Abstract:
This essay explores the existential tension between fear cowardice and courage as defining elements of the human experience. I examine the role of faith in providing a containing and challenging environment in order not to give into one’s paralysing defences.
(This project started 3 years ago. As a special interest reading group, we meet once a month, read a section of the Qur’an and a psychoanalytic paper, and discuss ideas that emerge from the readings)
January reading:
Surat Al-Ma’idah verses 12 to 26
Paper: The psychology of Cowardice, Manfred Kets de Vries
Verses 12 to 26
5:12 And Allāh had already taken a covenant from the Children of Israel, and We delegated from among them twelve leaders. And Allāh said, “I am with you. If you establish prayer and give zakāh and believe in My messengers and support them and loan Allāh a goodly loan,1 I will surely remove from you your misdeeds and admit you to gardens beneath which rivers flow. But whoever of you disbelieves after that has certainly strayed from the soundness of the way.”
5:13 So for their breaking of the covenant We cursed them and made their hearts hard. They distort words from their [proper] usages and have forgotten a portion of that of which they were reminded. And you will still observe deceit among them, except a few of them. But pardon them and overlook [their misdeeds]. Indeed, Allah loves the doers of good.
5:14 And from those who say, “We are Christians” We took their covenant; but they forgot a portion of that of which they were reminded.1 So We caused among them2 animosity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection. And Allāh is going to inform them about what they used to do.
5:15 O People of the Scripture, there has come to you Our Messenger making clear to you much of what you used to conceal of the Scripture and overlooking much.1 There has come to you from Allāh a light and a clear Book [i.e., the Qur’ān]
5:16 By which Allāh guides those who pursue His pleasure to the ways of peace1 and brings them out from darknesses into the light, by His permission, and guides them to a straight path.
5:17 They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allāh is Christ, the son of Mary. Say, “Then who could prevent Allāh at all if He had intended to destroy Christ, the son of Mary, or his mother or everyone on the earth?” And to Allāh belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them. He creates what He wills, and Allāh is over all things competent.
5:18 But the Jews and the Christians say, “We are the children of Allāh and His beloved.” Say, “Then why does He punish you for your sins?” Rather, you are human beings from among those He has created. He forgives whom He wills, and He punishes whom He wills. And to Allāh belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them, and to Him is the [final] destination.
5:19 O People of the Scripture, there has come to you Our Messenger to make clear to you [the religion] after a period [of suspension] of messengers, lest you say, “There came not to us any bringer of good tidings or a warner.” But there has come to you a bringer of good tidings and a warner. And Allāh is over all things competent.
5:20 And [mention, O Muḥammad], when Moses said to his people, “O my people, remember the favour of Allāh upon you when He appointed among you prophets and made you possessors1 and gave you that which He had not given anyone among the worlds.
5:21 O my people, enter the blessed land [i.e., Palestine] which Allāh has assigned to you and do not turn back [from fighting in Allāh’s cause] and [thus] become losers.”
5:22 They said, “O Moses, indeed within it is a people of tyrannical strength, and indeed, we will never enter it until they leave it; but if they leave it, then we will enter.”
5:23 Said two men from those who feared [to disobey] upon whom Allāh had bestowed favour, “Enter upon them through the gate, for when you have entered it, you will be predominant.1 And upon Allāh rely, if you should be believers.”
5:24 They said, “O Moses, indeed we will not enter it, ever, as long as they are within it; so go, you and your Lord, and fight. Indeed, we are remaining right here.”
5:25 [Moses] said, “My Lord, indeed I do not possess [i.e., control] except myself and my brother, so part us1 from the defiantly disobedient people.”
5:26 [Allāh] said, “Then indeed, it is forbidden to them for forty years [in which] they will wander throughout the land. So do not grieve over the defiantly disobedient people.”
This article is dedicated to my daughter who asked me once, why did God create us, and at the time I said that I needed to think about this.
The reading did not necessarily answer that question but something that happened in our monthly meeting led me to the answer.
Today we had two new members join us and while we were waiting for everyone to be here, we started chatting and one of them said that she was a bit tired because she was in a Hen do the day before and it was a very buzzing happy event. It was nice to have know the bride since the age of two and to see her now getting married was very emotional.
We then started the session and each one talked about their refelctions and below is my share of the thoughts that came to my mind.
This surah is dedicated to the believers, it starts with oh You who believe keep the covenants made with God. It is a call that immediately directs our attention to the fact that keeping the covenants made to God relates exponentionally to our degree of iman or faith But how?
If we think of Al-fatiha, the opener, as the mirror stage, where the subject identifies their existential lack and establishes a vertical attachment to the “Big Other”, Al-Baqara as the introduction to the nos of the father, Al-Nisa as the engineering of horizontal relationships then Al-Ma’idah is the move to the depressive position where the subject acknowledges their internal capacity for destruction and chooses reparation through keeping the covenants of God.
How does keeping covenants have a reparatory function?
In the verses 12 to 26 of surat al Ma’idah, after listing some of the covenants (1 to 11), God starts giving examples of people who have broken their contract with God.
In verse 12 he gives an example of a people who contracted with God but then broke the contract. In the verse, it is explained that the condition for God to be with them is to establish prayer, pay Islamic tax, believe in God’s prophets and support them and give charity. Allah names the problem or the disease of the heart (kufr: to cover the truth), and its remedy or how to build immunity towards it, through connection to God via action guided by belief, “Oh you who believe keep the covenants of God”
But why is it important to have a covenant with God?
Thinking about the concept of Cowardice in this context, it could be said that the human anxiety is often located somewhere between the what if and what for. Some schools of psychoanalysis may frame this as a struggle between the internal tensions and the social gaze that paralyzes it. Astonishingly, Islamic ethics reframe the conflict to be a its heart, an intrapsychic struggle with yaqueen (resolve). The more we move away from the covenants of God the less able we are to face life’s anxieties. The covenants serve as a safety valve that keep reminding us that the conflict is between the temporary and the eternal, the worldly whims and the internal moral compass.
Verse 13 holds the key to understanding the dynamic nature of rupture with the divine. In Al-Tahrir wa’l Tanwir, Ibn Ashur explains that the hardening of the heart is the causal result rather than an arbitrary punishment.
When the heart (mind that is guided by the mindfulness of God) repeatedly breaks the covenant, it is essentially training the self to ignore the truth. The curse mentioned in the verse, is the outcome of this practice; it is the distancing from divine mercy. Once the heart is distanced from mercy, it loses its softness or ability to feel empathy remorse or awe (example: extremism, crimes committed in the name of God, refusal of belief in the oneness of God). In other words, this punishment is a natural law, an inevitable human condition, a psychological law imprinted in our DNA: repeated betrayal leads to a state where the heart can no longer hold light or guidance.
Can we then think of the hardening of the heart as psychological rigidity?
Rigidity starts as a shield (defence) then becomes a sword (an auto-immune disease). The world being a dynamic place, to stay rigid means you have to keep pushing back against reality, you have to convince yourself and others of your made-up reality. Verse 13 reflects an active transgression against the truth.
Kher’s paper frames cowardice as a moral injury and a form of avoidance. To numb the pain caused by guilt, the human psyche must develop a defense mechanism. It numbs itself to stop the pain of cognitive dissonance. Thus, the hardened heart becomes the psychological armor of the coward because he becomes immune to the whispers of conscience or the weight of their betrayal.
In the idiom of quantum physics, the curse is the psychological and spiritual entropy caused by the mis-alignment of an individual with the divine. By breaking the vertical contract, the individual destroys their inner faculty of perception (baseerah).
The verses then go on to highlight a different kind of defensive structure. In the above verse, the defense is through deceit and manipulation. In verse 14 the defense is passive abandonment. In forgetting a portion of what they were reminded of, the cowardice of the apathetic leads to losing parts of religion that require sacrifice, discipline and unity. What sounds like an accidental forgetting is an unconscious effort to get rid of guilt.
The result is hatred of the other who is trying to bring out the truth. So, while one people engage in actively changing the message of God, the other group have a selective memory of the message of God.
[In the first the heart hardens to protect the ego from guilt by developing a narcissistic shell, in the second the psychological disavowal leads to internal splitting which consequently leads to external fractures in the group or society.]
Verses 15 and 16 are the system reboot in order to come out of that rigid state. The verses are diagnostic tools. To receive guidance, you have to hold yourself accountable. Then the psychological shift from rigidity to flow will happen.
Note how darknesses are plural but light is one. The straight path is one. This is the transition from self-protection to divine connection and reliance on God.
The verses also address a very important aspect which is the psychology of being special: The paper suggests that cowardice leads to a loss of moral compass. One could interpret the word “teeh” in this context to mean exactly that, an aimless wandering. The wandering is the result of ignoring the light. Guidance is not just information; it is the courage to take action despite the struggle. Thus, the wandering is the psychological mirror reflecting the impact of severing the relationship with God. It also serves as a clinical intervention. The 40 years cycle, may be considered as the time needed for a new generation to replace the generation paralyzed by fear.
Then divine intervention happens. It comes in the form of a psychological reboot following a psychological and social collapse. The word فترة fatrah means a long period of time. This period of psychological stagnation reflects the gap between the prophets. Without a constant input of truth, the system veers towards disorder. The forgotten parts of faith have become a real problem that required a corrective emotional experience and restoration of the forgotten. This means psychoanalytic integration (no more splitting or disavowal). This verse also emphasis a universal law of mercy, that God does not leave us to our splitting. He sends us guidance “to make clear” our religion and unite us.
Entering the city is symbolic of taking up every challenge life throws at a person. Taking stock in faith and reliance on God and going through exposure therapy. Resisting group thinking. Exposure therapy to face anxiety. There is a reference is the verses to two men who feared God” as opposed to a majority who feared the tyrants. By having a healthy, awe-filled fear of the ultimate reality (the Big Other), the two men became immune to the fear of social pressure or physical intimidation. The moved from the paralysis of the mass to the agency of the believers. Cowardice leads to a breakdown of the relationship between the individual, the prophets, and the Divine. The more afraid people are the more arrogant they become.
Verse 26: teaches us that cowardice is never private. It creates a desert that engulf everyone in the cowards’ sphere. The paper suggests that groups under threat often huddle into a defensive posture, reinforcing each other’s silence. And so, cowardice metastasizes: one person bites their tongue, another nods dutifully.
So what is the solution?
According to the paper, “The task, then, is not to ridicule cowards but to help them recognize the cost of their bargain. Courage is not the absence of fear but the refusal to let fear dictate the script. Every life demands some confrontation with the unknown, and to avoid it entirely is to rehearse death in advance.”
Life is full of anxieties and we are not meant to shoulder the weight alone. God puts a comprehensive system at our disposal. A system that allows us to bear the unavoidable tensions that life brings about.
This brings us back full circle to the beginning of the session and the “Hen do” celebration. The person who brought the story was Palestinian. Thinking about what Palestine represents in the context of the reading, courage and cowardice, I was struck by the emergence of the meaning of why we get together and think together as a group. It dawned on me then that the meaning of Palestinian sumood is not merely resistance or steadfastness. It is the choice to be, to live and to celebrate being alive, coming together as a couple to create life and continue life, despite death and despite the cowardice of the world.
In that moment, the purpose of creation became clear. It is the celebration of the verse كن فيكون. Verse 117 in surat al-Baqara, “Originator of the heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, “be and it is.”
The purpose of creation is the celebration of being, of the productive individuals who come together to create life, propagate life and protect life. The highest form of worship is the preservation and celebration of the life-force God granted us, especially when external “cowardice” or “tyranny” seeks to extinguish it.
Thus, when the world falls into a mass psychosis and we witness the outbreak of violence and gangster behaviour, we can be sure that we have deviated from the covenants of God and the purpose of creation.
Islamic references,
Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya, (2020) Madarij al-Salikin (Ranks of the Devine Seekers). Edited and translated by O. Abd-Allah. Leiden:Brill
Ibn Ashur, M.T. (1984) Al-Tahrir Wa’l-Tanwir (The verification and Enlightenment). Tunis: Dar al-Suhun.
Psychoanalysis & Beyond 