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Presentation
at the Religious Spiritual Support Conference held at the King Fahad Medical
City Riyadh 1-3 January 2013
by Prof Omar
Hasan Kasule Sr MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard) Department of
bioethics Faculty of Medicine King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh Saudi Arabia.
LIFE, hayaat
·
Life, from the tauhidi-based holistic
integrative Islamic paradigm, shumuliyat al Islam, is a complex
phenomenon with biological, chemical, social, psychological, and spiritual
components.
·
The relations among the components of life are governed
by the physical laws, sunan al kawn, of balance, mizan,
equilibrium, i’itidaal, and reciprocal action-reaction, tadafu’u.
·
Humans share biological life with plants and
animals and share spiritual life with angels.
·
Humans are the only creation to have both
biological and spiritual life at the same time.
·
Human life devoid of spirituality is like animal
or plant life.
HEALTH, sihhat, raahat, ‘aafihat
·
Health is a positive and holistic state of
well-being and not mere absence of disease or illness.
·
Health includes spiritual, physical,
psychological, emotional, and psychological dimensions in holistic balance and
equilibrium.
·
The spiritual component is the most important
and its impairment adversely affects all the other components.
·
Holistic measures of quality of life and health
must incorporate all the dimensions above.
SOUL, ruh
·
The ruh, the permanent and eternal
essence of each human life, was created before Adam.
·
Ensoulment, nafakh al ruh, occurs in
intra-uterine life. It is a spiritual event that also sustains biological life;
Desoulment, naza’u al ruh, is followed rapidly by biological death.
·
The limited knowledge of humans about the ruh
is only from revelation, wahy.
·
The Qur’an used several terms that seem to be
referring to various manifestations of the same essence of human life: ruh,
nafs, aql, naasiyat, lubb, dhihn, fuad etc,
·
These terms can be mapped by experts in tafsir
al Qur’an to spiritual, psychological, cognitive, emotional, and social
modalities that professionals use in providing holistic spiritual support to
patients.
SPIRITUAL SUPPORT, al da’am
al ruhi
·
Patients should be supported to reach calmness devoid
of fear or anxiety by accepting death as a transitional event
·
The transition is from inferior and temporary life
on earth, hayat al duniyat, through the interregnum, hayat al barzakh,
to the superior and eternal life in the hereafter, hayat al akhirat.
·
Death is not a terminal event and neither does
it break the reassuring direct communication between the human and the Creator.
·
Of all links and relations that a human can
have, it is only the link with Allah that persists after the disappearance of
parents, siblings, children, spouses, friends, and enemies
PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT, al
da’am al nafsaani
·
The patient should be supported to ascend
from the lowest to the highest levels of the nafs
·
From the evil-inclined soul, nafs al ammarat to
the self-conscious soul, nafs lawaamat
·
From the self-conscious soul, nafs lawaamat to
the high levels of the calm soul, nafs mutmainnat.
·
Nafs mutmainnat is described as raadhiyat,
mardhiyat, qanuu’at
·
At this level the patient bravely faces the
suffering and pain of illness.
COGNITIVE SUPPORT FOR THE
PATIENT, al da’am al ma’arifi/al fikri
·
The patient should be supported to
appreciate illness as just one minor phenomenon in the wide and expanding spatio-temporal
dimension of the universe ‘aalamiin
·
The patient should be guided to appreciate that
illness can have beneficial aspects such as forgiveness of sins and bringing
out the best in the human who can overcome pain and suffering and stay calm and
composed.
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT, al da’am
al ‘aatifi
·
The patient’s self-worth, self-esteem, and
self-confidence to face the challenges of illness should be enhanced
·
The patient should be aware of the superiority
of human creation that overcomes innate weakness such as evil-doing fisk,
and spilling blood, safk al dima, to become a vicegerent, khalifat,
who with limited control of the universe, taskhiir, is able to build a
material civilization, imarat al ardh.
SOCIAL SUPPORT, al da’am al
ijtima’e
·
The patient should be given support to live the
remaining life with the highest quality of social relations with the family and
the wider community.
·
Members of the family should be welcome as
partners in patient care and should be treated as honored guests of the
hospital with all the rights of the visitor, huquuq al dhaif.
·
The patient should be enabled to stay in contact
with the outside community and not be confined to the 4 walls of the hospital
room: news, visits, participation in radio talks etc
PHYSICAL SUPPORT, al da’am
al maadi
·
The spiritual support professional cannot ignore
the physical needs of the patient
·
The primary necessities, dharuraat, are
those needed to preserve life like basic staple food and water
·
The needs, haajiyaat, bring emotional satisfaction
like favorite dishes served in an attractive way
·
Embellishments, tahsiinaat, and
complementaries, mukamillaat, are what are beyond the necessities and
needs
CONCLUSION
·
Islam has concepts of life and health than can
guide spiritual support for the patient
·
The multi-dimensional manifestations of the ruh
require that spiritual support consider spiritual, psychological, emotional,
social, and physical modalities of patient welfare
·
Little research has been carried out on
spiritual support from the Islamic perspective
·
Because of its multi-dimensional aspects,
spiritual support should be recognized as a separate profession that goes
beyond religious guidance, irshaad diini.