Amira Ayad, PhD
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We Need A Paradigm Shift

28/9/2021

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October is the Islamic Heritage Month in Canada… I want to take this opportunity to talk about a worldview that Muslim scientists have adopted during the Islamic Golden Age (roughly from the 7th to the 13th Century) and that we are definitely missing in our current approach to life…

Traditional Islamic teaching differentiates between two types of knowledge, transmitted (naqlī) and intellectual (ʿaqlī) knowledge. The transmitted knowledge is the one we acquire from books or through teachers, while intellectual knowledge is the knowledge that we find by digging within our souls to reach for the Truth, and which can only be reached through training the intellect and purifying the heart.[1] Accordingly, there are two basic paths of acquiring knowledge, following authority (taqlīd) and verification (taḥqīq). In practice, transmitted and intellectual knowledge, and taqlīd and taḥqīq, should always be interweaved yet it is usually the intellectual science that builds on the transmitted one. For Muslim scientists in the Islamic Golden Age, intellectual understanding has been regarded as an advanced level whereas transmitted science is an essential foundation and scaffolding that initiates and sustains intellectual inquiry.
 
If we apply this to our modern-day healthcare and medical practice, intellectual knowledge would be the skills and wisdom of the practitioner. It is the heart-based, dynamic, and ever-unfolding truth that depends on the practitioner’s expertise as well as on the client’s needs, hopes, and context. This intellectual knowledge could be reached not only through the sound training and transmitted learning, that is to say, through the evidence-based research, the body of knowledge, and accumulated data from previous teachers, researchers, experts and authorities (in both the conventional medicine and traditional fields), but also through the inner work (the purification of the heart) that the practitioner needs to perform. Science, from a traditional Islamic perspective, has one goal: to draw us closer to the Truth, to God.
 
But, this is not the case anymore… in our modern-day, we relinquished the pursuit for the essence, for the Truth and became content with the physical matter, with what we can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell… what we can sense: what you see is what you get, basically. We forgot that the first page of our Sacred Book praises the believers for being “those who believe in the unseen (al-ghayb),” (Q. 2: 3). We dismissed this ghayb (unseen) for the “certainty” of conventional scientific dogma. But, what we failed to acknowledge is that there is no certainty in scientific dogma – there are theories, hypotheses, and speculations many of which do not hold the test of time and crumble under the weight of new scientific discoveries,[2] the weight of new idols that we choose to worship.
 
Let’s be clear here. I am in no way against science. I am a scientist, a pharmacist who researched and taught pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical medications, biochemistry, and body metabolism for years; and who is still fascinated by science and chemistry. Yet, for me, these are tools not a destination. Professor Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in physiology/ medicine in 1937, wrote in his autobiography,
“I wanted to understand life but found the complexity of physiology overwhelming. So I shifted to pharmacology. This, I found, did not relieve the difficulty. So, I went into bacteriology, but found bacteria too complex, too. I shifted on, to physicochemistry and then to chemistry, that is, to molecules, the smallest units in those days. Ten years ago I found molecules too complex and shifted to electrons, hoping to have reached bottom. But Nature has no bottom. If Nature puts two things together she produces something new with new qualities, which cannot be expressed in terms of qualities of the components. When going from electrons and protons to atoms, from here to molecules, molecular aggregates, etc., up to the cell or the whole animal, at every level we find something new, a new breathtaking vista. So now, at 68, I am to work my way up again following electrons in their motion through more extensive systems, hoping to arrive, someday, at an understanding of the cellular level of organization.”[3] 
 
For all traditional cultures, science has always been a tool that helps human beings in their pursuit for the Truth, for the Sacred. Somehow, in our modern world, we managed to turn this tool into a tyrant whose only goal is to conquer the world and subdue nature. When I decided to study pharmacy, years ago, I was fascinated by my grandmother’s pantry full of home remedies for every conceivable illness; I loved herbs and was enchanted by their natural powers of healing… I was disillusioned… the way pharmacists and modern-day conventional scientists approach herbs robs them of their soul, of their essence, and reduces them into Latin names and chemical formulas. We extract the one ingredient that “science” proves to be effective and discard the remaining of the herb considering it useless. But, who are we to judge?
 
There are some therapeutic classes that we can only find in traditional herbal medicine like:
  • Adaptogens: These are herbs that help the body adapt to whatever stressful condition it faces;
  •  Alteratives: These are herbs that alter unfavorable conditions in the body whether by increasing or decreasing certain functions.
Terms like these teach us that herbs have some form of inherent intelligence, they have an inherent wisdom that is lost when we extract only one ingredient that we think is the active one -or even worse, when we try to replicate the chemical formula of this ingredient and synthesize it in our labs from coal tar and crude oil by-products that have nothing to do with the original herb- and stuff it into tablets or capsules expecting it to perform its magic.
Years back, when scientists discovered the calming effect of Kava Kava, a herb used by Native Americans for anxiety, they did what they do best – reduced it into one chemical ingredient they thought responsible for the pharmaceutical action: Kavalactones. The Kavalactones were extracted, purified, refined, stuffed into capsules, and mass-marketed. Soon enough, cases of liver failure started to be reported… It did not make sense; Native Americans have been using this herb for centuries with no reported side effects… It turned out that God who created the Kava lactones, also created another ingredient in the same plant, a powerful antioxidant that helps the liver detoxify and break down the lactones once their job is done. When we reduced the plant to only the anti-anxiety chemical, our body failed to eliminate it so it accumulated in the liver and caused more harm than good.
Reductionist Newtonian physics works just fine with technology and machines, but it stands at a loss before the miracle of our microcosm… Our body is not mere flesh, blood, and bones; our brain cannot be reduced to mere neurons and neurotransmitters; our heart cannot be concluded into a mere pump; and our intellect and consciousness could not be bound by the Cartesian bifurcation.
 
 
We Need A Paradigm Shift
 
We cannot understand and acknowledge our human complexity without integrating science and theology, physics and metaphysics. And, if we are to effectively integrate them, we need a paradigm shift. In the modern Western biomedical model, the scientific research is still based on and undergirded by the Cartesian-Newtonian dualistic, linear, and reductionist approach to life. This view “not only presents an inaccurate vision of human existence but also contributes to the disease of modern society.”[4]
 
Nowadays, evidence-based healthcare relies heavily on statistical analysis of collected data. The use of statistics, which began in the 1800s by eugenicists, aimed, and in most cases is still aiming, at establishing the “normal distribution” of human beings in an attempt to reduce deviation from the norm. But who gets to decide what “norm” is? This idea of the norm in itself is a tyranny that ignores many aspects of the human experience.[5] Besides, “the delusion that […] the accumulation of a large number of facts can be of use by itself as a proof of a theory,” is another oversimplification feature of our modern-day scientific inquiries that focus on quantities missing the real essence.[6] Even studies concerning spirituality and health “must conform to the canons of scientific research which focus primarily on the relationship of behavior and outcome,” overlooking:
  • The multifactorial nature of causation (instead they focus on linear causation);
  • The interconnectedness of mind, body, and soul (instead they see life through the dualistic Cartesian lens of separation); and
  • The interrelated holistic nature of life (versus the isolation, compartmentalization, and individualization view of modern thinking).[7]
We need to broaden our understanding of scientific evidence to include metaphysical first principles and include thoughts, feelings, relationships, and a holistic view of life.[8] We need to recollect the scattered pieces of our human existence and reconnect the severed ties between our hearts/ souls and our bodies.
 
_____________________________
[1] William Chittick, Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul
[2] Wofgang Smith, Science and Myth.
[3] Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Lost in the 20th century
[4] Epperly, B. G. (2000). Prayer, Process, and the Future of Medicine
[5] Lennard Davis, The Disability Studies Reader
[6] René Guénon, The Reign of Quantity.
[7] Epperly, B. G. (2000). Prayer, Process, and the Future of Medicine. Journal of Religion and Health 39, 23–37.
[8] William Dembski, Intelligent Design.
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October: Breast Cancer Awareness Month

28/9/2021

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Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women and the second cause of cancer death after lung cancer. Recent genetic research points at breast cancer genes that, if present, might increase the risk of breast cancer. These studies show susceptibility, but do not explain how many women carrying those genes never develop breast cancer nor do they demonstrate how many women lacking the genes end up developing the disease. According to Dr. Lipton, the internationally recognized cell biologist and author of Biology of Belief, 95% of cancers are not caused by genetic inheritance. Environmental conditions and energetic makeup are major cause of cancer development. When cells are subjected to unfavorable environmental conditions (including toxins, nutritional deficiencies, emotional traumas, abuse…), they can’t perform optimally which may trigger those genes. If environmental conditions are under control (i.e. physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing) the genes won’t be triggered and the disease is never manifested.
 
 
Listen to your Body Whispers®
 
Breast cancer is associated with the heart chakra, our fourth energy centre. Breast cancer sufferers usually have a history of repressed love, mothering too much or too little, losing a loved one or being betrayed by a loved one. In most cases, they have a history of over nurturing others while neglecting or rather denying their own needs for love and care. Our body sends us messages… If we keep ignoring them, they keep getting louder and louder until the Whispers turn into screams…
 
Some time ago, I met a lovely 30-year-old lady who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I was with her as she navigated the chaos of emotions: fear, helplessness, anger, depression… and as she suffered the pain of surgery, and the side effects of radiation and chemo. It was hard… extremely hard.
Yet, one day, she came back to see me. It was almost a year after her treatment has concluded. I will never forget her words: “you know, this cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was asleep and it woke me up.” She related how her illness gave her time to reflect on her life, her beliefs, and her values. She changed and she grew… And now, she was helping women on the same journey to navigate the pain and chaos of their illness and restore their life starting by the most important step: Awakening & Awareness.
 
Al-Harawy (d. 1089 C.E.), the Muslim scholar and Sufi mystic, described human beings as travelers on a life-long journey towards knowing God. His hundred-station journey starts with the most critical step: Awakening, which involves self-awareness and deep self-reflection. According to Al-Harawy, awakening initiates a life-long venture towards a sound heart, the center of human intellect that guides the way to the Straight Path. 
 
How often does our life pass us by and go totally unnoticed? How often do we run on autopilot unaware and tumbling out of balance? Sometimes when we’re caught up in life challenges and pains, we miss those simple moments of awareness. Living our life with awareness allows us the opportunity to reflect on our trials and wounds. We do not bypass our pains, we do not deny our depression or brush away our fears; on the contrary, we learn to acknowledge our feelings; to savor every second of our life with its joys and sorrow, ups and downs; to live our life with gratitude and awe.
 
 
St. Teresa of Avila teaches “[God’s] voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illness and suffering and through sorrow He calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer He calls to us. No matter how half-hearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what He is trying to teach us […] The important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love.”
 

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Whether you are seeking personal healing and growth or you are a female Muslim Health Practitioner, Coach, or Therapist who is wondering how to get direction regarding her next personal or professional step…
It’s time to listen to your Body Whispers before they turn into Screams...
 
If you feel that it is time for you to embark on your Journey of healing & transformation… Let me help you find your authentic voice as you explore your personal story and experiences.
 
“Verily God will never change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves” (Quran,13:11)
 
Learn about my private counseling  HERE. And if you feel inclined, contact me at info@amiraayad.com to set a 30 min free phone consult to see if and how I can help you.
 

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    About the Author

    Hi, I'm Amira... I'm all for simple, natural, uncomplicated life... My core values are derived from my Islamic faith... My definition of wellness includes lots of smiles, human interactions, delicious food, music, joy, colorful paint, Mediterranean sunshine, blue sky and turquoise sea, care, love, compassion and deep heart-felt peace.
    I love learning… I love books and art supplies… And, I am saddened by human conflict and intolerance.
     
    I am an introvert who loves being around people... I love building communities and gathering around the kitchen table... I am a teacher at heart... I simplify complex health science and speak openly about heart and soul stuff...

    I've been helping people on their health and healing journey for more than 20 years now and I am committed to be authentic, caring and a beacon of love and peace.

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My wellness coaching, workshops, teachings, and all the services I provide are at all times restricted to education, teaching and training on the subject of natural health matters intended for general natural health well-being and do not involve the diagnosing, prognosticating, treatment, or prescribing of remedies for the treatment of any disease, or any licensed or controlled act which may constitute the practice of  medicine. 
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