiety or an anxiousness level, as this cobweb, this kind of configuration is glitching, there there is this this kind of shimmering light of the real, of this

tajalli of al-haqq, kind of seeping through, which is is being experienced in this sense of anxiousness, which is also being experienced because of whatever the person's experiencing. So, maybe this it's twofold, you know, it's not to say what you're experiencing here isn't real.

It is. It's like the shadow is just as real as the entity, which is just as real as the powerful light that is shining onto this being, this entity, this whatever it is that is then resulting in the shadow. And they're all kind of in this sync.

So, it's not so as to say that the shadow moves as the person moves. So, and what one may attribute their whole, you know, this experience just to the shadow. That all this shadow is like, but there is maybe there's more than that just happening.

That whatever unsettles us in this realm, it you know, it has this kind of it brings us into that grace and light. So, people we who are suffering, what we can take from this is what if our suffering we we were to realize this great power it had within it for us to transcend.

To heighten. To transform. And you think that's crazy. You know, but is it? You know, every If I was to tell you that everything you see is built up fundamentally of molecular structures and compounds and going down to atoms.

Every single thing, I mean, there's not a person today with any sense that would deny that. And this atom is then held together with these forces. You know, this strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. That if these atoms were to be split in a way, especially if the larger atoms, so as to release that strong nuclear force in something

which if it's in front of us, you and I cannot even see it. It's that small. And what's the nuclear force doing? It's holding these things together. It's holding the atom together internally, you know, it's holding these things. And the weak nuclear force allows them to decay, but the strong nuclear force is holding them together.

S- And if this invisible thing that's so small containing contains such power that if unleashed it would explode. Then, why are these realities of trauma anxiety anxiousness suffering any different?

They, too, harness this power, but it's it's for those who you know for those who seek it. Who harness who who take it by the reins. I wanted to share this session today so as to conclude our this Borromean knot from psychoanalysis of um the imaginary, symbolic, and the real.

But, to really fuse this and synthesize it into our tradition of Islam. And to show that how this knowing Okay, this is theoretical, but bringing this in to our everyday lives. That when we are experiencing things like suffering that to understand that in a way and this is why the Hadith says, you know, any person that is suffering that every moment of their suffering that they are, let's say, being patient

with or trying to come to terms with, they they that they are being rewarded by Allah. That there truly is this victor over victim mindset. So, I make dua. May Allah grant ease to each and all and every, you know, everybody is fighting a difficult battle.

But, it's just that I guess it's how we view things, you know, how we look at them. It's a bit like that that poem that we were looking at, I guess, that it's just the perspective that people have. You know, it is Speaking of which, there was a poem I saw. Humko marjane ki fursat kab mili.

Waqt sara zindagi mein lag gaya. It says, "When did we get the opportunity to even die? All the time we had was spent in living." You know, there's uh There's interesting quotes like this. There's a a a saying. I I believe it's a a Chinese proverb that, you know, when death finds you, may it find you alive.

Amen. That so to to that there is another stage after this dunya. But, till we get there, you know, we have to live every moment we can of this dunya. Amen. May Allah grant peace to each and every one that is facing any difficulty and grant ease.

Amen. You know, may he shower our lives, amen, with his abundance, his glory, his mercy, his light. May allow us to mirror his his light, his love, his compassion, mercy onto his creation. Amen.

Right, with that guys, I'll leave you to it. If any of you want to reach out to me Instagram, you're more than welcome. Uh if it's something more in detail or you want to book a one-to-one perspective session, you can head over to patreon. Uh there is in the bottom right-hand corner, patreon.com/malcolm. And you can join through that my Discord group where I do have group sessions actually at least a couple of times a month.

But also you can book one-to-ones from there as well. Other than that people, take very good care of yourselves and remember to keep spreading. You know, there's a beautiful I want to share uh there was a a a kind of snapshot of a verse that Ibn Arabi uses. Which is that alladhina amanu ashadd hubba. Allah.

That those who have faith are the most intense in their love. Allah Allah. Right guys, with that it's a wrap. Take very good care of yourselves. Wa salaam alaykum. Wa khuda hafiz.