Social Media and Faith

Everyone knows what the word “selfie” means nowadays, including my grandma and my 7-year-old sister. It’s a picture, usually taken with your cell phone and it can capture your good days, your bad days, and any experience in-between. Looking back, it can also be a way to reflect on how you’ve changed over the years or the places you’ve been to and the sites you’ve seen. It can be a memory you can revisit over and over again whenever you want to reminisce. It’s your personal expression of how you connected with the world.

It sounds harmless and even pretty awesome, right? But what happens when you take this image out of your camera roll and place it into the land of social media? Does its value change? Does your perception of the experience change? Does it affect your future experiences and how you choose to portray them? You’ll notice that no one can answer these questions except yourself. As much as social media emphasizes connection and communication, it can boil down to an internal dialogue we have with ourselves.

You’re probably wondering how we went from a simple idea of a selfie to a complex psychological concept. With the advent of technology and social media, this “Selfie Phenomenon” and the idea of documenting our lives has a marked influence on us, whether we acknowledge it or not. It can begin to affect how we perceive ourselves, how we perceive others, and the motive behind our actions may even begin to change. This is why it is important to understand how we can interact with social media in a manner that is progressive to our lives and not detrimental to our mental health or our faith.

Within the growth of the “Selfie Phenomenon” and the idea of documenting our lives comes a significant consequence of losing touch with an experience itself. As Brother Omar Usman, one of the founding members of Qalam Institute said,

“Social media has enabled a competition of experience.”

It’s no longer the intimate personalized connections we make that give value to our experiences, but rather our ability to display “how much we have done” or “where we have gone”. It’s no longer an experience where we are 100% present, but rather a sort of documentation for someone besides our own self to enjoy. It’s as if we have removed ourselves from the picture, literally. I can say that I have been guilty of this myself—peering through my camera phone, recording the moments, only to return home realizing my camera stood between me and the experience, me and the moment, me and reality. The benefits of technology and social media can be endless, but they can also be detrimental when they take away from what makes us human as they rob us of the sentiments that come from the emotion of an actual experience.

A benefit to the advance of social media is a remarkable opportunity to show the transcendent nature of Islam. The versatility that the religion has, its ability to address all parts of our lives even to this day, and its ability to guide us throughout each experience is truly remarkable. To show us how each of these principles are lived in everyday life, we have the most excellent of all teachers, Prophet Mohammad, Peace be Upon Him. Looking to the Sunnah can give us not only a code for life, but also a guaranteed sense of peace and ease in our hearts. The Prophetic traditions of our Messenger (pbuh) are timeless and can be applied even to our age of social media.

In an effort to provide relevant solutions to the problems we face and also address all types of issues in detail regarding social media and its influence on our faith, a project has been initiated by Brother Omar Usman in coordination with Sheikh AbdulNasir Jangda and Mufti Hussain Kamani and others. One of the first initiatives from this project was publishing an e-book with 40 Hadiths on Social Media. You can check out the project and also access the e-book through the site: http://fiqhofsocial.media. I would like to highlight one of the Hadiths that was discussed within the book: Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) said,

“Actions are judged by intentions, so each man will have what he intended. Therefore, he whose migration was to Allah and His messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger. But he whose migration was for some worldly benefit, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated.” (Bukhari and Muslim)

Intention is at the core of everything that we do. Often times we think that it is done simply before an action that we do, but it is something that must be checked before, during, and even after the deed is done. We must ask ourselves and assess the reason behind why we post something, how we post something, and what meaning we are trying to convey. Who are we posting this for, what are we trying to achieve? Where are we migrating? Is it towards Allah or towards a worldly benefit?

As you see, these again are things we can only answer within ourselves. Within this process of assessing what and how we post things, I see a hidden blessing. The fruits of this blessing can be attained when we realize that every action we do, even posting on social media, can be a means of getting closer to Allah, a means of purifying ourselves, and a means of attaining reward we might not even imagine possible. When we attach our motivation to the pleasure of Allah (swt), even social media can be means of improving our connection with the One who made everything that we do possible. In this we realize that everything we do must be active and not passive. Our intentions must be checked often and our motives must be assessed constantly. We are kept alive in this way, we are connected to the present in this way, and we realize our purpose in this way.

When we are constantly connected to Allah (swt), our connections online will even serve as ways to potentially strengthen this One true connection. Whether it’s before we engage in an activity or after and what we post or what we discuss, when we follow the morals and values of our Prophet (pbuh), our path will be illuminated with rewards and opportunities we never could have imagined. Instead of letting social media desensitize us from our experiences, let it keep us alive by way of our intentions. Let them be a sense of connection, not merely with the world, but with the One Who created it.

I myself am striving to implement these things within my use of social media, and I write this hoping to keep my own self accountable with how I use it. I pray that Allāh helps us keep our intentions for Him and brings us back to the correct way and forgives us if we fall short to anything other than this. I pray that we use the things we are blessed with to connect to Allah (swt), ameen.

The Humanities in Medicine

It is no doubt that we are all unique in the experiences that we have had and in the outlooks that we hold about life. We each are on different pages of our personal stories. The page that we are currently on is only a small part of the myriad of situations, places, relationships, and memories that influence who we are. At the core of the Humanities, lies understanding this intricate nature of the human being and making sense of its seemingly unmanageable complexity. Thus, the very essence of this field focuses on becoming aware of the many factors that affect how a human thinks, acts, and feels. These factors are ones that intermix and are conditioned by the world that surrounds us. For this reason, “storying and restorying ourselves, and contributing to social stories around us, is as natural to being a person as breathing” (Bolton, 2008). Since medicine and health concern the health and conditions of the human being, there is a great need for addressing these same factors that the Humanities emphasizes. In fact, its integration with medicine offers a way in which we can grapple with health issues while truly fostering an understanding as well as an effective evaluation of the page we are allowed to read of an individual’s narrative.

The integration of medicine and the humanities, now termed Medical Humanities, did not develop without controversy and hesitation. The Medical Humanities took on its contemporary form in a religious setting in the United States during the 1960s (Martignoni et al., 2012). It was introduced as a way of humanizing medicine at a time when there was a dramatic increase of machines at patient bedsides and a techno-revolution that emphasized rigid categories and traditional methods of thinking. Over time, the Medical Humanities has strived to push past the idea of simply challenging this narrow view of healthcare. By highlighting the fact that “illness occurs in the context of an individual life filled with imagination, belief, feelings: subjectivities shape meaning for that patient,” advocates of Medical Humanities have been able to highlight the importance of the Humanities within medicine (Macnaughton, 2011). Central to this belief, is the importance of realizing that not every person is the same and that we cannot understand variety from subjective experiences. What the Humanities brings to this difficult task is a way of thinking that accepts individuality and allows us to empathetically approach the depth and range of the integral parts of the human experience. A productive engagement between the humanities and medicine requires understanding what each field can contribute and how the two rely on one another rather than simply fine tune each other. It also presents a model where both scientists and humanists can form a “community of interpreters, across disciplines, willing to learn from each other” (Davis & Morris, 2007). This community cultivates an environment for meaningful dialogue and progress in multiple fields.

So, what can the humanities truly and practically contribute to the field of medicine? This can be best illustrated using an example. All researchers are required to use racial categories when forming their experiments. The typical way in which they would determined race was by having individuals report their race according to the United States census categories. This method, according to humanists, is not only extremely simplistic but also very misrepresentative. They believe that their expertise in the area of race, which they have studied for more than fifty years, could have enriched the experiment that the researchers were conducting (Clayton, Davis, Metzl, Wald, & Hausman, 2009). Their contribution could have improved research protocols and eventually the outcomes of the entire experiment. Taking into consideration the humanistic approach could have introduced an even bigger question of what race even means and how it contributes to the idea of identity. From this example, we can see how the Humanities and its knowledge of subjects such as race, gender, social conditions that affect health, and history of the body in society can contribute and even improve aspects of medical research and practice. The contribution that the Humanities provides is one that moves past simply breathing a finer spirit into medicine, but rather one that creates a respectful and progressive form of interdisciplinary communication. Within this relationship, there is mutual influence that occurs between the disciplines, rather than one field commenting on the other’s practices and studies.

Another way that the Humanities contributes to medicine is in the compelling vision of human nature that it provides. This vision is one that goes beyond observations and findings that can be documented as testable facts. It is one that is “informed by philosophy, illustrated and explored in literature and other creative arts, and assumed by the empirical ethnographic and qualitative methods of social science” (Macnaughton, 2011). Medicine has tried to measure subjective elements such as emotion and imagination, but it has failed to do so in a manner that is objective and useful. On the other hand, the Humanities has collected a vast amount of knowledge on a variety of subjects and can provide a framework for which these elements can be addressed. Artists, poets, and thinkers seem so far from the medical field, yet they are far closer than one may imagine. Themes such as sickness, treatment, life, and death reoccur in many humanistic works, and they may provide the missing link for difficult subjects in the world of medicine and patient care. For this reason, the Humanities can introduce a new way of thinking about different subjects. This new method of thinking can eventually provide the immunity that doctors need from a mindset that is restrictive and relies on sameness.

Skills that humanists have such as “awareness of difference, recognition of forms of symbolic representation, and ability to analyze unfamiliar speech” can be useful to adopt and infuse in the medical field (Clayton et al., 2009). Additionally, the methods of the humanities can help scientists better comprehend the way science circulates in the realms of culture and society and even the language that is needed to produce successful publications and policy statements. Such cooperation favors a way of thinking that is open-minded and interdisciplinary in nature that strives to prevent a reductiveness stemming from an ignorance of the knowledge that another discipline possesses. Even within the process of writing, there are abundant elements that can produce doctors who possess the ability to critically evaluate and effectively understand a patient’s unique narrative. Reflective writing, for example, can allow a doctor to “focus on meaning as well as emotion, explore ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity as well as strive for theoretical lucidity” (Bolton, 2008). This creates professionals that can look further into the meaning of different beliefs, values, thoughts, and identity in a variety of contexts such as the political and cultural spheres.

Writing, although usually seen as a subject strictly within the Humanities, has values in the medical field that are abundant. For the art of medicine itself is an art that is literary; a physician must be able to empathize in a particular way and listen in a special way that allows him to understand what it is like for the patient to be lying their and telling their story. The physician must understand and connect with not only the story but the storyteller himself. For this reason, writing and similar subjects within the Humanities can provide ways for those in the medical field to explore beyond their perceived boundaries of perception and understanding. It can also allow for students to study, in depth, questions like, ‘what is medicine truly for?’ ‘how should it truly be practiced?’ or ‘who are my patients as individuals?’. Within the exploration of these questions, students are able to harness the ability to listen more carefully and engage more critically with habitual matters that are sometimes overlooked. Integrating the Humanities into the rhetoric of medicine while “tackling the joyous but utterly messy and uncertain complexity of these professions can help us avoid hearing the story but missing the plot” (Bolton, 2008).

As we have seen, understanding medical narratives through a humanistic lens can provide many benefits and solutions. Writing, as a reflective exercise, is only one element of Medical Humanities that can empower physicians with more tools for better care. Of the most important influences in medicine that the Humanities encompasses are culture as well as psychology. These two elements infused within the field of Medical Humanities, allow for a new interdisciplinary approach to patient care through reintegration of the mind, body, and spirit. In this way, Medical Humanities strives to focus on a view that sees the patient as well as the clinician as whole persons rather two characters in completely different plots. Understanding the influences of culture and psychology can open up new opportunities for understanding the social determinants of health and the intricate relationship between the mind and the body. In analyzing the influences of culture and psychology on patient care, students as well as practicing physicians can begin to think differently about how medicine is practiced and what the human side of treatment truly looks like.

Syrian Refugee engaging in reflective writing (Turkey, 2014)

Purification of the Soul

I’ll never forget the first day of Tazkiyeh class. Our teacher brother Imran Salha said something that stuck with me throughout all the classes to come. He said, “Don’t make your goal of this class to simply share what you learn or to impress others—focus on yourself”. Focus on yourself. These three words I believe, are the core of Tazkiyeh which rely on self-awareness, self-observation, and self-criticism. In this way, tazkiyeh is purification of the soul for the sake of Allah (swt) alone. There is beauty that is felt when things are done for Allah (swt) alone, for what better audience is there for a good deed than the Master of the Universe, the Creator of all creation? When the action is done for Allah (swt) alone, it’s benefits can be infinite. Not only will you be rewarded from the Most High, but you will take off the shackles that chain you to the dunya. When you make Allah your main concern and you chase His pleasure, you will find the dunya chasing YOU. You will become rich, not in money, not in praise, but rich in the tranquility of your soul. For this is the true richness. And when you are rich, you are the one that gives because your supply is the infinite blessing of Allah (swt).

One of these blessings given to us is the gift of prayer: where our hearts are higher than our minds in elevation and our intentions are to please the One who’s in control of all our affairs. The way brother Iman taught this portion of the class on prayer really touched me and inspired me to look at prayer in a different way. He explained to us that salah removes the external and shows us our true relationship with Allah. Prayer was instructed to our Prophet in the heavens and for this reason it is divine and its essence is so lofty that it could not merely be given in this world. It’s establishment breaks arrogance, breaks rebellion, and when perfectly executed, it will break loving of the self and replace it with loving the Creator of the self. A practical application to our concentration in prayer is like that of a litmus test. The amount of concentration you put into prayer is a testament and an indicator for your love of Allah (swt). Do you rush to prayer? Do you pray during the most favored times? Do you imagine it to be your last prayer, with the Angel of Death behind your back? These are things I learned to ask myself. Remembrance of Allah is the polish for the heart. It is no doubt that our hearts may get rusty and our trials may make us forgetful, but the answer to all our worries lies in remembrance of our true purpose here on Earth: to know Allah. To know Allah during ease and to know Allah during hardship. Indeed knowing Him is the guidance from darkness into light—a paradise in this world and the next.

Finding the Courage

I’m not a poet

or a spoken word artist

Sometimes my voice shakes

and my words fall out of place

But sometimes I find the courage,

to look injustice in the face

When the silence is so loud 

and all that’s said is to please the crowds

When the news that’s presented “BREAKING”

is only breaking the hearts of those who's story its faking

When everything is painted black and white and anything in-between isn’t given its right

You find yourself searching

Searching for a way to give the voiceless a voice

The choice-less a choice

and the oppressed…a moment of peace in which to rejoice  

I’m not a poet 

or a spoken word artist

Sometimes my voice shakes

and my words fall out of place

But sometimes I find the courage, 

to look injustice in the face

When you see images of children drawing tanks and towers 

instead of houses and flowers

Childhoods scarred in a world that bombards, 

With nothing but sheer dis-regard 

Left as orphans to live alone, not knowing again the meaning of “home”

You wonder what you can do from countries away 

For such children living in eternal dismay

Fighting for dignity and liberty

Palestine and Syria, alone face an enemy

An enemy called ignorance and inequality 

An enemy with no regard for innocent souls 

Who's only goals were freedom with no controls

No limitation and segregation 

No checkpoints and humiliations

No violence…just peace throughout their nations 

I’m not a poet 

or a spoken word artist

Sometimes my voice shakes

and my words fall out of place

But sometimes I find the courage, 

to look injustice in the face

I find the courage to pick up my pen

Write until the ink runs out 

Till I’ve shattered all my doubts

I find the courage to put it on paper

To put it in words, to present “maybe later”

And in that scrambled paper and wrinkled page

I realized that the world is our stage

A place of liberation from our cage

Into a world where we are united and represented

Not disconnected and reinvented 

I used to say Somebody should do something about that

Then I realized I am somebody…

I may not be a poet or a spoken word artist

My voice may shake and my words may fall out of place

But sometimes I find the courage, 

to look injustice in the face