Re: Islam's general inability to accept mental illnesses
I am diving in for a long post here. It is responding to a variety of other posts in the thread, sometimes comparatively. If it is too long to sustain concentration for, then just read my response to any other person's post that is interesting for yourself, rather than trying the whole lot of my work. I often express the ideas that other persons like not to express so as to hold closer, so which we have not often any open habits of response for, or dialogue in.
"sl"
I think one thing that should be pointed out is that their is a difference between Islam and what Muslims do (refering directly to the reference about how certain muslims treat mentally ill people)
I believe it is better to consider whom ever those "certain" Muslims are, as people whom are actually both very compassionate when in belief that a mental illness could be in play, but also very proud in the fact that Islam and the Arabic language can work to prevent the development of any such illnesses. The "how" some "treat mentally ill people", could perhaps be only a Pride in which there is failure of recognition because of the strength of associations between Islam, Arabic words, and sanity.
:thumbs_up:
Islam urges us to aid those who need. <-- Yes that includes people who are mentally ill.
Aid for the mentally ill really is a very specialised task, and unfortunately many of the professionals whom undertake obtaining a professional qualification to work with mentally ill people, are almost no better themselves, or soon become that way. The resourcing of mental health care is in a dismal state here in Australia, but I have read of much good work commenced in America. Yet here in Australian our Indigenous race is also socially adept at managing whomever show any signs of mental illness. What mentally ill people need, that is, not including the criminally insane, but only those whom struggle to sustain the same semblence of reality as most other persons: what they need it for persons whom can qualify their experience to sit and listen to them explain any consequetive lists of events which they find themselves unable to express without being considered to be talking nonsense. In making such expressions those whom can recover show signs of recovery almost immediately, while those whom were in fact criminally ill might more likely worsen.
Very much so. But this usually occurs in non-educated societies. Who have no/less knowledge about Islam and Science.
But what became considered as "less educated"? Perhaps the societies in which mental illness is more often regarded as a distinct matter from possessions, are actually truly more highly educated in mental health science. In fact, the strategies which are used in traditional non-modern industrialised science type orientation, for dealing with mental health, could quite easily be described within modern sciences of psychology and psychiatry, but the psychiatrists and psychologists will not take that risk because the social pressure they are enforced into. Instead making diagnosis of mental health problems, in examples where the diagnosis becomes causal to problems, is used as a weapon of social control in much of 'the west'. This is an immutable fact. Being in a pshychiatric ward is factually a terrifying experience, and is where women and men have been raped by other patients, and are regularly being refuted in basic statements of observed fact by psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses. Once there is any question over a person's mental health, then many other people try to refute their entire set of experiential evidence for an advantage over them obtainable by so refuting. Put yourself in the position of being falsely accused of mental illness, suddenly every word you say which can refute the diagnosis is already diagnosed as the illness. Oddly also what happens is that some patients whom are actually mentally ill (which is all shaytan, and the diagnosis proper of schizophrenia belongs strictly only the them, and in fact they are happier people when let to be contained within strange behaviours), might be told that if they are given any diagnosis they do not want, then they can just say "no I am not that" and it will not be applied. As though only saying "no" in the first instance is enough to prove that they are not unwell. In Australia it has been the shaytan whom are being provided that advice. Whereas another section of the population, whom are only afraid and looking for methodology to manage fear, might be told that if they receive a diagnosis of an illness like schizophrenia, then they can not ever say "not I am not that" because saying "no" is the evidence that you are that. I have witnessed all these things in repeats. Most psychiatric wards are actually full of persons whom have been set up, as though with the ablity of a Jinn, and have had mass quantities of the ill mind of really sick people been forced upon them. Ironically the shaytan use such methodology to try to catch Jinn, but reality is that the Jinn are whom can sustain sanity while such methodology is used against. The method is often only begun by a GP prescribing anti-depressants, and/or a new boyfriend, or new flavour coke even perhaps. The persons in psychiatric wards whom have been so set up have received of much aid from The Jinn, and are therefore often the most adept in the community at coping with any other person's symptoms of mental illness. It is a very specific skill set that belongs, in origin, in Islam, and to the science of inter-cultural communication.
Hi Callum,
First of all, the concept of mental illness is not foreign to Islam at all. The Prophet Muhammad pbuh said:
"The pen has been lifted for three: the insane until he regains his sanity, the child until he reaches puberty, and the sleeper until he wakes up."
Ansar Al-'Adl could you place an empirical definition here to "the sleeper until he wakes? and is it that the mental body is active but the physical brain's comprehension is not possible because the action of the mental body had no physical behavioural component?
Among Aboriginal Australians we believe in encouraging each other to expose the worst in which we could like to behave, so as to let the illness of Spirit enter the physical body, therefore the brain manufactures substances of the self of contemporary social regard for that behaviour. Therefore also, when any illness is in the spirit/mental body, if there is even only a tiny portion of it brought down in the the physical/carnal mind, and so any substance of belief in Allah is formed around such illness, then the Spirit may be better enabled to acquit the account of in the body, and so experience the Spiritual cleansing, that death is, in completion.
If the person is possesed their control over themselves is not completely negated, and consequently they retain accountability for their actions. In the time of the Prophet pbuh, he himself distinguished between cases of mental illnesses or other medical problems and between satanic possesion. Early scholars have always maintained this distinction - for example we find that Ibn Al-Qayyim (d. 1350 CE) pointed it out in his writings on the topic and stated that medical treatment should be sought in the case of a physical illness and spiritual treatment in the case of satanic possesion.
What is being reported by Ibn Al-Qayyim is that there are two distinct treatments for two distinct happenings which occassionally accord very similar sets of symptoms. One happening is that of the disease of carnal body becoming less able to be borne in total in the physical body, and then the disease state moves into the finer matter, or rather the matter with higher frequency of vibrations. In this case the disease needs to be brought back down and disease born, or even often only slight discomfort, in the physical carnal body, beginning in the lower cogition, and then moving down through established sequences of organs and eventually out into the skin. Any doctor worth their salt can cause many mental disturbances to turn into a rash. That is, all of except either those among the actual shaytan, or those in any persons whom were over exposed to a higher degree of knowledge than their Spirit is able to think with.
The other happening is that of the disease state of mind of another person attacking your own mind. It could be that you might bring down into your body a portion of that disease in spirit as bodily illness, as an act of love, but truly, even and especially if it is really as an act of love that the body accepts disease as means of combatting mental illness; then it is best not to only accept the situation, but needs also that we identify the source of the attack upon the mind. (Was it a neighbour whose considerations of your garden were ill placed? For example "she plants lots of red flowers so therefore she likes red coloured food". That assertion has not logic, but an ill person might not need any logic and then mentally holds the other person in such reguard and then that other person with the garden could begin to eat more and more tomatoes and red capsicum, and the whole garden is getting more and more red in it . . . an exorcism of red fruit and flowers would lead the exorcist to giving the person instruction in respect of behavioural regard for the neighbour.)
The thing that is not spelt out precisely in the quote is that there is possession by shaytan and possession by the Muslim Jinn, and that the two phenomenon are entirely different. Then later on in the following part of the quote, these distinctions are made. In being exorcisted of shaytan there could be relief that causes crying or laughter. In being exorcised of one among the redeemable named Jinn, there might be a dialogue between the Jinn possessing the person, and the exorcist, by the Jinn manifesting assuming the whole responsibility for that person temporarily. In both instances it is very true that the person whom is possessed, at the outset, has the control of their bodily posture. We never give away our voluntary muscle control. If a Muslim Jinn is possessing another person, they first must abide in the cause of Soul of that person, and fund that cause as payment for learning through body. Then if the Jinn actualises even any suggestion of bodily posture, the Jinn is, in those moments, accepting total responsibility for that persons full existance. Thankyou for pointing to the word Ruqyah, it is a word which can in itself prevent any believer among the Jinn from any causing that other persons consider its being if those other persons are not willing.
Here in the following part of your post which I will continue the quote of, you refer to "the two", when I first read it I thought is it the difference between "the two" which are the mental health and the physical health, or difference between "the two" which are mental health caused by possession and mental ill health caused by . . . that must be that there is mental ill health caused by physical behaviour or assault. But then what about the mental ill health that is that any shaytan always have? It is not able to be brought down into the body EXCEPT EXPERIENTIALLY. (That is why Aboriginal communites tend to let drunks be drunks etc.- if they got it in them best to let it be down in this world of hard physical evidence. {off the point here: what about computer “hard” ware versus soft ware, what are those terms representative of? What is the evidence of any wrong and in that I doubt that we should apply lessons from computers to people.})
Confusion between the two does not occur frequently because the symptoms are usually very distinct. The first step in diagnosis is to perform Ruqyah, i.e. reading the Qur'an over the afflicted person. If there is no strange response, then the problem is most likely mental or physical. If the person responds to the Qur'an by abruptly beginning to cry and can't explain why, this is black magic. If the person looses conciousness or their eyes become fixed or begin to blink rapidly, or they begin to sake vigorously, then one may find a different voice emanating from the body (the Jinn) often speaking in another language or stating its name, in which case one proceeds to read Qur'an to make the Jinn leave. This is a very basic outline, but the point is that it is usually very obvious when possesion is involved.
Regards
Now reading again I perceive it is not two phenomenon but three. In diagnosis by performing Ruqyah:
no response means that a physical bodily cause is at the centre, perhaps a behavioural cause, or having hugged a new nextdoor neighbour whom brought in new germs, all of really behavioural;
crying means that a shaytan has been told to leave and the patient experiences immense emotional release, there after the behaviour should improve and health with;
behaving paranormally means that a Jinn has taken possession, but do not regard such possession, by the spirit of one belonging among the Jinn, unless it is behaviourally aligned with Islam, since the Jinn are become Muslim.
Now have another look at the beginning of your post:
of the Prophet pbuh, he himself distinguished between cases of mental illnesses or other medical problems and between satanic possesion.
This is a list of three forms of symptom patterns which seem similar but are distinct in causation.
We have:
mental illness;
physical illness;
satanic possession.
But here then what is missing from the list is that which describes that The Jinn whom are Muslim, can be verified and substantiated as causal to different phenomenon from either any illness caused physically, or any caused by shaytan possessing.
So I want to here then pose an argument to you, without leveling any accusation, since I know that texts often now used are less verifyable than ahadith, and often written by prominent figures like Bilal Phillips. That such are commonly accepted sources of enquiry this day about such matters is preposterous in light of the arguments within such about the nature of any evidence; it is entirely possible to perceive this without every opening any book about The Jinn whose worth is only knowable to Humanity through mythology not sociology and psychology. The Jinn may know Human psychology, but Humanity can not know Jinn psychology without becoming fallen. The cause of every fall into black magic can be ascertained as being among those whom sought to be alike to Jinn in supposing to have caught a Jinn. (Perhaps such “soft” texts are used because it is more difficult to evidence that Jinn are at work that the evidence of men is useful to men, but this is not true in the actual physical company of a Jinn. There is one possible Humanly comprehensible reference made to the Jinn being factually hard to substantiate in existence; and that is within reference to the fact that in the company of a person possessed by a shaytan, and a Shaman whom is calling upon a Jinn to help eradicate the shaytan, may not be every able to provide evidence of the Jinn’s work to his patient. The patient must rely upon his own sensitivity to the Jinn so as to experience the Jinn distinctly from the Shaman. Jinn are obligated not to expose being Jinn, and are open to being entrapped into exposure if once any such evidence is found.)
My argument is that every instance existing of mental illness is a fact of having become possessed. Children might be possessed by their siblings, or a wife by Her Husband. It is only illness if the direction of transmission of self and love, as distinct phenomenon, are flowing wrongly. In that case of course the result is mental illness. Again behavioural causation, in that usually in every case of mental illness, a male and female (now or ancestrally), have enacted falsely within traditional marriage law custom, and that is why the direction of flow of self reguard might go in the wrong direction and be preventing of self knowledge.
Is it that mental illness is defined by being a mental state which causes any level of debilitation of social function? What else could be occuring if not possession? Overeating so mass producing specific hormones perhaps? But if the hormones enter into disturbing psychological patterns, then it is because of a different input. An overabundance of hormones could manifest equally as learning to recite Qur’an. What, or, Who? is that input? The shaman's skill is entirely wrapped up in identifying that what, how, and who.
We can become possessed by the person behind the checkout at the shops only because the money in our wallet passed through their hands. They don't even need be a shaytan to enter our minds without our will, if we have money in which they projected some worth which we believed in. Just mutually agreeing upon the value upon the coins, can be invitation to enter the mind. Then we might realize that in the money was a projection upon our appearance, and if we take pleasure we manifest momentary like gog and magog, but if we sneeze, then we are bringing the “mental illness” down into the body. These are critical facts to have straight precisely because we are entering into the generations worst effected by gog and magog. With Gog and Magog, when Gog is the boss of Magog there is only physical body illness, but if Gog lets Magog be boss then there is mental illness.
Let me try to describe how I perceive the full picture.
There are illnesses of being over exposed to responsibilities beyond the reasoning ability of your own Soul. These can be congenital such as with the shaytan (in health as birds); or caused by abnormal experiential overload to knowledge.
There are illnesses which are caused by overload of the bodily sensitivity, in which the body is imposed upon to be less able to experience itself physically, and so the self forges passages through biological method, to become refined and stick onto the
Spirit, rather than the feelings. Spirit is thought and so then though becomes tangled in self regard and manifests mental illness. These sort of illnesses are caused by trauma to the physical body, whereas in the paragraph above, trauma to the spirit is acknowledged.
Distinctly then there is also trauma to the emotional body and that is the condition I constantly face.
These traumas can all be born in the situation of congenital overload, or only become by experiential overload, and I am in the later category.
Now distinct from these factors, there is working in an interplay with them, the fact of possessions occurring. The Jinn fight fire with fire, by possession those possessed by shaytan, and causing the mental function into a successful Jihad victory over the shaytan.
Trauma of Spirit, Emotion, or body, can tempt the shaytan to lay false accusations. That is exactly how most shaytan possessions occur.
So we must believe that there is always both a physical and a Spirit component. However within this distinction, of the density of matter, we can observe whether the present causation is from sustaining a poor behaviour/diet/environment, or if it is from being vulnerable to shaytan’s accusations while not able to be attuned to.
The fact is, in cases in which a Jinn is possessing a person so far as to cause them to speak, that they are most definitely not a person whom is house to their own Soul. Jinn might be making a possession so as to cause the person to speak in tongues specific sounds which make specific habits or alterations to habit. A kafir might have become the tool of a shaytan, and then a Jinn take the physical body over and boot out the shaytan. Then what will happen to the person if they were accustomed to being managed in decision making by a Shaytan?
I only mean here to provide a general broadening out of the whole debate about mental health and whom can or can not look after it well.
However what has sparked off my writing here, is that I find the slight discrepancy in Ansar Al-‘Adl’s post. Perhaps we can research the full set of ahadith? The Tibetean’s have a written document called “The Great Medicine” which lists every single wrongly formed mental practice that was then, and is now existent. That is, every combination and permutation of what every and any individual shaytan’s purpose can manifest in any given Human mind.
The thing about mental illnesses is that recovery is all about being as precise and as inclusive as is possible. These are conditions which every person whom successfully works with the mentally ill must acquire.
Truly it can be regarded as Alms only to be having conversations with a person whom is truly mentally ill, their need is for communicating and while ill that is often what they miss out on. The mentally ill are difficult to converse with and there is one skill alone which can help, and that is the skill of belief. Aid to the needy can rightfully be regarded as talking to a mentally ill person. There are voluntary organizations who fund training for people to go to visit mental hospitals for the purpose.
Hi Ansar,
This seems an odd criterion to choose to make the distinction (if that is indeed what you're implying). It sounds like you're suggesting that a person with any particular mental illness has no control over their actions at all. This would perhaps be true in a case of paranoid schizophrenia, but it wouldn't necessarily be true in a case of clinical depression, for example.
The talk of possession is very alien to me. In terms of Western culture, it sounds like a Christian text from the Middle Ages or from the witch trials of the 17th century.
Peace
In this post there is the suggestion that only illnesses as extreme as paranoid schizophrenia include being unable to control behaviour. My own belief is that a paranoid schizophrenic can control their behaviour very much quite as well as Bill Gates. The fact that mental illness is every used as reason to escape punishment from crime, has only ever had any credence because in prisons the conditions of fear are so far greater, that if any person has any fear around their ablity to hold their fear, prison will certainly turn them into immediate criminal mind. That fact lends some weight to making a place for persons whom are criminals and are diagnosed with mental illness. But truthfully is there a difference between real mental illness and real crime? That is, once the trauma aspect is accounted for.
Apart from that I have my own evidence that the depressed are also possessed, by in a different from of mental process. As for the the talk being “Alien”, despite the humourous analogy, there are factually very many other cultural references to possession.
What would you regard of your mental health if an Alien presented Himself to you and asked for your permission to navigate your mind into patterns of saving Earth? Most folk just agree because it is not so unpleasant and has a positive outcome. Yet it is a form of possession by the Jinn.
You're right, I was just pointing out that there was a distinction between mental illness and satanic possesion in Islam, but not all mental illnesses would render a person unaccountable as you correctly pointed out.
Here now the whole discussion is sorting itself out, but within allowing for a multitude of meanings. Reality is that there is mental illness which is usually a form of mental body/ spirit possession, but most often also by a known family member, and therefore recoverable. Then there is satanic possession. Occasionally it is recoverable, but most often not. The only way to recover is by detecting who is doing the possession and in what they are making false accusations. And it could be by any person in the street. Frighteningly it can also manifest in the shopping queue and even adults are susceptible to any person’s money’s worth possessing their own through the mechanisms of financial management in connection with computer technology. Just to point out that Possession and mental illness are very very broad subject areas.
:
My Christian brothers said before: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't exist."
:
The trick of it is that it is the Christian brothers playing the trick. The Devil simply can not afford to deny being. While the Christian brothers, even to have thought of saying such a thing, most likely have had the Devil in them and are trying to prevent him returning to them so collect.
Mental disorders cover a very wide spectrum. There are Genetic Disorders which are essentialy a birth defect. Two of the most common in that category are schizophrenia and Bi-polar disorder. However, the fact the person has a mental disorder does not equate with how well they act as a Muslim. A person with very severe schizophrenia is capable of being a good Muslim, even if they can not hold down gainful employment. this genetic disorders respond well to medication and the symptoms can be controlled. They are not caused by immoral behavior and by themselves do not lead to immoral behavior.
another group of disorders are the Behavioral disorders. These are the ones that a person "Learns" and are the result of the choices we make in life. these are the disorders that are usually treated with therapy and behavior modification. Personal I question the wisdom of calling them Mental disorders as often they are the result of improper behavior.
then we have the organic brain disorders which are the result of damage to the brain by either trauma or disease. They are the easiest to recognise, but the most difficult to treat. Quite often there is no treatment that produces lasting results.
I believe that the concept by some non-Muslims, towards Islams view of Mental disorders is because of the way we handle the Behavioral Disorders. Most Muslims (Myself Included) do not consider them to be a disease. I see them as a behavior problem and people looking for a quick fix to ease a guilty feeling.
I
This is an excellent post. The only aspect missing is that of the interplay between the genetic causation and the environmental. But of course, at all times, laws governing Human behaviour are the bottom line, and so behaviour must be regarded as the first most important key to all patterns of health and illness.
I want to state that if a person is not possessed, and are not able to sustain the belief in being able to control their own voluntary muscles, (and have no muscular problem), and that they are responsible for all the manifestations of their behaviour; then the problem is clearly, as Woodrow tells, a behavioural problem. Crime must not be allowed to use the blanket of assuming to itself the cover of those whom are engaged in intense personal Jihad.
