My Weekend

I've been politely requested to ensure the blog is updated on a more regular basis. The lack of an online presence has not been a convoluted ploy to create the facade of being busy but the direct result of actually being busy. Now that things have settled down, mehrali.com can breathe again.

I spent last weekend on-call at night on the neonatal unit. This involves keeping an eye on the tiny pocket-sized babies on the intensive care unit ensuring they're not misbehaving and the unpredictable element of attending deliveries on the labour ward. Being part of such a personal moment of peoples' lives still strikes me as somewhat surreal and as with most tasks it doesn't take long to find the harmonic frequency that you resonate along and go through the motions.

I was jilted from this steady state over the weekend though when requested to carry out a task not usually part of the paediatrician's armoury: a mother asked me to recite the adhan for her baby boy. This entails reciting the Muslim call to prayer near the infant's ear with a view to introducing it to the core tenets of the faith. The recitation, at risk of sounding morbid, takes on a more symbolic role though and can leave you feeling quite humbled - Muslim tradition dictates that a newborn child has the adhan recited to it whereas the prayer for the deceased is not accompanied by a call; philosophers have surmised that the adhan recited to the baby is in fact the call to its funeral prayer, alluding to the brevity of life.

All this heavy stuff got me thinking about a book I reviewed a while ago and haven't returned to since - When You Hear Hoofbeats, Think of a Zebra by Shems Friedlander.

His extensive travels combined with a profound understanding of the spiritual dimension of Islam render him a most able guide towards the elusive domain of self-knowledge. A noble and essential goal, for Imam Ali has said “Whosoever knows himself knows his Lord.”

The title of the book neatly encapsulates its aims; our total immersion in the dunya has conditioned us to imagine horses when thinking of hoofbeats. Friedlander’s objective is to encourage the reader to see things in a different manner – akin to lateral thinking, but exercising the heart and not the mind. To achieve this, Friedlander punctuates his readable text with stories. Daniel Goleman, one of the key proponents of EQ (emotional quotient), says of stories, they ‘have a unique power, an ability to make their points without marshalling the mental resistance that more sharply reasoned rational appeals often raise. Knowledge is best transmitted through rational means, speaking directly to the mind. But wisdom strikes to the heart when it is carried in a tale.’ The late Idries Shah was instrumental in introducing this predominantly Eastern art form to the Western audience via the ‘exploits of the incomparable Mulla Nasruddin’.

The realisation that ancient methods of instruction have something concrete to offer the modern world of fuzzy logic is illustrated by a recent paper published in the British Medical Journal, ‘The power of stories over statistics’. The author ponders why stories are so powerful and suggests two reasons: a biologically hardwired predilection of the brain for stories (compared to other forms of input) and the role of the storyteller. How many times have you sat through a lesson or a lecture and emerged with little to show for it? Yet on other occasions either because of a particularly quirky or gifted narrator, or due to the resonance of a particular analogy, the relevant point can be recalled vividly. Goleman sees the methodology as ‘the antidote to what has been called “psychosclerosis”, hardening of the attitudes.’

The book is divided into twelve sections: eleven brief expositions and a ‘gift’ from the author in the form of a letter from Imam Ali to his son extracted from Nahj al-Balagha. Each section presents new concepts but maintains a degree of repetition enabling the reader to constantly revisit the author’s core themes: Allah (swt) and death.

The author urges us to be mindful of Allah (swt) and proposes that the only means to do so is to interrupt the monotony of our lives by introducing adventure. This is not necessarily in the form of jungle-trekking and white-water rafting, but to a much milder degree. Our days can tend towards a repetitiveness which desensitises us to creation. These Groundhog days ensure we lose our connection with our Creator, who manifests Himself through creation. By stepping back and doing things even slightly differently, we can re-establish the ontological chain that connects everything with God, and reawaken ourselves to His presence.

The author tells us of an old dervish he once met in Madinah who told him that ‘life is a gift that consists of three days and two are gone’. It is with such simple yet multivalent anecdotes that Friedlander gives impetus to the text and immediately follows this jolting of the heart with practical measures that can be readily implemented. Thus he moves spirituality from the world of intellectualisation – chin-rubbing and beard-stroking – to the world of pragmatism and action. The work is impregnated with hadith and axioms of scholars, giving the charm a seal of authenticity.

A descendant of the Prophet (saw) is reported to have said ‘Worship is not merely frequent prayers and fasting. True worship is contemplation on Divine matters’. Friedlander appreciates the value of such wisdom and emphasises that ‘action is not just five prayers a day’. However, the author also appreciates that this is easier said than done, especially with the dunya forever presenting new charms to lure people back to their old ways. ‘If we can just say, “I’m turning on the television, and the television is turning me off”, how long will we watch?’ He does not advocate a monastic lifestyle of seclusion, but urges restraint from total detachment from reality. It may surprise you to note that the psychophysiologist Thomas Mulholland has found ‘that after just 30 seconds of watching television the brain begins to produce alpha waves [that] are associated with unfocused, overly receptive states of consciousness… In fact, Mulholland's research implies that watching television is neurologically analogous to staring at a blank wall.’

Perhaps the most engaging aspect of the book is its advice regarding relationships with others, which are classified as private, personal or professional. We all realise that the most important sphere is the private – reserved for those dearest to us, foremost of which is Allah (swt) – yet we spend the most time in the other spheres. Friedlander suggests means of redistributing this subconscious misallocation. Central to the thesis is the need to appreciate creation – including fellow humans – in order to truly love the Creator. Others act as vital mirrors of our own qualities. A notion that culminates in our own souls reflecting the Divine attributes. Key to this is abolition of the ego via the correct use of words. There is a reason ‘why Allah has placed our words in a mouth that imprisons them by rows of teeth, hard teeth that clamp shut. And lips that seal the mouth.’

I found the book enlightening and have since re-read it, a gesture previously reserved for William Dalrymple. Inevitably, a review can serve only to whet the appetite or sour the palate, but as a final note, any book that draws to your attention the fact that the palmar creases on your hands spell 81 and 18 in Arabic numerals, which amount to 99, and yet we continue to perform misdeeds with these same hands is surely worthy of at least a cursory perusal and maybe even of becoming a companion for life.

Night shifts as a tool for introspection - who'd have thought!