"So do not claim yourselves to be pure; He knows best who it is that guards against evil." Qur'an 53:32
This blog is part of conversation with Shaykh Qays from Qibla Online Academy for the Islamic Sciences. The conversation will unfold in a series of blogs aiming toward a better understanding of Islam and Muslims. In the last blog, the conversation explored the meaning of faith. I want to continue the conversation and this time focus on the importance of the meditative activity of zikr (remembrance of God) and the purification of the heart in perceiving and receiving faith.
Wazwaz: Shaykh Qays, it is my understanding that the mind on its own based on studies like here and here performs all sorts of rationalizations all the time, without our conscious knowledge. As the second link concludes at the end, "it is sometimes easy to form the impression that we know the reasons for the things we do and think. Continually feeding this misapprehension is our need to feel in control of ourselves." The reality is - the mind is a tool, and not a source of knowledge. Studies like those the links mention confirm that our mind is more likely to conjecture and rationalize than to reason. We may think that we are making choices, when in reality we are being manipulated or letting our mind feed false understandings of our self. For this reason, Islam encourages self-knowledge. As some Muslim scholars mention - the one who knows himself, knows God.
I heard a lecture by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf on the purification of the heart and in it he mentions that the seat of cognition is the heart and not the mind. I want to start this conversation by focusing on the heart as the seat of cognition, and how important is the meditative activity of zikr (remembrance of God) to faith?
Shaykh Qays: To begin it should be noted that revelation in general addresses the human condition at a level that is far beyond the scope of observational sciences. That point is important to our discussion because the reality that is referred to in the Quran is different from the reality that is sought by the empirical sciences which consider the human being's seat of cognition to be brain tissue. The studies you have referred to look at how the mind draws conclusions about physical or at least measurable "realities" and conclude that there are many internal factors that affect our conclusions.
Yet one could point out that despite those internal factors and the complex nature of the process of rationalization we still learn and are able to conduct studies like the ones referred to, and build complex and useful machines that work, making use of physical laws, to our advantage. Subconscious rationalizations are part of how and what we think so there is no need to assume that what we "really think" is an objective reality outside of or apart from them. To me the articles you have mentioned do not demonstrate a state of manipulation, but they show the ephemeral nature of physical reality and the wondrous way the human mind deals with it.
On the other hand revelation is not concerned with the physical, mental, or emotional factors that inform our subconscious thoughts as processes. It is not even primarily concerned with the meditative activity of zikr (remembrance of God) in itself, but it is concerned with the final result- whether we can appreciate the meaning of things and live according to that meaning. So we find passages such as:
Generally in the language of revelation, as you have rightly conveyed from the venerable Shaykh Hamza Yusuf (Allah protect him), the seat of cognition is called the heart. In the verse I mentioned it is with that heart that we understand and hearts can also be blind. Some classical scholars have noted that the head has two eyes and the heart also has two eyes and that if the former two are blind but the latter two see the individual isn't harmed while if the opposite obtains he is harmed. What is also of note in that verse is the encouragement to journey in the land in order to draw inferences and see the meanings and truths concerning the oneness of God and the light of revelation indicated in the ruins of those who rejected the truth and perished. That is a very powerful form of remembrance and reflection connected to the lives of past people.