The Wisdom of Optimism

We are living in a time where fear is the predominant animus driving our culture and even the most prudent of people are finding it difficult to holdfast to hope. There is no doubt that much of the hysteria we are seeing today is due to the unfettered fear campaign promoted by the corporate mass media and its corollaries, but unfortunately not many people understand the connection of this type of large-scale negative messaging and its effect on the human soul.

Fear is one of the most powerful emotions that we have as human beings, and its effect on our hearts as well as on our physiology is profound. States of optimism and hope, where one is realistic and yet expectant of the good, are sought after in Din al-Fitra (The Way of Wholeness) and embodied to perfection in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

كان ﷺ يحب الفأل الحسن
[كما جاء في حديث أبي هريرة <<قال: كان النبي ﷺ: يعجبه الفأل الحسن، ويكره الطيرة>> [رواه ابن ماجه

“He [The Prophet] ﷺ used to love optimism. As it has been reported in the hadith of Abu Huraira: “The Prophet ﷺ loved goodly optimism and he would reject evil omens.”

The Prophet ﷺ intentionally framed things his way. He did not accept the cognitive frames of his enemies or those animated by fear, angst, or malice. No he ﷺ chose to frame matters on his own terms through the beauty and faithfulness of his ﷺ beautiful serene heart, which was filled with nothing but the remembrance, reliance, and certainty in God.

What would the Prophet ﷺ respond to the fear campaign around COVID with? I believe he would respond with iman [faith]. He would understand the matter before him in its entirety, capturing its fullest tasawwur [تصور; conceptualization], and orient towards it through an insistence on a goodly, positive disposition that revolved around faith in the Decree of Allah along with the taking of means through the improvement of one’s self, the latter of which I believe would be regarding one’s constitutional strength, immunity, and vitality in conjunction with one’s iman, one’s spiritual strength/certainty.

He was not taken by fear and his optimistic and hopeful nature, even in the most direst of circumstances was a healing beyond any medicine we have today. He sought to “strengthen the constitution” (see below) by mobilizing the self-healing powers of the patient through this optimism and hopefulness… and this is the reality I am highlighting here.

I’d like to share a section from Ibn Qayyim’s Tibb al-Nabawi, which highlights this beautiful quality of the Beloved ﷺ and the noble precedent it sets for us:

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri narrated that the Messenger of God ﷺ said: 'When you go in to a sick person reassure him concerning his appointed life-span; for that does not contradict the Decree, and it sets the patients mind at ease.'

The hadith contains one of the most noble kinds of treatment. This is guidance to whatever will invigorate the soul of the patient, through words which will strengthen his constitution, revive his strength, and increase his innate heat. The soul and innate heat will assist each other to repel or alleviate the illness, which is the aim of the physician.

Giving joy to the patient's soul, and bringing pleasure to his heart and whatever will make him happy will have a wonderful effect in curing and alleviating his illness. For the vital spirits and the faculties grow strong thereby and they assist the constitution in repelling the harmful agent.

People have seen the faculties of many of the sick revived at the visit of one whom they love and hold in respect, by seeing such people, by the gracious treatment they are given and their talking with them. That is one of the advantages of visiting the sick...

...sometimes he ﷺ would say to the patient: 'No harm shall come to you, only purification, by the Will of God.' That is the most perfect of treatment, courtesy, and consolation.

~Medicine of the Prophet ﷺ, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 1350 AD)

Take-aways:

○ Believers are vitalists; meaning we believe in the subtle immaterial nature of human existence and we operationalize that knowledge in our clinical approaches

○ Healing is accomplished by primarily tonifying and harmonizing the spirit of the patient, with good medicine and optimism

○ Good medicine should support the human being's innate capacity for purification and restoration

○ Optimism is a medicine that both doctors and family/friends need to remember when visiting the ailing

○ Visiting the sick is a beautiful deed, and therapeutic in nature for both the visitor and the visited

○ By the Will of God, there is goodness in everything: including disease. Believers are hopeful in the Mercy of God and remain patiently content (indeed, even grateful) with the Decree of their Lord

———

Mazen Atassi, ND

Dr. Mazen is a naturopathic doctor, classic homeopath, and Hikma therapist. To learn more about him and his services visit: www.forwardtohealth.com/dr-mazen