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S2E5 - How Do I Talk About Drugs and Alcohol | DoubleTake
The consumption of drugs and alcohol is a subject that is under-discussed and understudied in the Muslim community. The legalization of marijuana and easy access to vapes and electronic cigarettes should push parents and guardians to take the lead on these conversations in their homes.
What is driving people, young and old, to consume drugs and alcohol? How can parents cultivate relationships that open the door to healthy communication? What can we learn from the Qur’an and Sunnah about how to teach prevention?
In this episode, host Mohamad Zaoud talks to Dr. Jibran Khokhar, author of the Yaqeen Institute paper, “Talking to Teens about Drugs and Alcohol: A Qur’anic Approach.”
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As a community, we don't talk much about the consumption of drugs and alcohol. Maybe because we just don't see drugs and alcohol in our immediate circles. But if we scratch the surface, how serious is this issue in Muslim communities? The legalization of marijuana and easy access to vapes and electronic cigarettes should probably light a fire under us so that we do have these conversations in our homes. How serious is this situation? What drives certain people, young and old, to consume drugs and alcohol? How can parents cultivate relationships that open the door to healthy communication about this? What can we learn from the Qur'an and sunnah about how to teach prevention? Welcome to another episode of Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute about the questions and ideas around Islam and Muslims that give us pause. Remember to subscribe to the show on YouTube or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. My guest today, Dr. Jibran Korkar, was just such a pleasure to talk to. We explored how to talk about drugs and alcohol with young Muslims from a Qur'anic perspective. We also touched on the hadith of A'ishah, which basically summarizes today's episode. She said that if the first verse to be revealed was, do not drink wine, they would have said, we will never stop drinking wine. Dr. Jibran was born in Kuwait, where he memorized the Qur'an with an ijazah. He got a doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology and a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatry. He's currently an assistant professor of neuroscience, where he studies topics related to substance use and severe mental illness and how drugs of abuse affect the developing brain. He also serves as a khateeb for the Guelph community and is a senior fellow at Yaqeen Institute,
where he wrote the paper, Talking to Teens About Drugs and Alcohol, A Qur'anic Approach. I hope you enjoy today's episode as much as I did. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Dr. Jibran, thank you so much for joining us on Double Take. It's going to be a good one today, inshallah. Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Excited to be here and excited for the chat. We're going to get straight to it. Me personally, I'm, alhamdulillah, from a practicing family. So I haven't seen drugs, alcohol in my immediate circle, you know, ever, really. But based on your research and your experiences studying this topic, how serious is drugs and alcohol in the Muslim community? Yeah, so I'll start off with a caveat. Much like other things that are taboo in our community, we don't know the reality of the problem, especially for problems that we've traditionally stuck our heads in the sand about. We really don't know the problem and anything that we do know is probably an underestimation and scratching the surface. But the data that we do have would suggest that around 50% of Muslim youth have either used alcohol or drugs or taken part in any risk-taking behavior in the past year. These rates go higher depending on which specific demographic and which country you're talking about. Some populations have a higher use of cannabis, others have a higher use of alcohol, others have a higher use of opioids. And so depending on, you know, because Muslims are not a monolith, depending on where you are, what your socioeconomic status is, and where in the world you're located, all of that contributes to the differential rates.
But it looks like Muslim youth aren't all that different from non-Muslim youth in their use of drugs. And then, you know... And what does that look like, like if we were to say that Muslims reflect the wider mainstream society, what does that look like in real terms for young Muslims? So probably the best study that we have is a study that reviewed the Harvard medical databases and found that 47% of college-aged Muslim youth drank alcohol. So that's one number. Sorry, let me just take that, like 47% of Muslim youth in college drank alcohol? Yeah. Okay. And this is from 2001. So, you know, this is pre-911 data, you know, where Islamophobia had not come on the scene, which by itself has been related to at least in one study, an increase in use of alcohol in women, in Muslim women who have perceived Islamophobia. And so this is old, old data, but still it's showing that. Oh, wow. Okay. And in terms of you studying this topic, mashallah, like you've gone to the moon and back, man. You're a professor in neuroscience and you've studied incredible amounts of knowledge, bodies of knowledge. Why did you choose this topic to focus on? Like, what is it about drugs and alcohol that excites you in the study of it? You know, there's things that have happened throughout the years. I remember, and this is, you know, as a young child, after having immigrated to Canada, I went back to visit Kuwait, where I was born, and met with some of my school friends. And they sort of went through a list. They said, have you tried cigarettes? Have you tried alcohol? Have you tried marijuana? And I said, no, no, no.
And they were like, you live in Canada and you haven't tried those things and we've tried them all here? So that was, you know, this was still in high school. And then I went into university and I was in a lab where we were studying tobacco control and smoking. And I came across a paper, and this was a paper in the BMJ, which is the British Medical Journal. And so, you know, not a lightweight journal by any means. And it talked about Islam and smoking. And this is the only time where I've actually seen an academic medical journal mention words like halal, haram, makrooh, mubah, and talked about how the rates of smoking in the Muslim world, both are much higher than the rest of the world. And even in those that live in the Western contexts, that the rates of smoking in the Muslims in those contexts are much higher than the general public or the average that's seen in the general public, including specific campaigns, for example, in the UK that have targeted Muslims to, you know, butt out, to stop smoking. So that's because it was putting an undue pressure on the public health care system. So, you know, there are issues that we sort of shrug about, like smoking in our community, even though we see it happen every Ramadan. You can be at the masjid and you see the uncle with a date in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and you don't know which one he's going to break his fast with. And so these are there and we see all these vignettes, but we don't, do we write them off as individual points instead of looking at, you know, this is a problem that exists within the community that should be addressed. Yeah, you made me laugh when you mentioned makrooh. Like, as Muslims, we're not really that deep into the fiqh, just general Muslims, that is. And when it comes to like cigarettes, you know, we know the difference between mubah, makrooh, haram, it's amazing.
I once had, after a talk that I gave about cannabis, I had a sister follow me and my family out to the parking lot, arguing why coffee wasn't haram and cannabis was, and why I had the audacity to say that cannabis was haram. And so there is so much, you know, mental gymnastics that our community does when it comes to things like cannabis or things like cigarettes that it's, I don't know if that exists for any other fiqhi masalah for that matter. So, for the purpose of this particular episode, when we're talking about drugs, are we talking about like the serious drugs, or are we talking about cigarettes and vapes and things like that? I think we should talk about everything. You know, when I go to the conference, the college on problems of drug dependence, we talk about it all from cigarettes to vaping to cannabis to alcohol. And that's how, even in the neuroscience field, when we talk about addiction, we talk about addiction to substances, we don't qualify it as hard drug, soft drug. At the level of the brain, the systems are the same, the vulnerabilities are similar, the risk factors are similar. And in fact, the long-term effects of these drugs are similar as well. And so it's possible to group them together as drugs and alcohol instead of focusing on one or the other. As someone who studied neuroscience, I'm going to get to that point in a few moments. Like I want to hear more about what this thing does to the brain. But up until that point, what do you think drives young Muslims to consume drugs and alcohol? What is it that forces them down this rabbit hole? There are factors that are general,
and then there are factors that are specific to Muslims. The general factors, especially for youth, are things like adolescence being a period of increased impulsivity, increased risk-taking behavior, increased distancing from parental socialization towards peer socialization, peer pressure. All of those things are going to be just as applicable to the Muslim youth as they are to a non-Muslim. I don't think those factors differ at all. What is added as a potential layer on top of this may be discrimination, may be trauma. And past trauma is a risk factor for the development of a substance use disorder. Can you unpack that for me? Like the trauma and the... Yeah, so as I was mentioning earlier, a perceived Islamophobic incident increases the risk for alcohol drinking threefold in Muslim women, for example. Other factors like immigration status, like low socioeconomic status, all of those social determinants of health also play an important role in all of this. Then it's where you're located, right? For example, a lot of Muslims, for example, live in inner-city communities. And the context and the society that you're a part of plays an important role in both the initiation of drug use, but also the continuation of drug use. Then the next thing that oftentimes happens is that this is not a topic that parents are talking to their kids about. In fact, most Muslims, a lot of Muslims even end up taking their kids out of health class in school where they might talk about drug use. And so they don't learn about it at all.
And then because there's such a singular focus on alcohol being haram, you know, kids begin to develop their own like social lexicon and fiqh definitions of things where they'll... I've heard somebody refer to cannabis as, I thought that was the halal alcohol. Right? So there is... The lack of us talking about it then also contributes further to it. So in addition to the factors that apply to the general public, there's some Muslim-specific factors that may also become involved and play a role. But then as you were asking about trauma earlier, you know, Muslims are a traumatized community beyond just Islamophobia. A lot of us might be coming from war-torn lands, refugee status, immigration status. Immigrant status is a risk factor for both mental illnesses and substance use. And so there are all of those factors that also contribute to this risk that... Do you mind talking me through that journey? Like, okay, I've had a traumatic experience or, you know, I've gone through kind of an Islamophobic incident. Where's the connection between that and an increased propensity to drink alcohol or take drugs? So for the most part, these are associations, right? Like when a medical study is performed and they look at, you know, whether or whether or not you were exposed to a traumatic event, what your likelihood is of then going on to develop a substance use disorder or initiating substance use, for example. So we know that one is related to the other, but we don't know what the causal factor is. There may be a third factor that was contributing to both. Maybe one just came before the other. And this is often a discussion we have on my science side of things about the relationship between cannabis and schizophrenia. Oftentimes cannabis use comes before schizophrenia
because substance use usually happens earlier and schizophrenia happens later in life. But we can't say for sure that one leads to the other. And so that's where I can't say for sure that, you know, but early life stress, even in animal studies, for example, has been shown to increase the risk for subsequent substance use. And so there is a relationship there, but the specific contribution of each of these factors is difficult to say because substance use and addiction is such a complex disorder where multiple factors, everything from genetics, what your genetic background looks like combined with your environment, both contribute to what your risk profile for that substance use might look like. I'm going to paint a picture, Dr. Djibran, just before we get into kind of how to talk to kids about drugs and alcohol. Let's just say that, you know, I'm responsible for the Muslim community in Canada or Australia or parts of the US. And I'm trying to get my head around how serious this issue is. What signs am I looking for? Where am I looking? And where do I look to really understand the problem? So I think there's a few different levels. I think imams have a pretty good idea of what's happening. People often come to them for to talk. I mean, once again, that's the tip of the iceberg, but people often come to them and talk to them about these issues. But in addition to that, just talk to the youth. I remember I once gave a talk at a high school, an Islamic high school in Canada. And in the crowd, one of the young sisters debated me at length about the differences between cannabis sativa and indica. And scientifically, there's no difference between them.
But this person debated me at length. And then a little while later, I met one of those students and they said, I wish you had been more stern in your tone about cannabis and talking about it and really driving the class point home, because the entire graduating class of that Islamic school used to smoke cannabis. So there's a little bit of, you know, don't talk about it. Don't see, don't touch, don't hear. Sort of like we've covered our eyes, covered our ears and covered our mouth about these topics. And so because we don't ask the questions, don't ask, don't tell, is I think our policy about substance use, nobody responds with an answer either. And so I think, you know, either anonymously survey the youth in your community or speak to the imam, speak to youth leaders. They can be sort of your informants in that scenario where they have a slightly more, you know, we're the uncool uncles now, right? But there's still the bridge that might exist that may still have a little bit more information. The halakha leaders, the big brothers that still are connected with the youth who might be able to give us a more accurate picture of what's happening. So here's a scenario for you, Dr. Gibran. This is a real life scenario, okay? A few nights ago, we're in lockdown here in Sydney. And so one of the things we're allowed to do is play tennis because it's one-on-one and it's outdoor. So we went to tennis at a local tennis court and it was just a friend and I. And my friend and I started coughing, you know. It's unusual for us to cough on the... And so we realized that there's smoke coming from a certain part of the, just behind the tennis court.
We look back and it's a very, it's an area that has mainly a Muslim population. And they were clearly smoking cannabis. But for me, as someone who was raised as a practicing Muslim, I look at that and say, okay, that's someone else's kids. That's someone else. It's a different, completely different circle to the one that I was raised in and my kids are raised in. And I've made it like a very serious effort to contain my kids' environment. So I'm one of those parents that you mentioned before, you know, don't look, don't hear, don't see, don't, you know. What's, what am I supposed to do? Given that I've kind of controlled that environment for my kids and my nephews and nieces say, and they're not really that exposed in my mind to the circles that I saw at the tennis court, what am I supposed to do as they're growing up? So the first thing we have to realize as Muslims is that the degrees of separation between somebody who has kept their kids in a bubble and somebody who hasn't is one, right? Like, so you often hear of somebody, a friend of mine was one saying that, you know, my kid goes to an Islamic school. We don't watch movies. We don't. And then once we were in an elevator and somebody had a, was carrying a six pack of beer and they were, the kid knew, it was a six year old kid who knew that that was beer, right? And so these, like, as much as we think we might be able to keep our kids in a bubble, they are coming across these things from cousins, from friends, from media, from, you know, subhanAllah. These days you, I come from a Pakistani background and, you know, I have family members who watch, family members who watch Pakistani dramas and soap operas. You can't watch a Pakistani soap opera without seeing alcohol in it.
So they, you know, people are being exposed and people are being exposed sometimes where you don't recognize that they're being exposed. But because these kids have been sheltered or kept in a bubble, you know, our brain has a way of recognizing novelty. In any situation, our brain will scan the environment and look for what's different, what have I not seen before? And that actually gains more salience. Our brain recognizes. to prends our Those different things more than the familiar things anyways. And so that, you know, they might catch on to it. They might see a smell. They might, just like you smelled something, they might smell something and be like, what's that smell? I've never smelled that before. It might be cigarettes. It might be cannabis. They might see something on TV. And so they'll recognize it. So it's best to not, instead of, you know, just completely avoiding the topic to start to talk about that topic as it is developmentally appropriate. And so it can start early. I remember my son, he was maybe four years old at the time. And we went to Turkey, actually, and saw everybody smoking. Right? Like, you couldn't walk on the street without seeing, having smoke blown in your face. And, you know, this was a Muslim country. And so there's all sorts of explanation that needs to come with that. But I started to talk to him, I said, you know, cigarettes, this smoke is coming from a cigarette. And I know that was yucky. And the smell was yucky. And it didn't feel nice. And it probably made you cough. And, and not only does it do that, it can also cause things like cancer. And, you know, it makes people die, in fact, is the biggest preventable cause of death in the world. And I didn't use those words. But I talked about how a lot of people, millions of people die because of smoke.
And so I remember for a while after that, anytime he'd see smoke or somebody smoking, this is a four year old, he'd walk by and say something like, cigarette smoke will make you choke. And so that was his way of contextualizing it, but also making a song out of it. And so, so that's in so as it becomes appropriate for their development, you begin to introduce it in a safe context in a way that both makes sense to them, but also is appropriate in terms of when they might be exposed, you know, so how long we live in a world now where the average age of initiation for smoking or vaping is as low as eight. So, you know, we think we can put this off until they're going to college and not have that conversation until the drive to drop them off to a dorm. And then that's when we'll say don't do drugs and don't use, don't do alcohol or something like that. It's that's too late by then, in my honest opinion. So you talk about, you talk a lot about like prevention, you know, so getting ahead of the conversation, instead of, you know, tripping over the fact that your kids already smoking. Just to get ahead of it. What does that look like? You say, you know, talk about it in when it's age appropriate. But is there a kind of a systematic approach that you can kind of talk to us about? Like, especially your research on the Qur'anic approach. What does that look like? How do I as a Muslim talk to my kids proactively about the topic? Yeah, so in the article, we talk about the Qur'anic approach and the reason for, you know, possibly even noticing this came from years of being in the field and recognizing from the field that just say no does not work.
That was the famous phrase that Nancy Reagan popularized. And then, you know, there's DARE programs that were instituted in the US that were basically about zero tolerance. Just say no to drugs, no drugs, and a lot of messaging like that. And when you look at the data, in fact, there's no difference between students or people that were exposed to the just say no programs and no programming at all. In fact, it might even be higher in the group that has taken the just say no approach. And so had that context in mind. And then when we look at the Qur'an, we see that Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, even when it came to prohibition of alcohol, which, first of all, prohibition hasn't really been done successfully anywhere in the world, right? Like we all know about prohibition era in the US, Al Capone, moonshine, and the underground speakeasies and all of that that happened during prohibition. Where it was done successfully was at the time the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam was in. And so what was different about it? What was the approach that was taken? And so that, you know, this is, you know, putting my lens on the stepwise approach that the Qur'an takes towards prohibition of alcohol, but it can be helpful in us understanding and taking a similar approach where we're not just going zero to 100 the first time we bring up this conversation with our kids and instead helping to build a relationship with Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, with the religion before we bring up the things that Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, has set boundaries on that we should not transgress.
So Dr. Gibran, like when we talk about the Qur'anic approach, do you mind just spelling it out for me? Like I know it's not zero to 100, but what does it look like? Yeah, so the Qur'anic approach, I mean, I sort of looked at it in four steps in this article, talking to teens about drugs and alcohol, the Qur'anic approach. And first I started, we started off by talking about the benefits of prevention and how Islam as a goal sets harm reduction as its MO, right? We're trying to reduce harm. And so one of the steps towards it is prevention. And if you look at the medical literature as well, addiction and substance use and cigarette smoking is often referred to as a pediatric problem. In that, the earlier you start, if you start during adolescence, you are that much more likely to have a substance use disorder later on in life. And the earlier you start, the more that risk, the later you start, the lower the risk. And so the goal has been to, if nothing else, to delay the start of it so that the harm from it could be prevented. And so that's what we start off by talking about. But then we get into the sort of four step approach that the Qur'an took. The first thing, oftentimes when you ask our youth about their relationship with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, their relationship with the religion, they often will come back with, Oh my gosh, our religion is so restrictive. I can't do this. I can't do that. And I can't do what my friends can't. They can eat pepperoni pizza. They can go to pool parties. They can do this, that and the other. And you'll hear about all of the complaints they have about how restrictive their religion is. And that's because we've taken the wrong approach with them. Right.
We often will just be like, you can't do this and you can't do that. You can't do this and you can't do that. And that's our extent of teaching religion to our children. Instead, when you look to the Qur'an, the first step that was taken, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an that, And from the fruit of palm trees and grapevines, you derive intoxicants as well as wholesome provision. Surely, and this is a sign for those who understand. And so the first level of the Qur'an talking about intoxicants actually is permissibility. And then it started moving towards the next steps. But the importance there here, I'm not saying that, you know, we start with permissibility and then move towards impermissibility with our kids. But what we do start with is abundance. You know, the original ruling when it comes to things that are in this dunya that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala has created for us, is that they are permissible until proven otherwise. And so that's the mindset that we need to have is first, help develop that relationship with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala for the children. Help them realize the blessings of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala upon them. All of the things that have been made permissible before getting into the impermissible things, which are literally a handful if you first compare them to what has been made permissible. It's just that singular focus on the impermissible things that then makes them have this thought that everything is impermissible in our religion. And then the second step that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, you know, said, يَسَأْلُونَكَ عَنِ الْخَمْرِ وَالْمَيْسِرِ They ask you about alcohol and gambling. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, say to them that there is great evil in both as well as benefit for people, but the evil outweighs the benefit. And SubhanAllah, you know, if you think about it, whenever I see toolkits, drug talk toolkits about talking to your kids about drugs,
they often have a pro and con list listed on the first couple of pages right off the bat. It's like, okay, there are pros. You'll have greater social sociability. It's a social lubricant in the case of alcohol, for example. You might get along better with your friends. You might be succumbing to peer pressure, but you might now have more peer affiliation as a result. So those are the pros. And then there are the cons, you know, impaired driving, for example, risk taking behavior, risky sexual behaviors, but not just the immediate short term effects like we think about, like impaired driving or risky sexual behavior. There's long term effects as well, especially on the developing brain. So when in my lab, half of the lab is focused on the long term effects. So even if you used for a year or two, used cannabis, used alcohol and stopped using and never used again, what are those changes happening in your brain that stay with you for the rest of your life? And, you know, those science would suggest that they fall into three domains. The first one being an increased risk for psychopathology, everything from anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depending on what drug it was that was used during adolescence. The second thing is substance use disorder. So if you used a drug during adolescence, you are that much more likely to then have a substance use disorder of that drug or another drug later on in life. And then the last one is cognitive deficits. And, you know, across the different drug classes, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine, opioids, they all seem to have these cognitive effects as well that are long lasting. And so not only is it impacting you in the moment, it's also going to have long term effects on your health and especially your mental and brain health and well being. So just before we continue, just so I get my head around it.
So you're saying the Quranic approach to talking to kids about drugs and alcohol. The first one was about permissibility, that everything is generally halal until it's proven haram. And so we talk about that. And then we talk about the pros and cons of substance abuse and the consumption of alcohol and drugs and show that the actual harm outweighs the benefit. Okay, so I'm up to speed, I think. Okay, perfect. And so the next step is, you know, just like it was important right at the get go to form that relationship with Allah, right, like by telling them what Allah has made permissible. And even, you know, in the article, we talk about the importance of relationship building, the relationship that Luqman, for example, built with his son before giving him advice and then giving him advice. So and the importance of the important role of parents as both socializing factors, but also advice givers in our religion, and the responsibility on the parents as, you know, vice gerants, but also the shepherds that are responsible for their flock. Right, so there's all of that layered in that makes the parents the appropriate vehicle for transferring this message. As you're saying that I'm remembering another episode we did about will my kids be Muslim and, you know, at the crux of it, you can talk about halal and haram, but you can't get there until you've developed a serious relationship, a really warm, close, intimate relationship with your kids. And so for them to actually sit there and have the patience for you to talk about, you know, permissibility and pros and cons and whatnot, you really need to have that warm relationship with them. So even before all this, it's that first, I think.
Yeah, and in the article we talk about different parenting styles and how, you know, most parenting styles out of the four, and this is across the demandingness versus responsiveness spectrum, that the authoritative parenting style, where they respond to the needs of the children, while still expecting and being demanding of them, is actually the only style of parenting that's protective against substance use. All the others, you know, you could be highly responsive, but low demanding and be indulgent, for example, that would be a risk factor. You could be high, sorry, so you could be low responsiveness instead of, you know, instead of being responsive to their needs, you don't respond to their needs, but you're still highly demanding. So the authoritarian style, in that case, that's also a risk factor. And so you can, you know, no questions asked, you're just not using drugs, that actually ends up putting the kids at more risk. And so it's developing that responsive relationship, following through with it, having that therapeutic relationship of sorts way before this is even a topic that needs to be discussed. And they'll be that much more likely to come to you. Oh, this is what happened. I smelled something. The kids behind the masjid were doing this. What is this? And even when they don't understand, they might, they might still be willing to come and ask you about it. But if this is a topic that you're never going to discuss with them, then they'll never come back and talk to you about it. So that's why it's important about the parenting style. But once that relationship is developed, and then the importance of developing that relationship with Allah, the next step that the Quran took, and this is very interesting, right? Like it talked about the pros and cons, and it said that the evil is greater than the potential benefit from it.
The next step it took was, O you who believe, do not go close to prayer when you are intoxicated. Until what? Until you are, you know what you are saying. Right? And so, and that's where, SubhanAllah, if you think about it, right, like there is such a need for us to remember the importance of spirituality and religion in our lives, and that connecting with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know, reading this ayah and thinking about it always makes me sad because how many of us just pray without any connection. So we don't even need to be in a state of drunkenness, right? And it's just like two seconds in, out, we're done, and let's move on to the next thing in life, right? And so it's sad enough with that, but then making this a point of emphasis, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala makes this a point of emphasis. It's like, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where, you know, first you've met the basic things like about, oh, this house is going to affect your body and how this is going to impact your mind, then you're leveling up to spirituality. You're not going to be able to have that connection with your Lord. You're not going to be able to have that relationship with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And it's, SubhanAllah, it's, we're now living in a world where people have started using substances to try to find God, right? So psychedelics, or I've seen it in the local masjid here, somebody coming to dayam ul-layl, smelling like cannabis. No, seriously, you guys are ahead of us, man. So there is that shift happening as well. But what we need to realize is that the cognitive presence of mind needs to be there when we're worshipping Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And that's an important factor that we need to communicate to our children. When there's this khamr over our heads, when we are intoxicated, our ability to connect with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is diminished. But also, this is an important factor where we have to realize that spirituality has a relationship with substance use. And spirituality in some ways can in fact be a protective factor. It's bi-directional in terms of that impact, but there have been previous studies showing that there is an impact of spirituality on substance use and vice versa. And so that loss of spiritual reinforcement or fulfillment is potentially lost. And then an important thing here is that living in a Muslim, in a community with more Muslims and having fewer people drinking in your social network are actually considered protective factors. And students who, and this is not just Muslim students, but students who had higher perceived religiosity had actually lower past year alcohol use compared to those that didn't. So not only is it going to directly impact your spirituality, but we also need to remember that spirituality and religiosity can be an important protective factor against substance use. And so to inculcate that and to make that relationship when we're talking to the kids will in fact also be helpful. And then on the converse side, sorry to interrupt, but we know for example, Muslim immigrants in Germany who scored high for problem drinking were most likely to report not being religious.
And so there is, you know, we know some factors as we were talking about earlier, that there are factors that are specific to the Muslim community that may contribute to substance use and alcohol use, for example. So Dr. Gibran, if I'm right, you start off in that conversation with your kids about the permissibility that everything is halal until it's shown as haram. You talk about the pros and cons that the negatives of substance abuse and drugs and alcohol outweigh the positives or the potential positives anyway. You talk about the relationship between spirituality and drugs and alcohol and that actually your spirituality is at risk. You know, your connection with Allah starts to diminish the moment you start taking these things. And also that spirituality is a protection from it. But then when do you just tell them that it's outright haram? And so that's where the fourth stage comes in, right? So, Allah talks about, you know, those of you who believe that the intoxicants, gambling, and then goes into... idols and drawing lots for decisions. رِجْسُمْ مِنْ عَمَلِ شَيْطَانِ Right? That they are filth from Satan's handiwork, right? And so فَجْتَنِي بُوْحَ And stay away from it, leave it behind so that you may be... تُصْحِون So that you may be successful, right? Like so, and SubhanAllah, it's so important here that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is not just making it impermissible, but also putting it in the context of other things that are socially, were socially acceptable at that time, right? Gambling, idolatry, drawing lots, and all of that. And so this, you know, this is an important point when the legalization of cannabis was happening in Canada. All the masajids and schools started calling me to come to give talks.
And my biggest point to them was, just because something is legalized in your society does not make the Islamic perspective on it any different. We've had alcohol and nicotine or cigarettes legalized forever now. And so that's an important point to consider is that the legal status of it in our society does not impact the religious status or the shari' status of something. And so that's, it's an important factor to talk to our kids about when we're talking about that this is, yes, it might be legal outside and we obey the laws of the land that we live in. But when Allah has made something impermissible, that does not get overridden by the legal permissibility of something in the land that we're living in. So that's an important point when talking about this. But this is the sort of last step and everything builds up to this prohibition. And then you can, you have set the stage, you have made them understand what is at stake with this, both at their physical and mental health, but also at their spiritual health level. And you've told them about all of the things that are permissible and the other outlets that are available to them for socializing with their peers. And you've talked to them about the impact of the types of peers they have and all of that. And so now this comes as the sort of last step that this is a limit that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala has set that we are not to transgress, that we are not supposed to go beyond. And just like, and this is important, just like the ayah does, you realize the societal harms of these things. Intoxicants, alcohol remains one of the largest reasons for loss of life, for example, early years of potential life loss,
a productive time loss in the world. And in fact, studies have come out in the last couple of years showing that the safest amount of alcohol to consume is zero, because even small amounts of alcohol are associated with harm in the form of fetal alcohol syndrome and other things. And so there is data out there supporting it. But what this does is it puts it in the context of other things that are also harmful for society, things like gambling, for example. And you actually see a very high correlation between gambling disorders and alcohol and substance use disorder. And so it's the contextualization, both in the context of legalization versus not, but the contextualization of these things as far as their impact on society is concerned. And then an important part here, and this is where we often throw the baby out with the bathwater because of our narrow definition of hamr, because we think of it as colloquially as alcohol. We don't realize that the same ruling applies to other drugs that would be impacting your intoxicants. Yeah. Either be khamr or at least a muskir or at least something that in the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ is clear about that, that every intoxicant is a khamr. Kullu muskirin khamr, kullu khamrin haram, right? So every intoxicant is a khamr and every khamr is haram. And so that's an important thing for us to realize that this applies more generally and that while Muslims and Muslim immigrants might show lower prevalence of alcohol drinking, that's not the case for tobacco and illicit drug use. And further signifying that singling out alcohol in our talks with youth may be inadvertently contributing to the use of other substances.
And that's where it's really important, going back to that earlier point, right, about when do we talk to our kids? For most parents, the talk happens on the way to university where they're like, don't drink and don't have sex and that's it. And the kid goes out and that's it. And that was all the talk you had. SubhanAllah, you know, if you think back to the time of the Prophet ﷺ, there's a beautiful hadith that is actually talking about a variety of different topics. With Aisha radhiallahu anha was asked about the order of the Qur'an and what was revealed first versus later. And she gives the answer to this, but gives such a beautiful gem in there that's relevant today as it was then. She said that the first things that were revealed were the surahs that talked about hellfire and Jannah and talked about developing that relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then came the ruling about khamr, alcohol or intoxicants and zina, fornication. And she says if the first thing that was revealed was do not drink alcohol, the people would have said, no, we're not going to leave alcohol. Or if the first thing that was revealed was let us, you know, do not take part in fornication, people say we would have never left this. So if it didn't work 1400 plus years ago, how can we expect this abrupt message of don't do this and don't do that to work with our youth who are, you know, more woke and have an understanding of the world and have seen things as they would say, right? So we really need to meet them where they are, understand that they have pressures, understand that they have been exposed to this from a very young age,
understand that they have, you know, probably thought about it and considered it if they haven't already tried it, right? And so we need to talk to them and find a way of bridging that divide that exists between the parental generation and the filial generation and find a way to begin talking about this so that with the goal of reducing harm on our community that arises from substance use and alcoholism. Jazakallah khair. Dr. Gibran, assume I'm one of those parents, right, who is gearing up for that conversation on the way to college. Like that's where I'm going to give my big pitch, you know. But only to realize, you know, a few years earlier that my kid is actually already smoking or vaping to the extent that I know that it's going to lead to something else. What happens? Like how do I have that conversation? Like if I find out my kid is doing something where I feel like it's too late, you know, what do I do in that situation? And so that's where, you know, it's the approach that the Qur'an takes is one of population level prohibition, but individual level compassion. And that's, I guess, the message there is if that first instance where you find out there is, you know, a blow up and you're, you know, basically written out of the will and you're no longer welcome in this house and you're not my child. And what did I do to deserve this? And all of the tropes that you can think of, right, like the guilt tripping that would come. And you can imagine both moms and dads having all sorts of different reactions to this in our community, right?
You have just lost that connection for repair or for, you know, coming back from that. And that's all against, you know, the la taqmutum min rahmatillah, right? Like do not despair in the mercy of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is specifically for ibadihil latheena asrafu, like, you know, for the slaves that have transgressed against themselves. Right, like that's where the important message is, right? Like it's for those slaves that have transgressed and all of us transgress. All of us do that and it's about keeping that connection to be able to pull them back. And that's where the examples that we see, there's two hadiths that are so beautiful. And which, you know, one of them is about a man named Abdullah whose nickname was hamar, donkey. Not because of how we use it in our khatamah, but because he was a strong man. And this person used to make the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam laugh. He would, you know, somebody would have something in the market and he would take it and bring it as a gift to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the person would be following them and he would tell the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, please pay this man for the gift that I brought you. And so he did these things and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam laughed about it. But, you know, about him, we know that he was lashed because of drinking alcohol. And he was brought over and over again for the same charge and was lashed over and over again. Which actually fits very well with what we know about addiction. Addiction, the definition of it is it's a chronic relapsing disorder where you try to quit and you fall back in. You try to quit and you fall back in and you continue to relapse. That's what the technical definition of addiction is. And so somebody around the man said, oh Allah curse him. How frequently he's brought to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam for this charge.
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says, do not curse him for by Allah, I know he loves Allah and his messenger. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And in another hadith we see the same thing. Somebody curses somebody being lashed and the person says in the crowd, may Allah disgrace you. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said to the person, do not say so for you are helping shaitan and overpowering him. And so that message of compassion from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam comes up over and over again, especially in this context. And what we realize is that social isolation is actually a risk factor for continued substance use. Whereas increased socialization, bringing people into the community, connecting with them is a protective factor. And so, you know, there's been studies that look at suicidality and substance use during Ramadan as an example. And, you know, there's all the factors related to Ramadan itself and its place as a holy month. But in addition to that, some of the factors that they talk about is the increased socialization that happens during that month. And that might be another protective factor that contributes to protection against suicide, for example. And so there is, there are things that we can do at that point. And the first thing is to not lose that connection, is to show compassion as the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did, and try to continue to maintain that relationship so that you can pull them back, so that you can begin having that conversation again. Fair enough. Jazakallah khair. I guess it goes back to the default position that, so the default position on an individual level is compassion, you know. SubhanAllah. I want to wrap up this particular topic because I'm going to get into the rapid fire very soon.
And we're going to ask you some tough questions. But just to wrap up this particular topic, let's assume my nine-year-old niece comes up to you, and we're having dinner together. And you realize that I've done such a poor job in bringing up this topic of drugs and alcohol to my niece. And you're going to take kind of the front foot and ignite the conversation. And so you decide over dinner, you're going to give her the pitch on the Quranic stance of drugs and alcohol. And this is kind of her toolkit for the remainder of her life. What's your pitch? So in that case, I'm going to ask you to invite me to dinner again, sort of on a yearly basis, because I don't think I'll be able to do it on that day. And in fact, I would even say that dinner is probably not the best time to do this either. Right. Like, you know, if you start saying, oh, have you used drugs over dinner? The person is obviously going to take a back foot, get in a defensive stance, and there goes any ability to talk about the situation. Instead, I would say, you know, the next time with your niece, you're taking a road trip and you're going somewhere. And, you know, in the car while driving, you're looking away at the road and they're busy on their whatever, you know, reading their book. You can say, a thought just came to my mind. Have you ever been in a car where somebody has used cannabis or had drank alcohol? And there you're coming from, you know, oh, SubhanAllah, you know, I'm so concerned about your safety on the road and impaired driving is dangerous. And so there they might be like, oh, you know what? It happened. Somebody had smoked cannabis and they were driving and I wasn't sure what to do and I was scared. But then they might start that conversation. You can be like, you know what? When you get your license and you're with your friends, you know what you can do?
You can offer to be the designated driver. That way everybody can get home safely. And then you're showing consent for their safety and the safety of their friends and all of that. And you're finding out at the same time what their friends are like. And, you know, just like we talk about, المرء على دين خليلي و دين أخيه فلينظر أحدكم يخالل That's one of the biggest risk factors, or not risk factor, but an indicator if somebody is going to use a substance, is if somebody in their peer group uses a substance. So that's going to be a very, just like you were asking earlier about how do we find out what the problem is. If they tell you that somebody, one of their friends has been driving while being intoxicated, that's a pretty sure telltale sign that this is happening around them. And so find situations like that, which are safer, you know, less judgmental, right off the bat. You're not asking questions instead. You're coming up with scenarios that they might have found themselves in. Oh, did you, did anybody ever invite you to a party where there might have been alcohol? Did you know? And so things like that. Does anybody post about it on their Instagram? I saw this post yesterday that was talking about how, you know, 20% of kids are vaping these days and how they're marketing this through Instagram to kids. Have you come across ads about Jules or vapes? And so those are, you know, sort of tertiary conversations that can open a door into that bigger conversation that we're trying to have. Jazakallah khair. Dr. Jibran, we're going to ask you a bunch of rapid fire questions. You've got 10 seconds to answer each one. As someone who studied neuroscience, you shouldn't have a problem in just making your brain work over time. So we're going to start with a few easy ones. Dr. Jibran is someone, mashallah, who's memorized the Quran. You've clearly listened to a lot of Quran as well. Who would you say your favorite reciter, qarah of the Quran is?
As I was memorizing, I was listening to the Hadithi tapes. So, you know, that's my OG. But right now, Sheikh Mahir al-Mu'ayqili would be one that I enjoy listening to. But I think in truth, what we end up listening most to right now is Sheikh Khalifat al-Tunayji. He has these audio for the kids where he recites once and a kid recites once. And so that's what we end up listening to most because that helps kids with the memorization. And so that that's probably our go to right now. Fair enough. Jazakallah khair. And what's the last book that you were reading? To be honest, I have probably not read a book in the last three and a half years. Between reading for work and being a tenure track faculty member, I don't really get a chance to read much. So that's something that I'm missing in my life. You know, you're the first guest on this show who's answered that in that fashion. And I'm so happy. I'm so proud, man, because it makes me feel better. Jazakallah khair. So someone comes up to you and says, or one of your kids and says, Dad. Which do you prefer I take, vape or weed? What's your response to him? And that's where I have to do as I said and not. And so I don't blow up at him, first of all. And then I would say that, you know, SubhanAllah, vaping, I'd ask him, what do you want to vape? Because if, for example, the vape has nothing but flavor in it, that would definitely be the lesser of the two evils between that and weed.
But, you know, but if it was something more harmful, and these days you can vape anything, then maybe the weed would be the answer. But what I would tell them is, you know, both have their harms, and I would try to talk them through the harms associated with both of them. And they've done their research, you know, and they come to you and say, look, this, there's no nicotine in this vape. It's pretty much just a more mature lollipop. You used to give us lollipops when we were younger. So what's the problem with vaping? And vaping is an interesting thing right now, right? Like initially it was marketed as this harm reduction tool, and that's, it remains that. For somebody who smokes, for them to now switch to vaping, vaping is much safer, right? Like it'll prevent cancer, it'll reduce harm. But what we need to realize is that that's not entirely a high bar, right? Like the exhaust fumes from your car are probably safer than cigarettes too, right? So that's what we need to first tell them is that, you know, yes, everybody talks about the harm reduction and how vaping is safer than cigarettes. But vaping in itself, we don't actually know what the effects of it are. All of those chemicals, the hundreds of chemicals that are found in it, the propylene glycol, the vegetable glycerin, that's now being aerosolized and being deposited into your lungs. All of those will have effects. And in fact, just the vehicle itself, the propylene glycol and the vegetable glycerin, has been shown to be, have abuse liability and addictive potential in animal studies. And so just that might make you addicted, even though if it's just flavor and has no nicotine in it. So there's all of those factors that would need to be considered. And I know I'm going longer than the rapid fire answers. No, no, that's fine. That's fine. A couple more related questions. I'm going to go to the topic.
If I was to ask what's the worst thing that substance abuse does to the brain? And as someone who studied neuroscience, you could list several. What would be one thing that would give shock to me? I would go more general and say that it changes your brain irreversibly. And your adolescence is a period of time where your brain is already going through many changes. And it's this period of brain maturation and your synapses are changing and your brain is now getting to its full adult stage. If used during this time, your brain will not be in the same shape it would have been if you hadn't used drugs. And so things are going to be changed and things are going to be different and those are going to be irreversible changes for the most part. You know, the amazing thing is if I can get somebody, if we can get somebody to quit smoking cigarettes within six months, within a year, within five, 10 years, the different risks for cardiovascular disease, cancer, begin to come back down and start to look not too different from the general public. And that's why quitting is so awesome. But at the level of the brain, some of these changes are long lasting. And so your brain is going to be changed and that's what we're trying to avoid. Okay, Jazakallah Khair. Next one is, if I were to say what's your dream breakfast and as someone who's lived in Kuwait, I have to say the food in Kuwait is second to none in the Middle East. What would your dream breakfast be? I don't know. That's a tough question. Tough question. I think I'm one of those people that prefers lunch for breakfast.
So I often find myself taking the leftovers from the day before and having those for breakfast and then later breakfast. So that's usually what I end up doing. So it would be whatever the yummy dinner I had last night. I think that, cause like, why have something else when you could have the same yummy thing you had last night? If you were to have that yummy thing at night with someone who is alive and you could choose anyone, anyone to be with you at that dinner table, who is alive, who would it be? The honest response to that, as a parent of two, eight and five year old, I'd love to go for a dinner with my wife without worrying about where the kids are or feeling guilty for leaving them at home or with their grandparents. I think that would be a good person. But if I'm thinking bigger than that, I don't know. It's a good answer, man. It's a good answer. You don't need to change it. It's good. I'll stick with that one. It's been eight years since I've had dinner in peace with my wife, let's just put it that way. Fair enough, fair enough. And then, you know, I was listening to your TED talk and you were saying, you know, you were asking your question to your wife, it's like, why did we do this to ourselves? You know? Yeah, so the theme is consistent. And then finally, there's so many I can go through here, but we'll end with this one. When I say embarrassing, Masjid story, what comes to mind in the life of Dr. Gibran? Yeah, so that same brother that came into the Masjid, 40 am, smelling like cannabis,
after the prayer, came and hugged me. And, you know, I got a really strong feeling like I got a really strong whiff. And I don't know if I, I thought a lot about how should I bring this up, but I wasn't able to bring that conversation up at all. But that would be one story that's relevant to today. But aside from that, you know, as somebody who's had, you know, sleep apnea points in my life, I think every time I do, I'm in the Masjid for a sleepover or during Ramadan for Itikaf, people recording my snoring is another embarrassing thing that is, that's something I've known about. And it usually gets passed around in WhatsApp groups, et cetera. So that would be an embarrassing thing that happened to me, I guess. All right, we'll leave it there, Dr. Gibran. Jazakallah khair. And those of us who haven't read the paper, you can find it on yaqininstitute.org. It's called Talking to Teens About Drugs and Alcohol, a Quranic Approach. Dr. Gibran, jazakallah khair and barakallah fik. Thank you very much. Jazakallah khair for having me.
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