Assalamu Aalaykom wa Rahmatullahi wa Brakatuh.
I don't know if this have been discussed before, but this question has always been in my head : What is exactly the role of the heart ? Is it just a blood pumping machine ? Is there any relationship between our hearts and our psychology ?
The first look at the anatomy of the heart doesn't help so much :
It does only show the "mechanical" functions of the heart as a big muscle working like a perfect blood pumping machine.
But when talking about the heart in many contexts, we associate to the heart many other mysterious functions, like emotions (love, hate, fear, happiness, etc.) and we refer to the heart as the center of belief (we believe with our hearts) and disbelief. This idea is present so frequently in human literature (stories, books, speeches etc.) so I can't think it's just a myth, it may be based on true facts.
The following lines will be based on an article I found talking about this topic :
Hearts Wherewith they Understand by
Abdulda'em Al-Kaheel
You may want to take a look at that article for further informations. :popcorn:
Some researchers believe that heart is only a blood pumping machine, also some people believe that the mentioned heart in Qur'an is the moral heart like soul not the physical one, but what is the truth?
Relation between brain and heart
But we are the Muslims have an absolute rules which are the known rules in Qur'an fourteen century ago. There are many verses which tell us that heart is the center of feeling, thinking and memory.
Only from thirty years, researchers started to notice the relation between brain and heart when they noticed that heart has a vital role in understanding the surrounded world and they had found that heart can affect the electrical activity of brain.
Scientists didn't prove that there is no relation between heart and emotions. It is so hard to prove such thing.
But scientifically, heart is connected with brain through a very complicated network of neurons and there are flows of messages between both of them in form of electrical signals. Scientists confirm that heart and brain are working simultaneously in harmony and without that harmony, troubles might occur.
Dr. Armour say that heart has a special system in processing incoming information from entire body and success of heart transplantation depends on the neural system of the transplanted heart and how much it is able to adapt with the patient.
Interesting scenes
Linda Marks who used to be a therapist in the heart center for more than twenty years says: people used to ask me a question, what are you doing in a heart center and you know that heart is only a blood pumping machine so that there is no relation between heart and human psychology ? My answer was: I always feel with a big difference in people's psychology before and after heart transplantation as I feel with many changes in his or her emotions but in fact I had no scientific evidence for that. Till I met Dr Linda Russek who recorded the transmitted electromagnetic frequencies from heart and brain and how much these frequencies affect brain of the other people!!
Prof Gary Schwartz specialist in Psychiatry in Arizona University and Prof Linda Russek believe that heart has a special power which enables it to store and process information. Therefore memory is not only in brain but also in heart. Prof Gary made a research which included more than three hundred patient who performed transplantation surgery and he found that all patients were exposed to many psychological changes after the surgery.
Prof Gary Schwartz says: we made a heart transplantation surgery for an ill child as we implanted the heart of a dead child in the body of that child. Mother of the dead child says: every time I huge the child I feel as if my child still alive and that child is my own one.
That child started to suffer from a defect in his left side and that was the same case of the dead child. How can we explain that?
Simply, because the heart started to supervise brain activities and that defect occurred because heart started to make some development in child's brain.
Prof Linda says: another story for a girl who performed a heart transplantation surgery but after the operation she used to feel with pain in her chest and when she asked her doctor he told her that feeling with pain is because of the medicines. But later they knew that the heart inside her was transmitted from another girl who was hit by a car in a car accident and last word the dead girl said was "I feel with pain in my chest.
Also, another story for a girl who sank in the pool and her family donated with her heart to another boy who used to be afraid from water after the heart transplantation surgery and he always feels afraid as he used to ask his family not to drop him in water.
Heart is responsible for emotions
An interesting discovery that is all people who changed their hearts with an artificial one had lost their feelings and ability to love. In 11/8/2007, the American newspaper "Washington post" published reportage about Peter Houghton who made an artificial heart transplant. He says: my feelings had changed, I am not able to know what I hate and what I love even I don't have feelings toward any of my grandchild.
That man became not interested at any thing even in money or life itself and he became had no idea about reason of life and he started to think to commit suicide. He became not able to understand the world or to think about future and also
he lost his belief in God and became careless about the hereafter like before.
Photo for a an artificial heart implantation surgery, scientists confirm that heart implanting causes a huge defect in realizing and understanding which prove that heart has a vital role in these operations and heart is not only a pumping machine. It is more complicated than we imagine
Brain in the heart
The most reasonable explanation for this phenomenon is that there are some special programs for memory inside cells of our heart which stores all events; these programs send these memories to brain in order to process it. Heart pulses rate is changing according to the psychological and emotional status of us. DR J. Andrew Armour confirms that there is a very complicated brain inside the heart. In our heart there are more than forty thousand neuron which works in an extraordinary precision to control heart pulses, hormone production and information storing, after that these information are sent to brain. This information plays a vital role in realizing and understanding.
So information flows from the heart to the brain through special paths ,then it leads brain cells to be able to understand and realize , nowadays scientists are working to establish many centers concerned about studying the relationship between heart and brain and the relation between the heart and the cognitive and psychological operations.
Heart and Realization
Rollin McCraty and Mike Atkinson had made a research which was published in the annual meeting of The Pavlovian Society. They found that there is a relation between heart and the realization. They proved this relation by measuring the electromagnetic activity of heart and brain when people are trying to understand something. They found that when heart performance is in a low level, realizing also will be low.
The results of the Institute of Heart Math was marvelous .they found that when you speak or touch another person, the changes in your heart will affect the brain activities of the other person!! This means that your heart affects his brain.
In this photo, a man lives with an artificial heart, he is connected all the time with wires to get a continuous charging for the heart battery, any one perform an artificial heart implantation surgery might lose his feeling and reactions toward community. It is evidence that heart has got a vital role in thinking, reactions and brain direction
Precedence of Qur'an in cardiology
Qur'an told us about results of these researches:
1.( Have they not traveled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind.)( Sûrat Al-Hajj – verse46)
2.( They have hearts wherewith they understand not)( Sûrat Al-A‘râf - verse 179), so Qur'an told us about the realization center in human which is the heart.
3.to Jews : Then, after that, your hearts were hardened and became as stones or even worse in hardness)( Sûrat Al-Baqarah- verse 74) so Qur'an told us about one of heart features which is the hardness and softness, so God says about disbelievers ( So woe to those whose hearts are hardened against remembrance of Allah! They are in plain error) (Sûrat Az-Zumar - verse 22) but on the other side God says about the believers ( Then their skin and their heart soften to the remembrance of Allah)( Sûrat Az-Zumar - verse 23) .
4.( but that Allah might test what is in your breasts; and to examine closely which was in your hearts (sins), and Allah is All-Knower of what is in (your) breasts.)( Sûrat Âl-‘Imrân – verse 154)
5.Some researchers confirm that heart is very important to the hearing process and any defect in heart may affect the hearing process. in reality I saw a similar case for a Muslim who used to eat at the day of Ramadan and he doesn't pray , that man was infected in his heart but this problem was developed to affect his hearing system as he lost the ability to hear anything . Later, that man died and he said before dying ( I can't hear anything), God says ( And we seal up their hearts so that they hear not?)(Sûrat Al-A‘râf - verse 100).
6.According to the most recent researches, heart has an important role in learning because it leads and control brain's neurons. Qur'an made a link between heart and science. God says ( and Allah has sealed up their hearts (from all kinds of goodness and right guidance) so that they know not (what they are losing).)( Sûrat At-Taubah - verse 93)
7.Now , it is confirmed that laying center is in the forelock which is in the upper front of the brain, scientists observed a great activity in this area when human tell lies ,
but the stored information in heart is real and sincere, so when a man tell lies he speaks with his tongue with the opposite of what is in his heart . God says ( They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts) (Sûrat Al-Fath - verse 11) as tongue obeys the forelock, God says about this forelock ( A lying, sinful forelock) (Sûrat Al-‘Alaq – verse 16).
8.We read about the man who implanted an artificial heart and how he lost his believe in God to be an atheist, so the belief is in heart not in brain, God says : . (O Messenger let not those who hurry to fall into disbelief grieve you, of such who say: "We believe" with their mouths but their hearts have no faith.)(Sûrat Al-Mâ’idah-verse 41).
9.After many researches about the artificial heart, scientists found that heart has a vital role in fear and scare , as when they asked the man who implanted an artificial heart , he told them that he became not able to feel with fear , the Qur'an told us about hearts that feel with fear, God says ( The believers are only those who, when Allah is mentioned, feel a fear in their hearts and when His Verses (this Qur'an) are recited unto them, they increase their Faith; and they put their trust in their Lord (Alone))( Sûrat Al-Anfâl - verse 2) also God says ( and He cast terror into their hearts)( Sûrat Al-Hashr- verse 2).
Miracles in the prophetic Sunah
Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) preceded all western scientists when he told us fourteen century ago about the heart and its importance for all the body and for the soul , as if the heart is in a good condition and good relation with God all the body would be in a good condition and we can notice that in the case of the man who implanted an artificial heart and how much his body and feeling were destroyed , the prophet said ( in the body there is a little lump of flesh if it is in a good condition all the body will be good and if it is in a bad condition the entire body will be bad , this little lump of flesh is the heart)
The best treatment for heart
Scientists confirm that the first reason of death is the disturbance in heart mechanism and the best treatment is to keep heart stable, also it was proved that some sound frequencies may affect the heart performance, indeed sound of Qur'an is the best sound to hear. God says ( Those who believed (in the Oneness of Allah), and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah: verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest)( Sûrat Ar-Ra‘d – verse 28). by experience I found that reading this verse seven times in the morning and seven times at night will leads to a big rest and stability in heart.
We ask our God to fix our hearts on the belief. We must always remember our prophet supplication which is (O God who can deviate our hearts, please fix it on your religion) also we have to say as God says ( (They say): "Our Lord! Let not our hearts deviate (from the truth) after you have guided us, and grant us mercy from you. Truly, you are the Best granter.")(Sûrat Âl-‘Imrân- verse 8)