Objectives
· A brief exploration of the context that Islamic Counselling operates in.
· Answering the question “who is it for?” based on real life studies of three categories of people who approach us.
· An invitation to experience some of the techniques we use.
What is the context that Islamic Counselling operates in? For some the bursting of the 80’s economic bubble has led many to a search for meaning, with people choosing to re-evaluate and even reshape their lives from high stress consumer life styles, to ones of more simplicity, based on inner values. We have also seen over the last ten years a massive proliferation of meditative spiritually based approaches to life and business. Self help books workshops retreats, martial arts etc. have in some ways become part of the consumer lifestyle that one is expected to accessorise. For others still, this has been something observed, but not achieved. Not everyone will see the need for, or be attracted to, spiritual development. Many people have very negative and very real experiences of religion; others are interested in other things in their lives. For many young people spiritual search is meaningless to them at a point in their lives when they struggle with their own search for identity and purpose in the context of poor prospects and great aspirations.
So where does Islamic Counselling fit in and who is it for?
Youth workers in particular will be aware that in itself counselling is a stigmatised activity, more so when it is Islamic Counselling, and perhaps even more so for Muslim communities who may not even accept its validity. Many youth workers will be more interested in and already applying counselling skills in informal settings. I therefore want to take a practical approach in this talk by drawing on real life examples and by inviting you to experience some of the techniques we use. I hope that this will give you a flavour of what we’re doing, more than anything I could say. It’s often said that spirituality can not be a spectator sport, so I hope you will bear with me and the confines of the setting and share in some of what we do. Before we do that let me talk about some of the reasons why people approach us. They mainly fall into 3 categories:-
· those who have that metaphysical quest, who are searching for meaning,
· those who acknowledge some problem or difficulty in their life,
· those who see the Islamic Counselling as a route to develop their Islam or teach others (dawa) through the practice of counselling.
People studies –
Because of confidentiality I’ve changed some of the details of the people studies, but all of them are essentially true. My first people study is of a man in his 40s, professional and successful but who now really wants to explore the meaning beyond “everyday experience.” I’ve picked this case study because this man did not come to us because of the “Islamic”, but because of the spiritual content of the work. Nor did he have any problems as such – he has a happy family life, enjoys most of his work, has friends, time for himself, and is generally a balanced and together person at a stage in his life when he feels he would like to know if there is more, if what he senses to be true in the quiet moments in his life really is, and whether the sages, spiritual teachings and practices can open dimensions of life, understanding and experience that he has not touched before. The way we would respond to this man or people in a similar place would be to share some of the exercises and teachings with him and enable him to work out whether this was right for him. There is a message that I want to get across here which is that part of the courtesy of working in the way that we do is that there is a huge respect for people and their journey. This man continues to search and to question. He has not bought the package, nor have we tried to sell him it. There are others who have “fallen in love” from the moment they encounter what was perhaps already in their hearts. Actually I would say that this man too has been transformed. God says in The Quran, “there is no compulsion in the din” and tells us that only He is aware of what is in people’s hearts. For us, we must just sing our song.
“I didn’t question, I didn’t think, oh what about the scarf?, what about this? What shall I do; there was no choice…And again finding the sharia was an answer to a prayer of when I cried out….where am I in this, where am I in this harmony that I see in front of me?”
Rabia Redpath.
People Studies –
My second study is of A Muslim Asian couple, who have problems in their relationship where both have met and married for love, but have different expectations in terms of their lives; one wants his wife to practice more Islamically, and the wife is resenting the intrusion on her freedom. They came to us for counselling because they were in real trouble with their relationship and didn’t have anywhere else to turn. They were both considering divorce but really not wanting to separate. They were coming to us perhaps with slightly different agendas; the man because he felt secure that there would be an Islamic focus to the counselling and that perhaps we would see his side more than if they’d gone to a secular counsellor, “I keep telling her to pray, but she doesn’t listen to me”, and the woman because she felt she might get heard more than she had from the Imam they had gone to see. In this case we were able to work with the couple in a way which enabled them to work on their relationship by moving out of the he/she’s wrong and I’m right, by exploring her feelings of betrayal that he had suddenly become “Islamic” and would oppress her and his feelings of fear that she was not fully committed to him. We asked him to see her as someone who loved him – else why was she there? – but also as someone whose respect he could gain by finding teachings that he could share with her which she would be attracted to, rather than ones which would make her feel he was trying to control her. We asked her to invite him to events they both might enjoy and to be open to the teachings he was sharing with her. In a way giving these examples is deceptive because I can’t possibly share with you how different each and every situation is. Suffice to say that people come to us with problems which cross the whole range of human life. Some of our clients are Muslim, others not. Obviously the way we would work with a non Muslim client would not be to ask them to share Islamic teachings. One of most lovely Islamic Counselling techniques of working with depression for example, is to ask clients to get up at what we would call fajr – incidentally the etymology of the word is crack or break – the closest English equivalent is crack of dawn or morning has broken – and simply to witness the increasing of the light around them. For much of the year we are constantly in an environment where we are present at the darkening of the sky, at sunset, when many people will say they feel a sense of ending and sadness, but asleep for the magical time when light grows. This witnessing of fajr often supports people in depression in ways they testify to but cannot fully explain.
I have said that there is a great need out there. One of the greatest rewards of developing the courses is that we know there is a huge need out there but very few Islamic Counsellors or even spiritual counsellors. Within our communities we have become trapped by clinging to culture that was no longer relevant, that had become hierarchical or sexist, in complete opposition to the teachings of Islam.
Further, the kinds of problems that were arising were ones that imams had not necessarily been trained to deal with.
Housing policy in Britain and social norms mean that communities do not or cannot look after each other as they might have before. On the other hand, in mainstream organisations, clients were finding that at best they would receive a secular response, with no meaning for them, or at worst they would be patronised and misunderstood and still receive no response. In the meantime there were many people who were suffering and alone. One of the rewards of the work that we and others, such as the Muslim Women’s Helpline, the Muslim Women and Families’ Helpline, Parkside Health Authority, is an inner determination and intention to be responsive to all Muslims and non Muslims, within our limitations, whatever their background, denomination, or indeed level of belief.
People Studies –
The third type of person is one who sees Islamic Counselling as a route to develop their Islam or to teach others (dawa) through the practice of counselling. We have met so many people who are sincerely searching for a route to learning more about their Islam in a way in which allows them to grow and share their knowledge and learning with others in a way which is also of service. Some of our students who are here today are in this category. I won’t embarrass anyone of them, but relay instead to you the story of one of our first students who was a young woman who had rejected religion in her teens and who “reverted” to Islam just prior to coming on the course. She wanted to learn about herself, wanted to learn her din, and she wanted to serve her community at the same time. One of the most important things for her was to be with a multicultural group of people who were committed to similar things, with whom she could share her experience, and who would accept her. One of the most crucial, and painful, aspects of her journey was to learn how to discriminate between what she was searching for and the attitude of some born Muslims, and in fact to transcend this to a point where she was not broken by their judgements of her nor was she overly critical of them. One of the teachings of Al Ghazzali is that in the knowledge of the self one’s enemies can be one’s best teachers, , and it was the development of this teaching which helped her the most. Indeed Allah says in the Quran:
“And We created you male and female nations and tribes that you may know one another.”
For me, for her and for the group, this was a spiritual transformation of issues of race and Culture which went beyond recognition of the complex interplay of power dynamics between cultures, faith and identity, went beyond recognising the injustice and oppression of individuals and groups, to something for her, within her own heart, which she transmitted to others. And it is true that without exception every sincere student, teacher client and counsellor has benefited in similar ways. I will never forget the student who came to learn Islamic Counselling following the death of her 18 year old son – her faith and certainty were so palpable that all of us resonated with that as we learnt how to honour that gift. May Allah bless her.
There are also those come to Islamic Counselling because they have wanted to teach others, but where this is an excuse for wanting to impose their beliefs on others in a way which betrays the root meaning of the word dawa which is interpreted in practice as proselytizing, but which means invitation. Indeed, whether we are spiritual or not, most of us have an aspect of ourselves which wishes others to share in what we do or believe, from ideological beliefs, to sharing a cigarette break. But some of our most “hard line” students – and they won’t mind me describing them this way, have also been on a journey where they have discovered that perhaps their approach was because they had felt oppressed, or because they feared losing control, or because they had become self satisfied. One of the most beautiful things said of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) was by his wife Ayesha RA who said of him, he was like the Quran walking, i.e. that he had integrated the Quran into his being, that he was a man who loved God and loved to express this in countless courtesies to his fellow human beings. There is a beautiful verse in the Quran in which Allah tells us that there are those who are in worship standing sitting or in the marketplace and yet another in which Allah tells us that there are those who when they pray simply bend their knees. The verses tell us there is more to worship than outer compliance, more to faith than five slots in a day. So part of Islamic Counselling, as indeed on all counselling courses, is to challenge oneself, and be challenged. This is particularly if the intention is to become a counsellor, particularly if one is to be given the responsibility of working with the heart; the most precious, the most vulnerable and also the strongest part of us. It is a testimony to the courage of students in this category that they allow themselves to work with more subtle aspects of themselves and others and to allow compassion and love to guide them through. Part of all this is to engender a huge sense of accountability, and privilege of being allowed to work with people in this way. And although I believe everyone succeeds, it may not be right for everyone to be a counsellor. Some people will want this first and foremost for their own selves, for their friends and family, or in their everyday work interactions. Indeed, the only possibility is to start with oneself:
”That is because Allah never changes the grace He has bestowed upon any people until they first change that which is in their souls and that is because Allah is Hearer, Knower” 8.53
Ultimately people are interested in counselling and psychology because they want to understand themselves, whoever they are. Counselling courses and psychology courses are always popular; at university I believe psychology is the second most popular option after medicine. Maybe what is different about the applications of Islamic Counselling is that it is based on Tauhid, on unity, on the knowledge that we come from one self, and that because of this innate yearning for knowledge which is never satisfied by information and which is constantly disturbed by the vagaries and incredible intricacies of life, that it works. Maybe it is that for whatever reason one comes to this, the spiritual connection some how overrides, and in spite of our mistakes beautiful things – hasanat – take place.
Exercise in Focusing Attention
One of the key aspects of Islamic Counselling is awareness. Just as a photographer will select her frame, so does a human being. Every moment of consciousness is a change of frame, but some aspects of ourselves are more permanent than others. Some of these “habits” are positive, and bring about harmony which means at one ness, and others bring about dis -ease. Because we come from the one self, there is no real barrier between us and others.
Exercise in seeing the best potential
Our main focus is Islamic spiritual counselling which aims to see each person positively in the light of their true potential, to uplift them and ourselves so as to enable release of God-given healing capacities to solve their own difficulties. Each person has the innate capacity to heal in relation to their own life.
Imam Ghazali says, “know o beloved you were not created in jest or at random, but marvellously made for some great end.” In the Quran Allah tells us “You were created of a tremendous nature” – with a potential beyond that of the angels, with a consciousness, which is mysterious even to our own selves, and knowledge of which we cannot do without.