It has been an entire year, and the constant source of trauma is unending. Since the emergence of colonialism, the dismantling of Islamic empires, the birth of the nation state, and the emergence of nationalism, Muslims have in one form or another been in a constant state of trauma. Each generation focuses on the trauma it suffers in its own historical moment, but those with a sense of history know that what is unfolding in Palestine—the genocide, the systematic uprooting of a Muslim population, and the colonization of holy sites—has been the rule, not the exception, in the age of modernity.
I will return to this point later in the khutbah, but I received yet another letter from a young academic in Gaza who is desperately trying to find a way out of his plight. Stuck in Gaza, traumatized by war, this young academic is living in constant danger. The letter is appealing to me to help him find a way out. I am sure he has written to many others. The impact of the letter was overwhelming; the sense of helplessness, bitterness, and frustration. For any Muslim worthy of the name, the sense is that this has happened far too often in the age of modernity. As I felt this wave of emotions, I remembered what I said in my last khutbah about dissociative states. For that is the automatic response of our subconscious brains. When our brains are confronted by something overwhelming, something beyond our endurance, something it can neither make sense of nor control, it enters into various means of denial.
The denial, in this case, is not to deny the trauma itself. It is not to ignore the reality of the trauma. It is rather to try to find distractions to the mind that divert our attention from the trauma and maybe even from our sense of being as a Muslim, from our sense of belonging to an Ummah that identifies itself as a Muslim Ummah. God tells us in Surah al-Kahf to remember our Lord if we forget (Q. 18:24). But forgetfulness is not simply forgetting to say “inshallah” or “bismillah” or “alhamdulillah.” Forgetfulness is far more serious when it takes a form of cognitive dissonance and disassociation, when you cannot make it all fit together, when your Islamic sense of the world stops making sense, so you distract yourself by everything other than what is Islamic.
This is, indeed, the source of so many Muslims who think of ways to dissociate from their duties toward their Palestinian brothers and sisters, or who try to find ways to dilute or deconstruct what they intuitively know to be their duties toward disempowered Muslims around the world. We human beings do not like pain. So, when we feel pain, we find ways to subconsciously divert our attention so that the pain is lessened.
It is remarkable that it took modern science centuries to recognize an obvious point: the power of support groups; the power of associating with those who help ground you in a healthy reality. In this case, those who can help ground you in a healthy reality would be Muslims who have developed healthy ways of processing modern Islamic trauma. God tells us in Surah al-Kahf, for instance, to "Contain yourself in patience" (Q 18:28). I like this translation of Muhammad Asad. It connotes the power of maintaining yourself and maintaining your own integrity with those who, as Asad has it, “invoke their Sustainer” (Q 18:28). It is not just that they worship. It is that they call upon their Lord, morning and evening. They literally want the “face of their Lord,” which has the wonderful, subtle meaning of searching for the presence of the Lord. The “face of their Lord” is a metaphor for those who search for the presence of their Lord.
"Do not let your eyesight go beyond them..." (Q 18:28). This is another wonderful, figurative expression. It means we should not seek a reality other than the reality of that group searching for their Lord, night and day. Nor should we chase after the “beauties of this world" (Q 18:28). The language in Arabic refers to worldly delights. In essence, the Qur’an is telling us to not make our reality all about this world. Instead, the reality that we should enter ourselves into is the reality of what we, in the modern age, call the “support group,” the group that helps you construct a reality in which you are among those seeking the face of the Lord.
God warns that we are prone to suffer forgetfulness of the Lord, which I call a dissociative state. Every time you drift from God, you are in a dissociative state. In primordial time, the time before time, you are nothing but from God, and you come into existence as nothing but from God. Quite literally, from God you come and to God you return. Everything in your intuitive being knows this and screams it to you, so any state that drifts from that reality is, in fact, a form of dissociation. We know that we will enter a life that we know very little about when we die. We also know that real life begins in the Hereafter. We know the time we spend in the Hereafter, compared to the time spent on this earth, is like comparing miles of land to a centimeter of dirt. Life on earth hardly compares to the Hereafter. So, if you are a Muslim who submits to these articles of faith, how could it be but a form of dissociation when you exist far away, having drifted from the origin from which you came and to which you will return?
One of the challenges of modernity for Muslims is not just the reality of a colonized sense of being. It is not just the reality of powerlessness and vulnerability. It is not just the reality of fellow Muslims, past and present, being abused time and again as their lands are colonized and their ability for self-determination is severely compromised. For denial of self-determination is the overwhelming reality of modern Islam. Not just in the form of colonialism, but also in the forms of authoritarianism. Domestic authoritarianism, or internal colonization, is as much a denial of self-determination as colonialism. Whether you are occupied by Britain or by your own military and security forces, the end result is the same. The end result is trauma and a loss of a sense of self-respect and dignity, which leads, again, to dissociated states.
Think more deeply of the journey of modern Islam. Think of the fact that Sufi forms of Islam in pre-modernity constituted up to 90% of Islamic reality. Sufism was extremely widespread. Whether they were formal Sufi orders or not is not the point. The point is that it was a part of Islamic culture in the same way that education by learning the Qur’an was a staple of Islamic culture. The first exposure to schooling was through reading or memorizing the Qur'an. It is a reality that is long gone now, except in some remote areas. Part of the legacy of colonialism was to rip the Qur'an out of our lives. Part of that reality was also the dismantling of Sufi lodges. Part of that reality was the emergence of Salafi and Wahhabi strands of Islam, which made support groups increasingly absent.
Think of your own growth as a Muslim. Your parents never attended halaqas. I am willing to bet that most Muslims in the United States have never attended any form of collective dhikr. In fact, most Muslims are indoctrinated in the feeling that dhikr circles are, somehow, not genuinely Islamic. Dhikr support groups were an inseparable part of Islamic reality. If you only knew how much, you would feel an overwhelming sense of loss. But we have constructed our reality in the modern age in such a way that we know nothing about these groups. In fact, the most we will experience in an Islamic center is jumu’a prayer and maybe some lectures about things in the Sira, the same things we have heard a million times before. There will be no systematic effort to construct reality around the remembrance of our Lord. That is something most of us have not experienced and have no real opportunities to experience.
God tells us in Surah Ya-Sin to not worship Satan (Q 36:60). The language implies a sense of God giving human beings persistent, repeated advice. In the same way that decay comes from the absence of action, darkness comes from the absence of light. The only thing the state of worshiping Satan requires is inertia. Again, if I receive news and images from Gaza and feel traumatized because of my powerlessness, my subconscious kicks in to try to make me feel better, and it does that by distracting me with anything that does not remind me of the plight of my fellow Muslims. Of course, these kinds of distractions are not going to be Islamic. And as these distractions kick in, I do not have any type of support group to try to regulate and ground me again in dhikr of God.
Why? Because we have become dhikr averse. We have not only become Qur'anically illiterate, but dhikr averse. It is remarkable. God tells us to not allow our minds to stray from a reality anchored in the dhikr of God (Q 18:28). How have we answered God? We come together to pray jum'ua, we maybe have potlucks at the masjid, we might attend a class, but no one really pays attention to these Islamic lectures because they talk about the same things over and over. How many times can you hear about the Battle of Badr? In our social spaces, there are no Islamic support groups focused on God's dhikr.
So what do you think happens to the state of inertia? Whatever is not filled by light will be filled by darkness. Lack of energy equals decay, and the lack of God's presence will be filled by the reality constructed by Satan. As a result, your dissociative states get worse and worse as Satan fills more and more of the void you have within. Anything not mindful of the Hereafter as our real life is a skewed and twisted understanding of this earthly reality. Anything that does not take into account the fact that we came from God and to God we return is a skewed and demonic understanding of reality. So, although God has warned us not to hand ourselves over to Satan, whether we recognize it or not, our state of distraction and inertia is a natural drift toward the demonic. It is a natural drift toward being nestled in the arms of the demonic.
Surah al-Tawbah was revealed shortly after the conquest of Mecca. Mecca changed after the Muslim conquest. The enemy of yesterday had now surrendered to the Prophet and to those whom, just a year before, they were at war with. There was now a mass movement to become Muslim. Islam has become the order of the day for Quraysh. Of course, there were major tribes other than Quraysh, and these included the powerful tribes of Hawazin and Thaqif, two tribes that refused to convert. In fact, they saw an opportunity to defeat Muslims and become the most prominent tribe of Arabia, displacing the Quraysh.
The Prophet had a sophisticated intelligence system, so he learned that Hawazin and Thaqif were preparing to invade Mecca. We see in Surah al-Tawbah that several things were taking place at this time. Many people had become Muslim, but their Islam was surface level and superficial—just like the Islam of many Muslims in the modern age. They had become Muslims only very recently. They had not been Muslims all their lives, and their Islam was “superficial” in the sense that there was an effort to maintain a lifestyle of jahiliyyah with an Islamic polish. This only grew after the death of the Prophet. As the reports tell us, there were already at this time groups questioning, "Why should we fight with the Prophet in jihad? Is it not enough that we have the honor of serving the pilgrims to God's house in Mecca?” Some were bragging that they provided services to pilgrims, arguing that that is where true Islamic service is. Not joining the Prophet in jihad, but in bragging about artificial Islamic appearances. Lo and behold, when the Battle of Hunayn took place, there were many converts to Islam and the Islamic army had mushroomed. Yet there were many who joined the Islamic army because it was the “thing to do.” Immediately after the battle had started, after the first hardship and after falling into an ambush, these very people fled the scene, running from battle, leaving the Prophet with his family and his Companions in the battlefield.
The battle ultimately ended in victory for Muslims, but it gave a powerful lesson about superficial Islam. The Islam that brags about rituals without meaning. The Islam that does not anchor itself in striving in the way of God in jihad. In Surah al-Tawbah, God tells Muslims that faith will always involve trials and tribulations. God tells us that an Islam based on just performing services to pilgrims is not equal to the Islam of those who truly persevere in God’s path. The challenge that comes in Surah al-Tawbah is extremely powerful, for God tells us that this religion is a serious business. God tells us to check our subconscious and our internal emotions, for the challenge is that we must commit to God and His Prophet. The challenge is that we must have an actual love of suffering and persevering in God's path. If our inner selves, parents, children, partners, tribe, or businesses are dearer to us than God, the Prophet, or jihad, then God tells us quite clearly: “wait until you see the consequences of that state of affairs" (Q 9:24).
To recap, it is not surprising that trauma results in dissociative states. To anchor yourself, you need a support group—a group anchored in dhikr of God and in searching for God's face, not anchored to just life on earth. If there is nothing to fill the void, Satan will fill the vacuum. When this happens, there is an inevitable drift from the Lord, further and further into the embrace of Satan. In Surah al-Tawbah, God clarifies that our loyalties and commitment are to God, the Prophet, and to struggling and striving in God's case; if not, if we are like the Muslims who entered Islam after the defeat of Mecca, the light-hearted and superficial Muslims who love life on earth so much that they fled in the heat of battle, then God decrees that we are not a real Muslim. If our primary loyalties are to our family, children, partners, property, and business, then our loyalties are not with God, the Prophet, or the jihad. We are not real Muslims.
Remember that Surah al-Tawbah was revealed toward the end of the Medina period. God knew the Prophet would die in just a few years, so God is underscoring the things that must be at the heart of the Islamic reality. To make God your overwhelming reality—along with love for God, the Prophet, and the very struggle in God's path—is difficult. If, instead of being grounded in your Lord, you dissociate from the Lord, then it in fact becomes near impossible.
If you love your parents, spouse, or children, it is not just their presence that you love. You value their words and actions. Well, God's word is in our midst: the Qur'an. If the Qur'an is not beloved enough to be a part of your daily reality, if your heart and soul do not crave listening to God's words and taking them to heart, if you are not simply enduring, not loving, God's tests and tribulations, then you are only left with the reality of trauma. And if God is not part of that, Satan will be. And Satan is known by what Satan leaves in your heart, mind, and actions. Check yourself.
What, then, to do? First, no empire in history did not believe that its dominance and hegemony would last forever. You cannot bear the burden of history upon your shoulders. Al-Andalus was Muslim for 600 years. Had you come to Muslims during the first 300 years and told them of the Christian “reconquista” to come, they would have thought you insane. My point is that we have to learn to leave to God what is in God's hands. What you can change, you change. You can only obligate yourself to do what you have the power to do. As to things beyond your control, God can change things overnight. And when historical change does come, you would be shocked at how quickly it happens. At how the facts of yesterday can change overnight. But that does not mean you have a free pass vis-a-vis your inner self. At the same time that you leave to God what belongs with God, you have responsibility for your inner self. You must fill that inner self with what is clean, good, and Divine.
Imagine if Muslims in the modern age, as part of their decolonization, centered the Qur'an and dhikr in their lives. Imagine if these dhikr support groups were part and parcel of our lives. We would come together not to brag nor to give the same old lectures about the same old things. Instead, we come together to support each other in remembering God. It would be beautiful.
In lieu of that, there is an important dynamic. When you experience trauma and dissociate, you need to ground yourself, and grounding is an active and assertive dynamic in which you remind yourself of what is what. You balance your inner core. You do not create an unhealthy, make-belief reality that is, at heart, a form of avoidance. But we never talk about how to ground God within. If you are conscientious and realize that you have drifted, here is my advice. There are five steps.
First, be vigilant as to what is in your heart. Be demanding and vigilant with the self. God should be in your heart. Be mindful that the purpose of your vigilance is to remind yourself to center God in your heart. Actively tell yourself, "I feel God in this sun shining upon me. I feel God in this bird singing in the tree. I feel God in this flowing water." Find ways of feeling God's presence. If you need to write them down, write them down. But be specific. Do not be general—”I feel God in everything." No, that is a cop-out. It is dissociation. You do not feel God in everything. If you did, you would not have forgotten God in the first place. Be honest, and be specific.
Step two is to think of three things for which you are grateful to God. Again, be specific. "I am grateful to God for everything." No, you are not. You are dissociating and lying to yourself. Write them down if you have to.
Step three is to remember three things that you asked God for in the past and that God has given you. Remember when you were applying to law school. Remember when you were looking for a job. Remember when your child was sick. Think of three affirmative things that you asked God for and that were, indeed, granted. But be specific. Specificity is everything for being anchored in God.
Step four is to remember three things you still owe God. Think about it, and you will find them. Three things that you know, at some point, you promised God, even if internally. "God, if you help me get this job, I will donate to the poor.” “God, if you help me with this, I will pray with greater concentration and focus.” “God, if you help me…" Three things that your intuitive senses know you are worried about being asked in the Hereafter. "Where is it? Did you deliver?"
Finally, step five is to think of three ways you can recommit yourself to God. "God, I will read more Qur'an.” “God, I will pray extra prayers at night before I go to sleep.” “God, I will do more dhikr." Three ways that you can recommit yourself to God.
Let me be more specific. As we see in Surah al-Tawbah, there are “cruise control” Muslims who choose the path of least resistance, those inertia Muslims who, in their dissociative state, will try to ignore the genocide taking place in Palestine and the suffering of their fellow Muslims. They are the types who convince themselves and others: "Well, we organize Hajj, and that is good enough. It is okay to buy a soccer player for millions of dollars and then give our Palestinian brethren nothing." These are “cruise control” Muslims, and they are actively colonized by Satan. God is not grounded within.
No one can tell you whether God is grounded within you or whether Satan has colonized you. No one can tell you, but you. You are the first line of defense and the last line of defense. And if you are colonized by Satan, you will know it by your anxiety, your sense of misery, your sense of unsettlement, and your unhappiness. It is not sufficient to just say, "I will do dhikr" or "I will read a passage of the Qur'an." You need to work actively and assertively to ground God within. Take these five steps. Take them as many times in the day as you need. Repeat them as many times as you need. Then, as God says: "Worship your Lord until certainty is settled within" (Q 15:99). In my view, the moment you become most comfortable and assured of your piety is the most dangerous time. For you might enter a state in which you are comfortably in Satan's arms and do not realize it until, if you are lucky, you receive a rude awakening from God. Check yourself by this grounding exercise.
May God accept this from you and I, and may God help us keep our gazes firmly settled on God's remembrance. Let us not stray to the allures and the falsities of earthly life.