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| Islam and the West: A
Cultural and Psychological Analysis
Part II Dr. Durre S. Ahmad Part I: Islam & The West: A Cultural & Psychological Analysis I Dr. Durre S. Ahmad IV Jung and the 18th Surah The letter is a gem of erudition drawing
from all the monotheistic traditions to describe the nature of
Elias/Elijah whom Jung saw as analogous to John the Baptist, Christ and
Khidr. Citing the Leiden Encyclopaedia of Islam, Jung states that Ilyas/Elias
(Elijah) and al-Khadir (Khidr) are immortal friends/twins. He refers to
the legend of them spending Ramadan at Jerusalem every year and afterwards
they take part in the pilgrimage to Mecca without being recognized. He
also very clearly cites the claims of many schools of Islamic mysticism
regarding their unbroken chain going back not only to Mohammad but to
Egypt, the source of all such ancient knowledge, including especially,
alchemy. "Ilyas is identified with Enoch and Idris (Hermes
Trismegistos). Later Ilyas and al-Khadir are identified with St.
George" (p.676) The 18th Surah was selected by Jung as a
prototypical description of a psychological process of transformation that
is of such an intense nature that it can be considered a sort of rebirth.
Entitled ‘The Cave’, the surah can be divided into three sections. It
opens with the Judaeo-Christian legend of the seven sleepers in a cave and
their prolonged state of sleep over many hundred years. This story is
followed by an account of Moses and his companion (Joshua) and their
encounter with an unnamed person. Moses wants to "learn" from
this man who reluctantly takes him as a pupil. A series of events occur
which are handled by this teacher in a most unusual fashion, baffling
Moses. The third section of the surah deals with the character of
Dhulquarnein (Alexander) and his fight with the mythical monsters, Gog and
Magog. Jung’s reading of the surah claims that
it is a "purely an Islamic legend", and an "almost
perfect" description of the process of transformation of
consciousness: The legend has the following meaning:
Anyone who gets into that cave, that is to say into the cave which
everyone has in himself, or into the darkness that lies behind
consciousness, will find himself involved in an unconsciousness process of
transformation ... a connection with his unconscious contents... may
result in a momentous change of personality in the positive or negative
sense ... (p.136). Moses and Khidr And Moses said to his servant: "I will
not cease from my wanderings until I have reached the place where the two
seas meet, even though I journey for eighty years". But when they had
reached the place where the two seas meet, they forgot their fish, and it
took its way through a stream to the sea. And when they had journeyed past this
place, Moses said to his servant: "Bring us our breakfast, for we are
weary from this journey". But the other replied: "See what has
befallen me! when we were resting there by the rock, I forgot the fish.
Only Satan can have put it out of my mind, and in wondrous fashion it took
its way to the sea". Then Moses said: "That is the place we
seek". And they went back the way they had come. And they found one
of Our servants, whom we had endowed with Our grace and Our wisdom. Moses
said to him" "Shall I follow you, that you may teach me for my
guidance some of the wisdom you have learnt?" But he answered: "You will not bear
with me, for how should you bear patiently with things you cannot
comprehend? Moses said: "If Allah wills, you shall
find me patient: I shall not in anything disobey you". He said: "If you are bent on following
me, you must ask no question about anything till I myself speak to you
concerning it". The two set forth, but as soon as they
embarked, Moses’ companion bored a hole in the bottom of the ship. "A strange thing you have done!
exclaimed Moses, "Is it to drown her passengers that you have bored a
hole in her?" "Did I not tell you", he replied,
"that your would not bear with me?" "Pardon my forgetfulness", said
Moses, "Do not be angry with me on this account". They journeyed on until they fell in with a
certain youth. Moses’ companion slew him, and Moses said: "You have
killed an innocent man who has done no harm. Surely you have committed a
wicked crime". "Did I not tell you", he replied,
"that you would not bear with me?" Moses said: "If ever I question you
again, abandon me; for then I should deserve it". They travelled on until they came to a
certain city. They asked the people for some food, but the people declined
to receive them as their guests. There they found a well on the point of
falling down. The other raised it up, and Moses said; "Had you
wished, you could have demanded payment for your labours". "Now the time has arrived when we must
part", said the other, "But first I will explain to you those
acts of mine which you could not bear with in patience. ‘Know that the ship belong to some poor
fishermen. I damaged it because in their rear was a king who was taking
every ship by force. "As for the youth, his parents both
are true believers, and we feared lest he should plague them with his
wickedness and unbelief. It was our wish that their Lord should grant them
another in his place, a son more righteous and more filial. "As for the wall, it belonged to two
orphan boys in the city whose father was an honest man. Beneath it their
treasure is buried. Your Lord decreed in His mercy that they should dig
out their treasure when they grew to manhood. What I did not done by
caprice. That is the meaning of the things you could not bear with in
patience ... The person referred to as "One of our
servants, whom We had endowed with Our grace and Our wisdom" is the
figure of Khidr, "the Verdant One" who plays a pivotal role in
Islamic mysticism. According to Jung, Moses is the man who seeks, a sort
of Everyman on the ‘quest’. On this pilgrimage he is accompanied by
his "shadow", the "servant" or "lower" man.
Joshua, the son of Nun, is the name for "fish" suggesting the
notion of watery depth and darkness, the shadow-world. The critical place
is reached "where the two seas meet" which is interpreted as the
isthmus of Suez, where the western and eastern seas come close together.
For Jung, "it is that place in the middle", that all-important
point between two opposite but equally vital extremes, e.g. conscious and
unconscious. Initially, Moses and his companion do not recognize the
significance of this middle place, but then the recognition comes from the
humble source of nourishment, the fish (Nun) which leaps out to return to
its homeland. It represents "the animal ancestor and creator of life
separating himself from the conscious man, an event which amounts to
"loss of the instinctive psyche" (p.139). In psychological terms
this is a symptom of dissociation or fragmentation, when there is an
overwhelming one-sidedness of any given conscious attitude. The
unconscious then compensates for this by "splitting off",
leading to feelings which diminish one’s sense of "wholeness",
or what the primitive called a "loss of soul". Moses and his servant soon notice what
happened. The fatigue ("worn out") that he feels is a common
symptom in a process that is typical when, according to Jung, one
"fails to recognize a moment of crucial (psychological)
importance". That is, Moses realizes that he had unconsciously found
the source of life and then lost it again. At this stage Jung draws extensively on
alchemical commentaries regarding the symbol of the fish and other related
terms such as the "philosophers stone". The unacknowledged link
between Islam and alchemy is quite evident when one considers the sources
for Jung’s explanations. Foremost among them is Nicolas Flamel, whom
Nasr has discussed as an important example of the extent of the influence
of Islam on Christian/western alchemy. Based on these alchemical symbols,
Jung concludes that Khidr is a symbol of the "self" which he
defines elsewhere as "our life’s goal, for it is the completest
expression of that fateful combination we call individuality": Khidr may well be a symbol of the self. His
qualities symbolize him as such; he is said to have been born in a cave
i.e. in darkness. He is the "Long-lived One" who continually
renews himself, like Elijah. He is analogous to the second Adam ..... he
is a counsellor, a Paraclete, "Brother Khidr". Anyway, Moses
looks up to him for instruction. Then follow these incomprehensible deeds
which show how ego-consciousness reacts to the superior guidance of the
self through the twists and turns of fate. To the initiate who is capable
of transformation it is a comforting tale; to the obedient believer, an
exhortation not to murmur against Allah’s incomprehensible omnipotence.
Khidr symbolizes not only the higher wisdom but also a way of acting
Anyone hearing such a mystery tale will recognize himself in the questing
Moses and forgetful Joshua ..... (p.141) The analysis moves on to certain comments
which are quite significant. "A Disguised Mohammedan" The character of the self as a personality
comes out very plainly in the Khidr legend. This feature is most
strikingly expressed in the non-Koranic stories about Khidr, of which
Vollers gives some telling examples. During my trip through Kenya, the
headman of our safari was a Somali who had been brought up in the sufi
faith. To him Khidr was in every way a living person, and he assured me
that I might at any time meet Khidr, because I was, as he put it, a
Mty-ya-kitabu, a Man of the Book’, meaning the Koran. He had gathered
from our talks that I knew the Koran better than he did himself (which
was, by the way, not saying a great deal). For this reason he regarded me
as "islamu". He told me I might meet Khidr in the street in the
shape of a man, or he might appear to me during the night as a pure white
light, or - he smilingly picked a blade of grass - The Verdant One might
even look like that. He said he himself had once been comforted and helped
by Khidr.... This shows that, even in our own day, Khidr still lives on in
the religion of the people, as friend, advisor, comforter, and teacher of
revealed wisdom.....(p.143). The preceding passage tells something not
only about Jung’s personal exposure to Islam, but also indirectly, about
one key difference between Islam and Christianity in the twentieth
century. As Jung himself admits, the Somali tribesman’s view of Jung was
not exactly of the stereotypical "infidel" or
"unbeliever", rather it was an insistence on seeing Jung as a
Muslim ("islamu"), a person who was familiar with the Koran.
Similarly, as Jung states, the frequent experience of
Khidr-"psychologically" and/or spiritually, -is not an uncommon
occurrence in the Muslim psycho-spiritual world. His encounter with the
Somali confirms this at the most basic, the ‘popular’ level, insofar
as the individual was not a religious scholar but a tribal and a safari
headman. Recounting the same episode in his autobiographical writings,
Jung stated that the Somali insisted that he was a "disguised
Muhammedan". This episode and Jung’s observations
about Khidr and the 18th Surah, clearly indicates a major difference
between the psychology of Islam as compared to Judaism and Christianity.
It is the difference between historical fact and present reality, between
a theoretical explanation and lived experience. The point is not to
suggest that the wide–spread alchemical aspect of Islam as lived
experience makes it automatically superior. Rather, it is to, firstly
juxtapose these perceptions and encounters of Jung regarding the 18th
Surah and Islam on the one hand, with the overall substantive place of the
subject in The Collected Works. Related to this, secondly, the point is
that the information vacuum vis a vis Islam is all the more prominent
given its distinctiveness as a lived and hence living tradition, one which
Jung had not only theoretically grasped in the 18th Surah but also
personally witnessed. It must be reiterated that this is not to imply
wilful prejudice. Rather, that these oversights are typical of
psychodynamics pertaining to the ‘other’-as-shadow. Two Pairs of Friends They will ask you about Dulqarnein. Say:
"I will give you an account of him. "We made him mighty in the land and
gave him means to achieve all things. He journeyed on a certain road until
he reached the West and saw the sun setting in a pool of black mud. Hard
by he found a certain people. "‘Dhulqarnein’, We said, ‘you
must either punish them or show them kindness. He replied: "The wicked" we shall
surely punish. Then they shall return to their Lord and be sternly
punished by Him. As for those that have faith and do good works, we shall
bestow on them a rich reward and deal indulgently with them. "He then journeyed along another road
until he reached the East and saw the sun rising upon a people whom We had
utterly exposed to its flaming rays. So he did; and We had full knowledge
of all the forces at his command. "Then he followed yet another route
until he came between the Two Mountains and found a people who could
barely understand a word. ‘Dhulqarnein’, they said ‘Gog and Magog
are ravaging this land. Build us a rampart against them and we will pay
you tribute’. "He replied: "The power which my
Lord has given me is better than any tribute. Lend me a force of labourers,
and I will raise a rampart between you and them. Come, bring me blocks of
iron’. "he dammed up the valley between the
Two Mountains, and said: ‘Ply your bellows’. And when the iron blocks
were red with heat, he said: ‘Bring me molten brass to pour on them’. "Gog and Magog could not scale it, nor
could they dig their way through it. He said: ‘This is a blessing from
my Lord. But when my Lord’s promise is fulfilled, He will level it to
dust. The promise of my Lord is true". On that day We will let them come in
tumultuous throngs. The Trumpet shall be sounded and We will gather them
all together. On that day Hell shall be laid bare before
the unbelievers, who have turned a blind eye to My admonition and a deaf
ear to My warning. Summing up the Quranic narrative in
psychological terms, Jung sees the story continuing along its
transformative trajectory, that is, descriptive of a process of
psychological change incorporating the ‘self’. Accordingly: Moses has to recount the deeds of the two
friends to his people in the manner of an impersonal mystery legend.
Psychologically this means that the transformation has to be described or
felt as happening to the "other" although it is Moses himself
who, in his experience with Khidr stands in Dulqarnein’s place he has to
name the latter instead of himself in telling the story. According to Jung, the substitution
"can hardly be accidental" and is in fact a part of a conscious
recognition and remedy for the danger that occurs when ego-consciousness
comes closer to the ‘self’ and its connection with primordial forces.
With the discerning that these forces are within oneself, (the other)
there is the danger that consciousness may get carried away, so to speak,
and the individual may start believing that, for example, he is endowed
with extraordinary powers, is Christ, a visionary etc. This belief is what
is termed ego-inflation which is a consequence of seeing no difference
between one’s individual ego (conscious) and the ‘self" whose
matrix is essentially collective (unconscious). There is, therefore, the
danger of consciousness being overwhelmed through a contact with the
‘self’. As Jung points out, most "primitive" cultures have
mechanisms of dealing with this possibility. One can add that within many
Sufi practices similar systems/methods are used to take care of such
contingencies. To quote Jung: All the more primitive or older cultures
show a fine sense for the "perils of the soul" and for the
dangerousness and general unreliability of the gods. That is, they have
not yet lost their psychic instinct for the barely perceptible and yet
vital processes going on in the background, which can hardly be said of
our modern culture. Jung contrasts the motif of friendship
between Khidr and Dhulqarnein with its dark opposite(s) as they appear in
Western culture: To be sure we have before our eyes as a
warning just such a pair of friends distorted by inflation - Nietzsche and
Zarathustra - but the warning has not been heeded. And what are we to make
of Faust and Mephistopheles? The Faustian hybrid is already the first step
toward madness. The fact that the unimpressive beginning of the
transformation in Faust is a dog and not an edible fish, and that the
transformed figure is the devil and not a wise friend, "endowed with
Our grace and Our wisdom" might, I am inclined to think, offer a key
to our understanding of the highly enigmatic German soul. (p.146). The essay continues the analysis of the
18th Surah as a sort of blueprint of psychological change and an enlarging
of the field of consciousness. Whether Muslims agree with this
interpretation or not, two points are evident. Firstly, as acknowledged by
Jung himself, his approach is clearly derived from Islamic mystical texts.
Secondly, the essay is ample illustration of Jung’s creative genius and
a vision which when focused on the mystical heart of Islam perceived
therein the inherent psychological principles and truths that lie at the
heart of all religions. Yet, as one approaches Jung’s concluding
remarks, certain comments once again indicate a general conception of
Islam in very stereotypical terms (All emphases are mine): In spite of its apparently disconnected and
allusive character, (the 18th Surah) gives an almost perfect picture of a
psychic transformation or rebirth which today, with our greater
psychological insight, we would recognize as an individuation process.
Because of the great age of the legend and the Islamic prophet’s
primitive cast of mind, the process takes place entirely outside the
sphere of consciousness and is projected in the form of a mystery legend
of a friend or a pair of friends and the deeds they perform. That is why
it is all so allusive and lacking in logical sequence. Nevertheless, the
legend expresses the obscure archetype of transformation so admirably that
the passionate religious Eros of the Arab finds it completely satisfying.
It is for this reason that the figure of Khidr plays such an important
part in Islamic mysticism. (147). (Emphasis mine) One can note here that despite the
stereotypes, the observation that what the "passionate religious Eros
of the Arab finds completely satisfying", Jung also found to be a
"perfect picture of psychic transformation" with the proviso
that today ("with our greater psychological insight") this
transformation is the goal of Jungian psychology/therapy/analysis -
"...the individuation process". Such parallel statements would
not be possible if Jung’s personal religious Eros were not to have found
the narrative a "perfect picture". In short, it must have been
in resonance with something in Jung himself, and to that extent
"satisfying". Summary and Discussion The single exception in terms of
psychological interpretations is Jung’s analysis of the 18th Surah that,
in his own words, is "an almost perfect picture of psychological
transformation". The fact that Jung simply restated an essentially
mystical reading of this surah in his own language of "analytical
psychology" is significant insofar as it illustrates a fundamental
harmony between his psychological concepts and those of Islamic mysticism.
This is not surprising since the bulk of Jung’s researches into religion
and especially alchemy are inextricably related to the mystical aspect of
all the religions he considered. The point is thus not so much a lack of
understanding or the need for somehow a different method in approaching
Islam, but a relative lack of interest in the subject. Different types of
data, drawn from art, culture and religious rituals, are fundamental to
the Jungian method. Apart from the text of the surah, no other aspect of
Islam, in terms of its rituals, beliefs or personalities such as the
prophet, are touched upon. As the analysis of the 18th Surah suggests,
when interest is focused, powerful psychological insights follow, but
since these are not anchored in or connected to other concepts and
information as they occur in The Collected Works, any substantial or
sophisticated understanding of Islam is not possible. In contrast, such
scholarly sophistication is evident throughout The Collected Works
regarding the other major religions. The essay on the 18th Surah and the figure
of Khidr while no doubt mostly a positive portrayal of Islam remains an
isolated exception. One will discuss subsequently other equally Jungian
but different elaborations of the 18th Surah. For the moment, its place in
the Jungian opus can be considered one pole of a spectrum of Jung’s
intellectual and psychological understanding of Islam. Moving along this
spectrum the only other psychologically substantive and positive statement
is the paragraph about Jung’s response to the Taj Mahal as an epitome of
the "jealously guarded Islamic Eros". The notion of Eros is a major conceptual
cornerstone in Jungian psychology. It pertains to the feeling and emotive
aspect of behaviour as opposed to logos which pertain to the impersonal
and logical side. One can note in passing that any effort to uncover the
mystery of powerful emotions which no doubt inform the Islamic
fundamentalist venture, would in a sense entail the outlining of what
exactly constitutes the "Islamic Eros". Unfortunately, beyond
its manifestation in the 18th Surah and in Jung’s enthusiastic
witnessing of the Taj Mahal, there are no more clues. In terms of any
glimpse into the psychology of the Islamic Eros, the information is
limited to its almost "perfect picture" as evinced in the 18th
Surah, on the one hand, and on the other to a brief comment regarding the
Taj Mahal. It would be no exaggeration to say that for someone not
familiar with Islam or its culture - these two references would hardly be
adequate in understanding what Jung himself saw as a "jealously
guarded secret". Moving on from the two positive and
substantial comments towards the other end of the spectrum, midway are the
main bulk of references that in effect say nothing, one way or another,
regarding Islam. As the content analysis suggests, the overwhelming number
of references in The Collected Works to Islam and all related categories,
are essentially non-sequiteurs. They are primarily either block/passing
ones ("Yahweh, Brahma, Allah") or then foot notes citing Arabic
alchemical writers. The subsuming of a distinct and powerful Islamic
alchemical tradition into an entirely western one along with the tendency
to either ignore Islam or dissolve it within the general label of the
‘Arabs’ or monotheism, suggests a particular stance which is not so
much one of prejudice as it is of a self-convinced paternalism. It regards
Islam as a sort of primitive and largely incoherent appendage to Judaism
and Christianity, and from this perspective - considerable widespread in
the West - Islam remains an essentially hodgepodge version of the
preceding monotheisms. This attitude is part of the same mindset that sees
Islam as being spread by the sword, lacking analytic refinement and
intellectual substance ("no mind to it"), and thus reliant on
brutality to force its view on others ("rigidity and
fanaticism"). For example, throughout The Collected Works there is no
mention as to how "Islamic fatalism" is actually manifested
psychologically in text and ritual in the light of the observation that
"Islamic fatalism is not suited to the European." Finally, between the two positive
references to Islam and the vast majority of non-informative,
non-substantial statements on the subject, there is the other end of the
spectrum consisting of statements that most Muslims would consider
derogatory. Thus, for example, more than once Muhammad is compared to
Nero, Hitler and Anti-Christ. He was a person whose sense of
"chronology leaves much to be desired", having a "primitive
cast of mind". Odd Man Out The prominent differences between the
personalities around which a religion is structured can be considered
paradigmatic to the religion itself, leading to different social,
psychological and spiritual emphases which constitute the profile of a
religion and evoke a certain psychology in its adherents. One explanation
then for Jung’s lack of substance regarding Islam could be related to
this consistently negative portrayal regarding the prophet of Islam and
his "primitive cast of mind". This negativity, it must be
stressed, is a consequence not so much of prejudice but ignorance due to
the tendency to regard Islam as an incoherent re-hash of Judaism and
Christianity, and Mohammad as an epileptic marauder, hence the comparisons
to Nero and Hitler. Whereas, in fact, it is possible to suggest that the
clues to the "jealously guarded Islamic Eros" may be first found
in Mohammad’s life and subsequently his teaching. However, since neither
of these is considered as being significantly different -especially from
Judaism and Christianity -the Islamic Eros, which Jung himself perceived
as "passionate" - remains a secret, shadowy mystery. The lack of knowledge regarding fundamental
facts of the life of Mohammad and the psychological relationship of
Muslims with that life is self-reflexively related to the virtual void
regarding psychological insights about Islam and is reinforced by other
erroneous assumptions. Whereas Jung’s specific vision was perhaps
influenced by his colonial/imperial context, some of these assumptions are
evident even today in the western imagination. ‘Specialist’ knowledge,
notwithstanding, the western intellectual’s attitude towards Islam can
be gauged from a recent textual analysis on the subject of the return to
religion in western academe. Part of this process can be discerned in a
series of advertising texts promoting an academy journal on religion in
various ‘highbrow’ publications such as The New York Review of Books.
Over the last five years, the ongoing series of prominent ads have
published the names of more than 50 personalities whom the editors
consider as having contributed to "religious, literary and
philosophical riches". Their names range from Moses, Jesus, Buddha
and St. Francis to even Tolstoy, Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor.
Yet, the name of Muhammad, or any writer/philosopher, Muslim or otherwise,
known for scholarship on Islam does not appear even once. Partly linked to the stereotypes of
Muhammad is the other popular and erroneous assumption about Islam being
synonymous with ‘Arabs’. As has been discussed, this merging is
especially evident in Jung’s alchemical studies. As a religion, Islam is
overshadowed by ‘Arabs’, leaving the reader either with established
racial stereotypes, or at best no wiser about either Arabs or their
religion. A cursory survey of the countries that have had Islam as a major
religion over the last century would show that it covers a vast and varied
network of cultures many of them far removed from the Middle East. Such a
view would be akin to calling Jews and Christians ‘Europeans’, or more
precisely, ‘Middle Easterners’. In either case, the example would
exclude societies such as South America and Africa/Asia that have large
Christian populations. The point is that in keeping with the dominant
paradigms and ethos of his age, Jung’s understanding of Islam shows
little evidence of depth, discernment and detail. A final example of the Jungian blind spot
is related to the mandala. One of Jung’s most widely acclaimed
‘discoveries’ concerned the archetypal significance of the
configuration of the square and the circle appearing almost universally in
sacred art and architecture. Jung wrote extensively on the mandala and its
psycho-symbolic significance in almost every religion. He showed how the
image of the circling of the square (and vice versa) was closely related
to the archetype of the ‘self’ as a symbol of wholeness. The Collected
Works contain numerous images of mandalas from different religions
including many drawn by his patients and Jung himself. According to him,
in a condition of extreme psychological stress, some people spontaneously
produce the mandala form as a symbolic expression of unity and wholeness
as a counter balance to the inner experience of fragmentation. Here again
one can see some of the bases on which Jung concluded that psychological
health is inextricably linked with spiritual concerns. Given the significant place of the mandala in Jungian theory, remarkably no mention is made of what is not only a massive mandala but also possibly the only human (and thus living) mandala on earth. This is the Ka‘bah in Mecca and the ritual of the pilgrimage performed by millions of Muslims during the Haj and in fact throughout the year. The central ritual of the circumambulation of the sacred cube, makes it a supremely mandala motif and that too in life and motion, not just static architecture or art. Yet, this most significant Islamic rite and rich symbolism remained unnoticed. Mecca does not appear at all in The Collected Works and the Ka‘bah is mentioned once in passing, in the context of alchemy and the ‘philosopher stone’. (Volume 14, p.398). V Jung, Postmodernity and Islam It is ironic that whereas Jung’s
conceptual approach to psychology and religion makes him a cornerstone of
the postmodern movement, his attitude to Islam reflects a distinctly
modern mindset. Despite the considerable skilful analysis of the 18th
Surah, Jung’s modernist mentality is revealed by his comments on the
Qur’«n. For example, in the essay on the 18th Surah and the abrupt
transition from Moses to Dhulqarnain, he states: We see here another instance of the lack of
coherence which is not uncommon in the Koran.....Apart from the unheard-of
anachronism, Mohammad’s chronology in general leaves much to be
desired.... Subsequently, he refers to the
"apparently disconnected and allusive character" of the surah
that he partly relates to "the Islamic prophet’s primitive cast of
mind". The difference between modernism and
postmodernism is essentially a difference of a "cast of mind".
The nature of this difference was in fact solidly put forth by Jung
himself. In so far as this specific debate was barely emerging at that
time, the terminology is of course different. Nevertheless, it can be
claimed that Jung almost single-handedly established the postmodern vision
of human behaviour in psychology. In contrast to Freud’s relatively neat
compartmentalization of psychic life into id, ego and superego, dominated
by western notions of science, ego-rationality and will power, Jung never
gave a specific aetiology of neurosis other than its being a
"one-sidedness in the presence of many". This one-sidedness
especially as it was manifested in the European psyche, he termed as
"monotheism of consciousness". The choice of
"monotheism" instead of the contemporary "monist" or
"monolithic" was not entirely unrelated to the Judaico-Christian
ethos. Indeed it was deliberate insofar as he was of the view that there
were certain elements of dogma in the Jewish-Christian vision which were
at the root of European psychology and which were responsible for its
lopsided and, to that extent, mentally unbalanced individual and
collective condition. His forays into alchemy and the Hindu, Taoist,
Confucian and African religions can be considered firstly an attempt to
juxtapose alternative visions of the role of religion in psychological
life. Secondly, by cross-relating this material with certain strains
within Christianity and Judaism, he attempted to establish the possibility
of a less rigid and psychologically healthier approach to religion in the
West. An approach, he always insisted, which was not in fact incompatible
with the fundamental of Christianity. In short, he argued for a more
pluralistic and diverse attitude towards not only what is psychologically
normal and abnormal, but also religious. However, as is evident from The
Collected Works, in his effort to throw out what he saw as the stagnant
(bath) waters of Judaico-Christian monotheism, Jung perhaps unwittingly,
threw out the baby of Islam. The 18TH Surah Reconsidered Brown’s essay "The Apocalypse of
Islam" is also an analysis of the 18th Surah. It remains rooted in
Jungian concepts especially of mythology, folklore, and archetypes, but
arrives at different psychological conclusions. At the outset, Brown
identifies those features of the Surah which "the bewildered Western
mind discerns and fastens onto", namely the three mysterious
episodes: (1) The sleepers in the cave. (2) Moses’s journey and
encounter with Khidr (3) Dhulqarnain’s appearance and erecting the Wall
against Gog and Magog. Like Jung, Brown also identifies certain
elements of the Surah as being connected to Judaeo-Christian-Hellenic
motifs, especially the episodes of the Sleepers and Dhulqarnain.
(Alexander). Similarly both Brown and Jung choose to focus on the episode
of Moses and Khidr as the most bafflingly elliptical of the three episodes
and the centrepiece of the Surah. This is the section in which, as Brown
says: The new Moses, having become a seeker, submits to spiritual
direction by a mysterious master who bewilders Moses through a series of
Zen-like absurd actions.... Whereas Jung chose to interpret this
encounter between Moses and Khidr as a symbolic quest towards individual
transformation, Brown tends to regard it as also illustrative of the
psychological relationship between Islam and the Judaeo-Christian
traditions. Thus, whereas both authors rely on similar source materials,
unlike Jung, Brown focuses on the Judaeo-Christian connections only to
lead one to the point of divergence. Whereas Jung simply piled up the
facts indicating the synonymous nature of Elijah and Khidr, Brown regards
the relevant passages as a purposive attempt to "mobilize, without
naming, the powerful contrast latent in Jewish tradition, between Moses
and Elijah": Elijah the most popular figure in the
legendary world of post-Biblical Judaism.... Elijah the omnipresent
Comforter-Spirit present at every Jewish circumcision ceremony and every
Jewish Passover; Elijah who knows the secret of heaven and is claimed as
the direct source of revelation by Jewish mystics including Cabalists. The
Koran sends Moses to Elijah’s school - "It was taught in Elijah’s
school", Jewish mystics say. (p.148) Brown goes on to suggest that the Qur'ânic
episode about Moses and Khidr/Elijah is in fact the archetypal essence of
an ancient folk–tale derived from Talmudic wisdom. At the same time, by
a "creative confusion" of certain key figures such as of Moses
and Alexander, the Qur'ân also "breaks with Judaic ethno–centrism
and re-projects the prophetic tradition of a new trans–cultural,
universal, world-historical plane." (p.148). What interests Brown, (and Jung) however,
is not so much the theological aspect of the Moses/Khidr episode, but its
archetypal essence as distilled in a folktale. As Brown points out,
conventional western commentators who are quite sure that there is nothing
new in the Qur'ân, assume without hesitation that the folktale is to be
taken literally and all that is going on in the passage is the
transmission of conventional Aggadic-Talmudic piety. For Brown, however, the episode is
prototypical of a particularly prominent dimension of Islamic psychology,
namely, a simultaneous perception of two levels of existence, the material
and the spiritual, and the need to distinguish between them. In this
process, the central issue becomes that of interpretation: The Koran makes evident the folktale form
and thereby alerts the intelligence to the problem of interpretation.
Folktales, like dreams are not to be interpreted literally and the content
of the folktale - the episode of the ship, the youth and the wall - tells
us in the most literal, even crude way, three times reiterated, that there
is a distinction between "what actually happened", events as
seen by the eye of historical materialism, and "what is really going
on", events sub specie aeternitatis, as seen by the inward, the
clairvoyant eye, the second sight. The form and the content of the
folktale oblige us, as they have obliged all subsequent Islamic culture,
to make the distinction between literal meaning and something beyond - in
Islamic terminology between Zâhir and Bâtin ... between
external-visible-patent and internal-invisible-latent; between materialist
and spiritual meaning (p.150). The distinction between levels of
interpretation and meaning is of course fundamental to both Freudian and
Jungian psychology, in the former’s view of dreams and behaviour having
a manifest and latent content, and the latter’s notions of the symbolic
and the literal. Among post-Jungians, James Hillman has perhaps
articulated best these different levels of interpretation, highlighting
the necessity for an archetypal/symbolic reading of history via
interpretations which "see through" behaviour, events, emotions
into their symbolic meanings. Remaining within interpretive framework
which is in consonance with both Jungian and Islamic psychology, Brown’s
postmodern/Jungian vision sees the Qur’«n in quite a different manner
from Jung. Whereas for Jung it was "a product of Mohammad’s
primitive cast of mind ... incoherent"; Brown sees it as a
quintessentially postmodern text. In this connection, Brown cites the
existing and dominant mindset that even the most scholarly of Westerners
bring to the Qur'ân. Similar in spirit to Jung for example, was R. A.
Nicholson, translator of many Sufi classics, who remarked that: Brown’s rejoinder to this type of
analytical approach is to examine the 18th Surah from within the various
debates in Islamic theodicy, suggesting a very different conception of and
psychological relationship to history. For example, Jung interpreted the
closing passages of the surah which are descriptions of an apocalypse, as
symbolic of the culmination of the inner process of ‘individuation’
and the subjective experience of the end of the world; that is, when
consciousness is obliterated and "sinks into" the unconscious.
The apocalypse then is as much an inner psychological event as it is an
outer and material possibility. The point here is that while Jung’s
insight into the psychological dimensions of the surah may be considerably
accurate, he was unable to see it as a leitmotif of the Qur'ân itself and
by implication, in the Muslim individual and collective psyche. As Brown
points out: 'Surah XVIII is a resume, an epitome of the
whole Koran. The Koran is not like the Bible, historical, running from
genesis to Apocalypse. The Koran is altogether apocalyptic. The Koran
backs off from the linear organization of time, revelation, and history
which became the backbone of orthodox Christianity and remains the
backbone of western culture after the death of God. Islam is wholly
apocalyptic its eschatology is not teleology... only the moment is real.
There is no necessary connection between cause and effect. Time does not
accumulate... the only continuity is the utterly inscrutable will of God,
who creates every atomic point anew at every moment...' (p.154). The apocalyptic sense of history in which
cause and effect are subsumed into a perpetual ever-present cycle of
creation-recreation, is further reinforced since it is part of a
consciousness that is distinctly non-linear. The rejection of linearity
involves a rejection of narrative ... something which has irritated and
bewildered western minds from Carlyle to Jung as they grappled to impose a
sense of meaning through modern notions of ‘order’ onto the Qur'ân.
Brown makes the startling but crucial comments on the Qur’an: Brown presents some fascinating factual and
literary-historical material regarding the close connections between the
literary harbinger of postmodernism-the stream-of-consciousness style
embodied in western culture in the writings of James Joyce -and the
stylistic structure of the Qur'ân. The main point he is making, however,
is not so much literary as psychological. That is, that "western
historicism, with its well-honed methods of source criticism ... is only
too delighted to lose itself in tracing the Koran to its sources, with the
usual nihilistic result: the Koran is reduced to meaningless
confusion". This type of historicism that attributes meaning only to
the original sources seems to be at the heart of the Judaeo-Christian
attitude that continues to regard Islam as a twisted, received and thus
bogus version of the original(s). Brown quotes many Jewish and Christian
authorities and their assessment of the 18th Surah and the Qur’an: ... in Surah XVIII meaning has been
"mutilated almost beyond recognition" and "mechanically
combined in a most artificial and clumsy manner". Schwarzbaum refers
to Muhammad as "making a brave show with borrowed trappings".
The notion that Muhammad was a charlatan, who stole from the treasury of
Western civilization and passed off his plagiarisms on his unsophisticated
Bedouin audience as the voice of God, is still very much alive at the back
of Western minds...(p.159) To sum up Brown’s analysis then, the Qur'ân,
like Finnegans Wake, centres on a destruction of language. (In strictly
historical terms of course, the Qur'ânic vision precedes the Joycean.
Also, the psychological impact of the two would be varied, given the
(assumed) themes and intention of their sources). While this is not the
place to discuss what has been the impact of the de-construction of
language and meaning in the West, Nasr has nicely described the
psychological impact of the Qur'ân on Muslim consciousness: Many people, especially non-Muslims, who
read the Quran for the first time are struck by what appears as a kind of
incoherence from the human point of view... The text of the Quran reveals
human language crushed by the power of the Divine Word. It is as if human
language were scattered into a thousand fragments... The Quran displays
human language with all the weakness inherent in its becoming suddenly the
recipient of the Divine Word and displaying its frailty before a power
which is infinitely greater than man can imagine. Brown’s analysis of the 18th Surah and
his ideas regarding the postmodern bent of Qur'ânic Islamic consciousness
present an interesting contrast to Jung’s understanding of Islam in
general and the 18th Surah in particular. Both essays can be considered as
appreciations of certain psychological dimensions of Islam, but with
significant differences, which can be summed up as differences between
modern and postmodern consciousness. Thus, it is not so much a prejudice
against Islam as such which made Jung unwittingly relegate it to the least
of his priorities in the study of religions, but the dominant modern
Weltanschauung of his age and its quest for meaning in certain
preconceived notions of ‘order’. Despite flashes of brilliant insight
as in the 18th Surah, when it came to Islam as a religion, he remained
very much within the modern mode. Ironically then, Sam Huntington’s "West versus the rest" can be rephrased in terms of a clash between modernism and postmodernism. The psychological similarities between postmodern consciousness and that of traditional societies have been examined by disciplines other than psychology. Walter Ong’s distinction between "oral" and "literate" cultures draws similar conclusions regarding perceptions and interpretations of concepts such as ‘order’ and ‘coherence’ Ong’s distinction draws from and reiterates research in psycho-linguistics about the differences between for example, the type of consciousness engendered by print as opposed to television. New media technologies, especially in the West, are creating a ‘secondary orality’, that is, a consciousness which is closer to the oral rather than the literate in terms of the former’s ability to cope better with ambiguity, paradox and diversity, in sum, postmodernity. (One can note in passing that Muhammad is known as the ‘unlettered prophet’ whereas the Bible is the product of literacy). Cross-Crescent.
"Irreconcilability". The ‘Other’ Woman? In this connection, Jung had nothing to say
about the feminine in Islam and one can only assume that this silence was
based on a combination of factors mentioned earlier. Namely, of seeing
Islam as a poorly constructed vision rather than a re-visioning of this
and other important elements in Judaism and Christianity, and therefore
not particularly worthy of much attention vis a vis a theme as significant
as the presence of the feminine. To the extent that Islam is indeed part
of the monotheisms, the question arises if a similar claim can be made
regarding its "lost" feminine aspect of Sophia, or some other
concepts suggesting a feminine Presence? Jung has absolutely nothing to
say on the subject, except for twice alluding to the "passion"
which characterizes the "Islamic Eros". Eros is the feminine is
aspect of psychological and spiritual life which is as vital as logos. To
the extent that Jung saw it as "passionate" suggests a strong
presence of the feminine in Islam, one that was, in Jung’s words,
simultaneously a "jealously guarded secret". Part of this
guarding it seems, is through the veil of a specific type of
vocabulary/consciousness not unlike the postmodern. Approaching the
Islamic universe from within such a framework would reveal a very
different perspective on what the western mind sees as a secretive and
‘alien creed’. While Brown also seems to be unaware of the
deep-rooted presence of the feminine aspect to Islam, his summing up of
the Islamic imagination implies such a possibility inasmuch as he
recognizes in Islam the most pronounced attempt to return to the
"eternal pagan substrata of all religions". In contrast, while
being undoubtedly aware of the points of entry of pagan elements in
western spiritual and intellectual history, Jung consistently failed to
connect these facts with the philosophical substance of Islam. (See
discussion on Volume II). The enormous volume of information
regarding the centrality of the theme/image of the Great Mother in all
religions is by now indisputable fact and forms part of many postmodern
constructions of paganism in the feminist return to religion in the West.
There is, therefore, every reason to think that Islam, whether in its
similarities to the Judaeo-Christian religions or in its distinctive
aspects, should have a similar, possibly exceedingly powerful presence, of
this archetype of the Divine Feminine. If this is so, and there is ample
reason to see it as such, then it is possible to see Islam as a
psychologically postmodern religion par excellence. Conclusion As stated at the outset, the perception of
‘otherness’ is, in fact, not a pathology but necessary and to that
extent even desirable. What is pathological is the denial/suppression of
the other, and a refusal to enlarge one’s field of knowledge regarding
oneself. It is the refusal to know and learn about the other in
relationship with oneself, which draws people and societies into a spiral
of violence and which is experienced psychologically as either fear or
arrogance. In sum: Paranoia. The psychodynamics of paranoia between Islam and the West remains to be explored. This monograph has mainly attempted to establish through a rational and empirical framework that Islam is the principal ‘other’ in the psychological and religious consciousness of the Western intellectual as exemplified by The Collected Works. Given the substance of the materials, it is self-evident that the Islamic ‘other’ in Jung’s writings and thus also in this monograph, has yet to be described in detail. Having identified the ‘other’ in the context of a historical relationship, the next step would be to explore those elements in Islam that evoke such strong reactions. One framework for research could be a comparative examination of the relationship between masculine and feminine elements within Islam and the West. While one has alluded to such possibilities, a detailed study of these psycho-dynamics remains to be done. for Part I Source: http://www.allamaiqbal.com/publications/journals/review/oct99/5.htm |