Lecture
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17
Social Justice
Islam, A Coherent Social Justice Tradition | Omar Suleiman | 16th MAS-ICNA Convention
22
Jurisprudence (fiqh)
Appreciating Scholarship: Intro to Islamic Law - Tesneem Alkiek | Yaqeen in NY
26
Islamophobia
How Yaqeen Heals Internalized Islamophobia - Dalia Mogahed | Making Principled Progress
29
Education
How Yaqeen is a Resource for Our Community - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Making Principled Progress
34
General Psychology
Spiritual Personality - Zohair Abdul-Rahman | 2018 Yaqeen/MAS Academic Conference
35
Social Justice
Conflict Resolution: The Line Between Justice and Peace - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Lecture
47
Identity
Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
The Duha Approach: A New Model to Treat Trauma - Najwa Awad | ISNACON 2019
Licensed therapist Najwa Awad discusses the research that went into the trauma series, focusing on The Duha Approach, a model aligned with Islamic Psychology based on Surat al-Duha.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. It's such an honor to be here and to present with Sheikh Hormuz Suleiman and my good friend Sara. And to be talking about a really important topic that we have that's not, it's very unaddressed and something that we're not talking about as much as we need to. Subhanallah, when we look at the field of Islamic psychology, we're still in the infancy stages. It's not to say the scholars have not addressed it in the past, but in terms of resources in English that are easy to understand for the average person and that are easily accessible, there is very limited information on the intersexuality between Islam and trauma. Most of the therapists who do give talks, it's usually about the stigma of mental health, which is important. Or it could be about anxiety in Islam or depression in Islam. All very useful things, but subhanallah, trauma is such a major thing that people don't know that they're experiencing and they don't know that it could be the underlying causes for their anxiety or their depression. And so, you know, people are walking around, they're walking around very vulnerable, they're walking around wounded, thinking there's something wrong with them, when there isn't. It's just because they're not looking at it from the lens of trauma. And so if we have people who are walking around traumatized, anxious or depressed, whether it's a big T trauma like Sara said, or a small T trauma, these individuals, they need to be helped because, I mean, it's so much suffering to be able to carry around that burden with you on a day-to-day basis. And then when we look at the context of the family, we know that if one person in the family is affected, the whole family is affected. So trauma can also not just impact the individual, but we're looking also at maybe a wife not being able to connect with her kids or a husband not being able to connect with his wife, all because of trauma. So it also is on the family level. And then you can take it a step further.
And as Sheikh Omar Suleiman said, you know, we are a really traumatized community. And subhanAllah, I can't even imagine if our mental health was better, I would imagine that we would be in a much better framework to be able to tackle on these really big issues that are at hand. But because we are so self-absorbed, not necessarily in a bad way, in a narcissistic way, but in that we are so pained that we cannot look to other people, that it inhibits our ability to go and connect on a bigger scale. So some of the goals that Sara and I had with this series was if we can get people to heal on a smaller scale, that it can have a profound effect across the entire ummah, inshaAllah. We also wanted to approach it from the perspective of yaqeen and conviction. A lot of times trauma will be the trigger for people leaving Islam. And it's when they are in the midst of the storm, it's really hard to see out of it. And if we can help some of these people who are experiencing this trauma, I'm optimistic inshaAllah that we can help them and be able to address some of the people leaving the religion as the Sheikh had mentioned. So the framework for our series was the Duha approach. And we wanted to find something that was Islamic but was also psychologically sound. And when we look at Surah Duha, subhanAllah, it's over 1400 years old, but each ayah has an evidence-based treatment that Allah, the creator of the universe, was comforting the Prophet, peace be upon him, the best of mankind.
And if we can take that model of Allah helping Muhammad, peace be upon him, with his distress, we felt, Sara and I felt, that we can also use this model for ourselves. And just to give a little context with the Surah, the Prophet, peace be upon him, was distressed for some time before the Surah was revealed to him. And that's because there wasn't revelation for some time. And when you look at it through the lens of attachment, which is a really big thing in psychology, the Prophet, peace be upon him, he had lost his parents, he lost his uncle, he lost his wife, he lost one of his sons. And so the idea of also losing that connection to Allah must have been very hard for him. So I will read the English. We know Surah Duha, وَالدُّحَىٰ وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا السَّجَىٰ مَا وَدَّعْكَ رَبُّكَ وَمَا قَلَىٰ And then Allah says, your Lord has not taken leave of you, nor has he detested you. And subhanAllah, it's really interesting, that's one of the first few ayahs of the Surah. Because attachment is so paramount to our healing. It's not just Allah showing his attachment or comforting the Prophet, peace be upon him, and saying, I have not abandoned you, I have not forsaken you. But we can also take the same, that when we are in the midst of trauma, it feels like we're in a big storm and that we cannot get out. So when we feel that connection to someone else, it can have a really profound effect on our healing. And so, if you are someone who has experienced trauma, know that you are not alone. You have people to help you, and more importantly, you have Allah to help you. He has not abandoned you during the hard time. And if you have a loved one who has experienced trauma, knowing the power of attachment and helping them can really help them significantly.
So knowing by being available to them and comforting them, sitting with them in their pain, can really make a huge difference. And then the next ayah, and the hereafter is better for you than the first life. And your Lord is going to give you, and you will be satisfied. Shifting perspectives is a really important tool in psychology. When we're in trauma, like I said, it feels very overwhelming, very daunting. And looking to the future or looking to the other side of the storm can really help lift us out of depression and trauma. And so here, Allah is telling the Prophet that it's going to get better. It's going to be better in the next life. We know, inna ma'a al-asr yusra, inna ma'a al-asr yusra. So it's going to get better here, and inshallah it'll get better in the hereafter. And then, and by the way, I know I'm going over this very superficially. Inshallah you can visit our article for more in-depth information. And then he says, did he not find you an orphan and give you refuge? And he found you lost and guided you. And he found you poor and made you self-sufficient. So one of the major things in our publication was that we wanted to integrate cognitive behavioral therapy into our series. And this is a very popular method in psychology, where you kind of look at the origin of your thoughts, because your thoughts have a profound effect on your feelings, which has a big effect on your behavior. So here's a panel, Allah is almost like rephrasing, cognitively restructuring some of the Prophet's salallahu alaihi wa sallam's thoughts. So he's saying, did he not find you an orphan and give you refuge? So the way cognitive behavioral therapy works is you look to your thoughts,
and you acknowledge them, but then when you are ready, you start to shift them with healthier cognitions. So if you're thinking, I'm never going to get through this, this is just the end of it, you're like, no, inshallah, things will get better. This is a really tough time in my life, but I'm looking forward to X, Y, and Z. And I do want to point out, just a disclaimer, this is not the first step in trauma treatment. You have to be able to attach, just the way Allah showed his connection to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, you have to be able to attach with your family or friend who is experiencing trauma first. Or if you are experiencing trauma yourself, you have to be able to attach and feel secure with someone and process your trauma first before you begin to do this. And I just want to point this out so people don't walk out of here thinking, okay, I'm going to go and cognitively restructure everybody's thoughts. People are going to get very mad at you. So this is a very important part of therapy and in healing, but it's definitely not the first step. And then Allah says, so as for the orphan, do not oppress him. And as for petitioner, do not repel him. And when we were working on the series, Sarah pointed out, this is really behavioral activation. It's one thing to work on your thoughts, but then it's something else to go and take action. So as Sarah mentioned, trauma stays on our body. So once you begin to process it, it's also important to go out and take action. And the research shows if you go out and help other people, it has incredible benefits for your own mental health. And then lastly, but as for the favor of your Lord reported, there's also research that shows people who use gratitude lists or gratitude letters, meaning that you might write a letter to someone and express how grateful you are to them.
Or maybe before you go to sleep, you think about three things that you're grateful for or just even make a list. This has really profound mental health benefits. And so it's upon a lot like you see all these evidence based treatments throughout these ayats. And this is just scratching the surface. There's so much more to it. So what are some of the just takeaways that we can have is that if you're an individual, you are not alone. Allah has not forsaken you. There is help available and Allah is available to help you, too. You just have to reach out to him. And if you have a loved one, again, that's that has experienced trauma. Think about the power of attachment. I'm imagining there's probably a lot of people here who do volunteer work, who maybe even our physicians. There's something called trauma informed care. And so if you're working with people who have a lot of trauma, it's important to be able to kind of read up on that and and know how you, as whether it's a physician or a volunteer, can be able to help people without accidentally re traumatizing them. And then lastly, on a community level, we just hope that we can find a way to incorporate these principles so we can all heal together. Inshallah. I do want to oh, actually, there is one important thing, especially if you are in the work of dawah. I think I had mentioned this before. So trauma can be something that comes before people leave Islam. But interestingly enough, it can also be something that leads people to Islam. So if you are in doubt work, knowing trauma informed care is very, very important to make sure that you are not accidentally saying things or doing things that might lead people away from from Islam.
But just to leave off on a positive note, there was a research review and they showed that 50 percent of people who experienced trauma actually ended up better than they were before. So it wasn't that they were back to the same amount, the functioning that they had before, but they were actually better than when they first had the trauma. So you can look at 50 percent and say, oh, that's not good. But you can also look at it, say 50 percent. That's not too bad. And so if we work together, I'm optimistic, inshallah. Maybe we can increase it to 75 percent. The more we have, you know, talks like this and can have publications where people can read up more about trauma and how it can impact the community. So how can people have post-traumatic growth? Through tribulations, people might find that they are stronger than before. They might find new relationships through their trauma. They might have a stronger relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala before. So trauma is not a death sentence. It could be the beginning of it can be the beginning of an amazing, amazing growth opportunity as well. So check out our series, inshallah, for much more in-depth information. I just kind of went over everything very quickly. And may Allah help us all heal individually and collectively, inshallah.
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