You can know the words and still not hear them

Dr Mukashfa Naeem Azeemi

The words were there, just waiting for someone to hear them.

Surah Al Fatiha, Qur’an 1:1–7, the attentiveness required for prayer, and hearing familiar words take on life.

For years, I recited Surah Al Fatiha without ever really listening to the words.

I knew the words. I knew the timing, the rhythm, the cadence, the pauses. I knew what was coming up because I knew where all the words fit in, and I had said them many times before.

But then there were times that I finished praying and I discovered that although my physical presence was in it, my mind was somewhere else. A discussion during the early part of the day, A patient, a task left undone. An event that may happen tomorrow. An event that occurred ten years ago.

There is such a capability that the mind can inhabit other worlds beyond the world where the body stands. And slowly something began to change. The words have stayed the same. The prayer remains the same. The verses have not gained any new syllable nor a new linguistic structure. But every once in a while, a verse would stay in me even after finishing the prayer.

A phrase comes back to me when I am busy at work. Another phrase pops up whenever I have an awkward conversation. A request for direction suddenly becomes more of a question directed at the next move I would make in my life rather than just being a verse from an Arabic book.

The words haven’t changed. Only I have.

How can something familiar become new?

Newness is generally linked with information. It is new because we get to know about something that was not known before. However, there is another kind of newness. In which no new information is gained, but something which is known from before becomes known in a new way.

A familiar face suddenly starts looking like a new face. A clinical diagnosis becomes clear only after years of experience. A familiar sentence takes on a new meaning after grief, illness, death, and love.

The information was always there; the only thing that changed was the one receiving it.

The distinction is central to understanding spiritual experience. We often imagine awakening as the arrival of something extraordinary. A vision, a revelation, or a dramatic shift in state. But awakening can also be quieter. It can occur when attention finally meets something that repetition had rendered invisible. The verse was always there; the listener wasn't.

Human beings would not survive if everything we do required our complete attention. We move without calculating how our muscles contract. We can think about anything else when we travel the same route. We can do familiar things more efficiently.

Practice means a change in the equation between effort and the action. Effort becomes easier with practice, but with practice, the familiar becomes harder to notice.

A familiar prayer constitutes a unique psychological state. Since we know it by heart, we can say it without paying full attention to it. Our lips remember what follows. Our minds wander.

This cannot be automatically seen as proof that prayer has become meaningless. This is an illustration of something more ordinary and human. Our attention is fragile. We can be physically present and mentally absent.

Brain, attention, and prayer

There are many different ways that neuroscience can look at this experience. Internal cognition, autobiographical memory, self-reference, and mind wandering make use of networks within the brain. These networks include areas of the brain that have been referred to collectively in recent times as the Default Mode Network. The Default Mode Network is involved in inward-oriented processes.

Prayer can include aspects of memory, language, attention, emotion, posture, social cognition, moral reasoning, and sense of relationship. The fact that we can identify the brain processes related to the experience doesn’t necessarily mean we know anything about the experience itself. We can watch the brain as peace flows through a person’s being. But will a brain scan be able to distinguish between a person touching the Divine, or just experiencing his or her own neurochemical process?

That is where science ends, and philosophy begins.

Take music. We can talk about the frequencies that enter the ear canal. We can follow the processes from sound waves to the nervous system. We can study memory, expectation, emotional response, and rewards. All of that is true.

But if someone hears a particular piece of music and remembers a deceased parent, the neuroscience of that response does not tell us what the parent meant to that person. The mechanism matters; it simply is not the whole story. Prayer presents a similar distinction.

A neuroscientist can investigate when a person recites a familiar passage, focuses attention, regulates breathing, adopts a particular posture, or experiences an intense sense of religious presence. But two distinct questions remain.

• What does the experience mean to the person?

• Does the experience refer to something beyond the individual?

Science can investigate the first question to some extent. The second enters philosophy and theology. Confusing these two views leads to two opposite mistakes

• One mistake is to dismiss the experience: “We found brain activity, so it is nothing but chemistry.”

• The other is to overstate the evidence: “It feels supernatural, so science has proved God or the supernatural exists.”

Neither conclusion follows automatically.

A brain process accompanying an experience does not, by itself, determine the ultimate status of that experience. Every human experience we know is mediated through a brain. But the existence of a neural mechanism does not by itself tell us whether the object of experience is imaginary, physical, interpersonal, mathematical, moral or divine.

Neuroscience can tell us something about how an experience occurs. It can not automatically settle what the experience means. Either of the inferences is not a logical necessity.

The fact that there is an activity in the brain related to the experience does not necessarily say anything about the true nature of the experience. Any human experience that we know about involves brain activity. Nevertheless, the mere fact of brain activity does not tell us anything about whether the object of the experience is an illusion, real, personal, mathematical, moral, or spiritual object. Neurology may explain how the experience occurs but not necessarily what it means.

Al Fatiha and the transformation of attention

This may explain why the first words of Al Fatiha are so profound in their psychological and spiritual content. The chapter does not offer mere information on God. It opens with praising Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

Al hamdu lillah Rabbil’alamin, All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

Saying Alhamdulillah amidst suffering is not the same as saying that suffering is good. Saying Alhamdulillah is refusing to reduce reality to a condition of suffering. This is the fine distinction.

Gratitude is not denying anything is wrong. Gratitude is asking a question.

What is still worth recognition despite things being wrong?

The answer to that question may change perception. An inhalation, once unnoticed, may now be recognized. Food is not merely sustenance. Patient trust is more than professionalism. Starting again is no longer an assumption. The world itself need not have changed. The view is different.

There follows "Rabb al Alamin," the Lord of the worlds. This is a further widening of the scope of the self. It refers to the legacy that we receive prior to accomplishment.

A Body and a Mind; Language and Culture; Ecological and Historical Systems; Collective Effort and Knowledge of Others. All the countless invisible systems that make an ordinary day possible.

Even self-reliance relies on dependency. This is not simply a matter of theology. It also questions the psychology of the lone individual. Human beings live in relationships, histories, communities, and caring systems.

Winnicott's theory focused on the significance of the mother-child interaction in emotional life. The theory indicates that our psychological life begins in relation.

Mercy as a way of seeing

Ar Rahman, Ar Rahim, The Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

Mercy is sometimes seen as weakness. Mercy can be difficult. It demands that we refrain from equating someone's worst action with his or her truest nature, that we don't reduce them to their weakest state or their most challenging aspect.

Medicine has the potential to make illness take away people's outer identity. The executive becomes a patient. The independent becomes dependent. The confident person becomes afraid. The caregiver becomes the one in need of care.

Without mercy, medicine can turn someone into their disease. Mercy makes sure the person is still present amid the disease. It lets us correct our mistakes without hating ourselves, and criticize other people without denying them their humanity.

However, our response is not merely based on the facts themselves. Our response is also based on what we think those facts mean. Mercy can alter this perspective without denying the existence of the failure itself.

Mercy demands responsibility, but takes out the need for retribution. Mercy sees the broken parts scattered on the floor and acknowledges them to be broken but chooses to value the relationship above the price of the pieces.

From knowing God to addressing God

Iyayaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’in ( You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help ).

Something important happens here. The surah moves from speaking about God to speaking directly to God. Theology tells us who God is, but this verse places the speaker before Him. The distance changes. The absolute Ruler of the cosmos is addressed as You.

I can know that someone is merciful without feeling that I am standing before mercy. When I address God directly, I am no longer thinking only about the concept of mercy. I am placing myself in relation to it.

I can understand dependence intellectually while behaving as though everything depends upon me. We often experience a separation between what we believe and how we live. We may sincerely affirm that God is in control, yet moments later become anxious and overwhelmed, managing every detail as though every outcome depends entirely on us. This verse offers a remedy for that illusion of total control.

When we say, “You alone we ask for help,” we are reminded to stop behaving as though we govern the universe. We are invited to set down the burden of excessive control and place our dependence consciously in God’s hands.

There is another surprise in the verse. It says We, not merely ‘I worship.’ ‘We Worship.’

Even private prayer carries a collective grammar. Worship does not disappear into isolation. The individual becomes part of a larger community of human beings who also stand, bow, ask, fail, return, and seek guidance.

There is something psychologically important in this movement from the isolated self toward relationship.

Modern culture often treats self-sufficiency as strength. But human life is full of situations in which self-sufficiency is simply impossible.

• We become ill.

• We lose people.

• We make mistakes.

• We encounter problems beyond our knowledge.

We discover that control was never as complete as we imagined. To ask for help is therefore not necessarily an admission of failure. It may be a more accurate description of the human condition. We were never carrying existence alone.

What if the purpose of prayer is not primarily to make us feel peaceful, but to make us become different kinds of people?

This is where the distinction between experience and transformation becomes crucial. A beautiful spiritual experience can be meaningful. But experience alone is not necessarily transformation. A person can feel moved during a prayer and remain cruel outside it. A person can experience awe and remain dishonest. A person can feel forgiven while continuing to refuse responsibility. This is why the final request of Al Fatiha is so consequential:

Here, the difference between experience and transformation becomes very important. A spiritually beautiful experience can be a meaningful one. However, an experience by itself does not necessarily mean transformation. An individual can be spiritually touched during a prayer and yet be cruel outside the prayer. An individual can be spiritually awed but still be dishonest. An individual can be spiritually forgiven but still refuse to take responsibility. That is why the last appeal of Al Fatiha is so important:

Here, the difference between experience and transformation becomes very important. A spiritually beautiful experience can be a meaningful one. However, an experience by itself does not necessarily mean transformation. An individual can be spiritually touched during a prayer and yet be cruel outside the prayer. An individual can be spiritually awed but still be dishonest. An individual can be spiritually forgiven but still refuse to take responsibility. That is why the last appeal of Al Fatiha is so important:

Ihdina al sirat al mustaqim, Guide us to the Straight path

This prayer does not only seek knowledge, but direction.

There is a difference. The information age provides us with endless amounts of data. Information is searchable and accessible. Opinions can be analyzed, advice is plentiful, and there are many explanations out there. But having access to knowledge does not necessarily mean that one will know what course of action to take. It is not a lack of information; it is one of orientation.

Which desire should one follow? Which option should be turned down? Should I speak? When should I not? What should be of importance when I am alone?

The straight way, therefore, is not only the destination, but also an inquiry about orientation:

Orientation between belief and action.Orientation between intention and behavior.Orientation between what we think should matter and what actually matters through our choice.

Our idea of repetition is sameness. However, there is such a thing as repetition being a process of formation as well. Each day we repeat some ideas, actions, feelings, and even ways of paying attention. In the end, it is not only about expressing who we are. It actually helps us form who we are.

This is how the repeated reading of sacred language gains psychological importance. Something that happens just once to inspire us will stay an inspiration. The same thing read a thousand times will become a part of our interpretation system.

The real test starts after the prayer. The most important moment of any prayer comes after the prayer.

How will Alhamdulillah cope when the day turns out to be hard? How will mercy cope when somebody insults us? How will guidance cope when making the right decision requires sacrifice from us? Words need to cope with ordinary life. Or else they will stay just words.

The echo

An echo is not the original sound. An echo is not disconnected from the original sound either. An echo is the result of the sound traveling, encountering space, and reverting. Maybe the sacred language operates like this too. A sentence is uttered in one’s childhood, then repeated in one’s adult life, said throughout the days, and lost amidst the noise. Years after, it comes back to one, not because the words have been altered but because the person hearing those words has changed.

Alhamdulillah becomes more than gratitude. Alhamdulillah becomes the method of awareness. Ar Rahman Ar Rahim becomes more than description; it becomes the call for mercy. Iyakka na’budu wa iyakka nasta’in becomes more than reading the lines. It becomes the acceptance of the fact that our self-sufficiency was partly an illusion.

The words were present before us.