In light of the three main constructs discussed in the last chapter: formation, mystery, and field model, the reader should now have a theoretical understanding of the author's view of human spirituality. The human spirit is a phenomenon that originates out of the awareness of and response to the mystery. This awareness and response is always in and through phenomena. By use of a field model one can organize the co-presence of phenomena and can conceptualize the dynamism of the human form. This dynamism itself produces forms and is thus a creative dynamic. This creative dynamic aims towards the increase of consonance and the decrease of dissonance. When we wish to limit our observations to evidence of human spirituality we are looking for changes in awareness of the mystery and how that awareness shows forth in phenomena. A healthy spirituality will display increased consonance.

Contained within this understanding is the possibility of clinical identification of spirituality and the development of clinical applications to aid the growth of a healthy spirituality as well as treatments for a disordered spirituality.

The historical experience of Muslims is one of a successful prohibition of certain mood-altering behaviors on a community-wide scale. With intoxicants and gambling prohibited in the same breath, so to speak, Islam contains dynamics that are similar to the phenomena that motivates this project, namely, the growth of Twelve Step groups, the inclusion of a variety of behaviors under the discussion of "addictions", and the Twelve Step claims concerning addictions as indicative of spiritual disorder. Our use of the Islamic tradition in this project will serve to illustrate the theoretical constructs introduced in the last chapter. Hence, this chapter serves as a "bridge", if you will, between the theoretical issues of the last chapter, and their use in understanding the Twelve Step claims concerning addictions and spiritual disorder. This chapter thus serves to move us from the purely theoretical towards the clinically applicable.

Both Islam and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) make statements about the mystery and provide form directives out of that hermeneutic. In so far as their directives find their source in a hermeneutic of the mystery that places the mystery as the foundation of, and raison d'etre of the directives, they are specifically spiritual.

FAITH AND FORM TRADITIONS

Discourse about the mystery and the form directives based upon that discourse is socially transmitted by what van Kaam calls faith and form traditions. When we look at both Islam and AA through the perspective afforded by formation theory we are looking at these two types of traditions.

A faith tradition communicates an interpretation of the essential mystery of formation as being benevolent, indifferent, or hostile, personal or impersonal (or some combination) towards human formation.

A religious or humanist faith tradition offers basic beliefs in regard to the formation mystery and its epiphanies. The faith tradition provides meaningful revelations, ideals, images, myths, stories, symbols, rites and writings that nourish... ...consonance in regard to the formation mystery as understood in that tradition.

In the last chapter we distinguished among three main ways in which the mystery appears, what Byrne and van Kaam called the cosmic, human and transhuman epiphanies of the mystery. One must first be aware of mystery qua mystery before statements-- a faith-- about the mystery can be made. This is the most elementary basis of active human spirituality-- awareness of mystery and initial statements about it. We have to remember that what is appearing is the non-empirical. Statements, even "it is mystery", provide a necessary phenomenalization, but immediately violate the reality. Faith traditions thus originate out of an awareness that stems from the contemplation of the purely cosmic and human appearances, or can originate out of an awareness that stems from the possibility of the direct action of the mystery itself; a transhuman epiphany or "revelation". We can thus distinguish between two main types of faith tradition: the cosmic/human and the transhuman/transcosmic.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are traditions based on belief in a transhuman revelation of the mystery of formation. While the prevalent power of this transhuman epiphany by no means excludes faith in and concern for the cosmic and personal-social epiphanies of the mystery, these traditions are primarily and prevalently responsive to a divine revelation of the nature and meaning of the formation mystery. It is a revelation that occurs in and through historical processes.

Neither Byrne nor van Kaam discuss the possibility of a transhuman epiphany at any length. They merely accept the reality of such claims and deny that any science can comment upon the truth of such an allegation. "Their truth can never be proved or disproved by SFHF or any other science." As phenomena, such claims do give rise to directives to formation and provide a hermeneutic of the mystery. It is this fact that cannot be denied, and it is this effect upon human formation that is of interest to formation theory. While science cannot comment on the actual truth statements concerning the mystery that may be put forth by a particular faith tradition, it can observe and discuss the historical processes, that is, the phenomena that lead to the establishment of a particular hermeneutic of the mystery and the directives that emerge out of the hermeneutic.

A "form tradition" is the expansion of that faith tradition in terms of practical directives to formation.

Form tradition refers to the form directives that have been handed over from generation to generation in a specific culture, religion or ideological movement... Form traditions are intimately related to corresponding faith traditions in which they are rooted. They should, however, not be confused with such faith traditions.

All human formation takes place within this milieu of faith and form traditions. Van Kaam's understanding of these traditions is quite broad. It would be a mistake to think of them exclusively in terms of "religion":

Every form tradition has a beginning. Transcosmic faith and form traditions claim as this beginning a revelation; cosmic ones an experiential enlightenment about being; ideological faith and form traditions, such as the Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, Marxian, Maslowian, Skinnerian, to name only a few, start from a primordial intuition as their hidden point of departure. The term faith in regard to ideological faith traditions is used here in an analogical sense. The faith aspect of the ideological intuition does not reside in the fact that the object of that intuition is not verifiable in reality. Usually it is. Faith refers to the ideological conviction that this undeniable aspect of human life formation is exalted as the most basic one in light of which all other formation aspects should be understood exclusively.

In the last chapter we saw how van Kaam attempts to broaden "spirituality" out of an exclusively religious realm of discourse. We see here the same trend. According to van Kaam, a faith is not necessarily a "religion" in the way we usually use the word. Rather, "faith" in Formative Spirituality refers to that aspect of human experience considered to be the most foundationally human. It may not be the mystery qua mystery, and yet, all such statements are, in essence, about the mystery of human formation. That is, particular faith and form traditions may not view the human spirit as the most foundational basis of human formation, but all are spiritual in that they are at least implicitly aware of mystery and seek to talk about it-- even if this talk takes the form of denying mystery or de-mystifying it or simply remaining silent about it. All people are always in a milieu of statements (implicit or explicit) concerning the mystery (including its denial or insignificance for human formation) and directives to formation based upon those statements. Individuals may or may not be clearly aware of these statements and directives, they may also be exposed to a variety of such traditions and they may actively choose to adhere to a particular tradition. "To be human, therefore, means to be formed in and through tradition." The clinician attempting to assess a client's spiritual health will first be able to articulate the client's actual, lived faith and form tradition, or at least articulate those myriad traditions that place the client in a hermeneutic milieu. The phenomenalized tradition(s) may not be that which is named by the client, such as "Christian" or "Muslim".

MUSLIM ALLEGATIONS OF A TRANSHUMAN EPIPHANY

Muslim statements about the mystery-- the foundation of all Muslim thought-- are contained in the Qur'an. All but the most rabid anti-Muslim polemicists agree that the Qur'an is a historically authentic collection of the words uttered by Muhammad at certain identifiable times over the course of twenty-three years. The Muslim interpretation of Muhammad's experience is that the God referred to by Abraham, Moses and Jesus was at these times dictating to Muhammad-- by the agency of the angel Gabriel-- the text of the Qur'an. The Qur'an, in the Muslim tradition, is the verbatim speech of Deity. From within formation theory we would understand this as a claim for a transhuman epiphany of the mystery of formation-- a revelation. We can say nothing about the truth of this claim. However, we can discuss the actual phenomenon, the "episodes of revelation". Karen Armstrong writes concerning the first instance of this experience:

Muhammad had had that overpowering apprehension of numinous reality which has devastated prophets and seers in most traditions. In Christianity it has been described as the mysterium terrible et fascinans and in Judaism it has been call kaddosh, "holiness", the terrifying otherness of God. ...The Hebrew prophets had also cried out against the vision of holiness, fearing that they were close to death: "What a wretched state I am in!" Isaiah had cried when he saw his vision of God in the Temple, "I am lost!" Even the angels shielded themselves with their wings from the divine presence but he had looked on the Lord of Hosts with his own impure eyes. Jeremiah had experienced God as an agonizing pain that filled his every limb; like Muhammad in the embrace of the Angel, he experienced revelation as a sort of divine rape. It invaded his being with a fearful force, doing violence to his natural self... What all these prophets had experienced was transcendence, a reality that lay beyond concepts and which the monotheistic faiths call "God".

"A reality that lay beyond concepts." The mystery of formation. We shall see in the next chapter a similarity of experience in the life of Bill Wilson, the founder of AA. Armstrong continues by pointing out that such experiences are no longer immediately dismissed as hysteria or bad faith manipulation. She draws a comparison between such dramatic experiences of the mystery and art and creativity. "Frequently, a truly creative thinker also feels that he has been inspired in this way: he has in some sense touched or dis-covered an uncreated reality, that has independent existence." Initially, these "episodes of revelation" did not address legal issues, such as having to do with mood-altering behaviors, but were more metaphysical, even ontological in their import, though still filled with directives: God exists and there is only one god. God will judge each individual according to belief, prayer, charity and especially intention. There is a heaven and a hell-- an afterlife-- this life is but a testing ground. The Qur'an provided a new and alternate hermeneutic of the mystery.

Slowly, those who believed that Muhammad was indeed a messenger from God-- that a transhuman epiphany was taking place-- grew from a viciously persecuted minority to a powerful political force; a state. Eventually, the topic of these "episodes" addressed specific issues facing the governance of believers' legal, social, and economic issues in addition to purely theological matters. The episodes of revelation responded to direct and specific questions and conflicts with varying degrees of specificity and symbolic abstraction from the particular circumstance. As it describes itself, some verses are clear, some are ambiguous. Muhammad's experience, or rather, the words he uttered following these episodes, had a profoundly formative effect upon the Arabs.

... as he brought the Qur'an to light, verse by verse, sura [a chapter] by sura, and recited it to the people, many of them recognised it at a profound level. It was able to break through their prejudices, anxieties and ideological objections to an imaginative, spiritual and social solution [to their problems] that nobody had thought of before but which answered their deepest longings and aspirations.

FIELD CONDITIONS AND EMERGENCE OF FORM

As quoted above, a transhuman epiphany "occurs in and through historical processes" that is, through phenomena, or at least this is the only way it can be discussed within Formative Spirituality. By utilizing the field model we are able to resist the tendency to reduce our understanding to but one perspective. By using the field model as an "approach to" and a "conceptualization of" we are enabled to sketch the broad outlines of the field-dialogue out of which this "revelation", this creative emergence of a profoundly directive hermeneutic, emerged as phenomenal form.

The Arabs at the time of Muhammad were, as a whole, going through extensive physical, social, subjective and spiritual changes. Life had always been precarious, competitive and malnourished. Though they honored sacred places and various gods and goddesses, they had not developed a mythology that would personalize them in a way similar to Greek or Roman mythology, nor did the Arabs have a sense of an afterlife. Identity was purely communal-- there was no "self" other than the tribe and no sense of a natural law. The essential faith-form hermeneutic was produced by means of a combination of tribal ethics, a communal sense of self, and pagan idolatry all communicated through poetry. However, as brutal and as primitive as this nomadic life was, it was consonant. The various aspects of human experience fit together physically, socially, subjectively and spiritually.

At the time of Muhammad, though, this rough and nomadic life was changing drastically as some tribes began to settle into a capitalist and city-based life along the caravan routes, most notably in the valley of Mecca and the oasis of Yathrib (later Medina). These changes brought to the settlers a "spiritual restlessness and malaise"-- a dissonance. Old values, such as protection of the weaker member of a tribe or clan, were breaking down. "The tribal system simply did not work when the Arabs were no longer roaming vast territories but living together in close proximity." That is, the various aspects of life no longer fit together. Form reception and donation was no longer consonant. For the first time some had wealth and more of an individual, rather than communal, sense of self. They began to be more aware of ideas from the various civilizations around them which resulted in feelings of inadequacy. The nomadic lifestyle was slowly being replaced by a rapacious, settled capitalism. There was a malaise... a need for new directives to formation.

When we look at these changes from within the field model we begin to see them as a dialogue of directives: a change in one pole of the field necessarily showing up in the other three. Because the human "...is a dialogue" it is difficult to place the genesis of these changes in any one particular pole. However, we could choose a perspective and say that they were spurred by a change that was primarily physical: the change from a nomadic life to a settled existence. This resulted in additional physical changes: the acquisition of wealth and thus adequate nutrition as well as luxury. This then shows up in the social pole as the economic change (capitalism) and a shift in emphasis from the social pole (communal identity) to the subjective (individual identity). However, one could also begin to portray this dialogue from within the social pole: trade brought wealth and exposure to other lands (new directives), brought the physical change of a settled life, etc. Regardless of a chosen particular perspective on the situation, of how to linearly present the co-presence of data, one thing is certain: dissonance. For the Arab of the time, particularly the settled ones, there was a profound sense of things, of themselves not "fitting in". The directives to formation no longer produced consonance, rough as it had been. The old hermeneutic of physical, social, subjective and spiritual experience was no longer adequate.

The Arabs were somewhat aware of Jews and Christians and their monotheistic hermeneutic of mystery. (However, their theology might not be recognizable to that of today's Jews and Christians.) There were individual Arabs who were called hanif, not quite Jew, not quite Christian, but monotheists just the same. They denounced the usual pagan practices. Abraham, being prior to both Judaism and Christianity, was considered to be a hanif.

Muhammad the unique individual was born into this milieu of change and flux and break-down and could be considered a hanif. He was a member of a poor clan that was a part of the most powerful tribe. Nicknamed al-Amin, the trustworthy or the reliable, he grew to be a good-looking, well-liked and responsible man. He was a merchant known for his kindness to the poor and to slaves and had taken the habit of making meditative retreats. It was during one of these retreats that the first "episode of revelation" occurred. Armstrong writes that he was "acutely aware of the malaise" of the Arabs and that he "diagnosed" it "very accurately". We would say that he partook of a monotheistic faith tradition or hermeneutic of mystery, he was aware of the dissonance and apprehended that the foundation of this societal dissonance had to do with the pagan hermeneutic.

THE QUR'ANIC PROHIBITION

The Qur'anic injunction concerning wine and gambling came approximately nineteen years into Muhammad's mission and approximately four years before his death. The pre-Muslim Arabs were decidedly not teetotalers:

To the pre-Islamic Arab, alcohol probably served a much greater psychological necessity than to any other society of his time.... ....if we take the modern view of psychologists and psychoanalysts who consider alcohol dependence in adulthood as a direct result of example plus childhood deprivation, insecurity, broken families or emotional traumas, then the life of the pre-Islamic family must have created optimum conditions for bringing up alcoholics... ....Ancient Arabic poetry is full of literary works glorifying excessive drinking and gambling as signs of manhood and chauvinism.

A leading commentator on the Qur'an, S. Abul a'la Maududi, writes about the situation at the time of the actual prohibition:

The Muslim civilization had developed in accordance with the principles of Islam and the Islamic viewpoint. This civilization was quite distinct from all other civilizations in all its details, and distinguished the Muslims clearly from the non-Muslims in their moral, social and cultural behavior.

The outright prohibition was preceded by increasing restrictions on the use of alcohol. Thus, the prohibition was at the end of a process instigated by a change in spirituality. At first there were distinctions between food and drink that is wholesome and unwholesome. Then there was a specific statement that alcohol and gambling have some good to them, but also evil. Eventually, the Muslims were prohibited from attending their five daily prayers drunk. Finally, there was a total prohibition.

They ask you concerning wine and gambling. Say: "There is great harm in both, although they have some benefit for men; but their harm is far greater than their benefit."

Believers, do not approach your prayers when you are drunk, but wait till you can grasp the meaning of your words...

Believers, wine and games of chance, idols and divining arrows, are abominations devised by Satan. Avoid them, so that you may prosper. Satan seeks to stir up enmity and hatred among you by means of wine and gambling, and to keep you from the remembrance of God and from your prayers. Will you not abstain from them?

Just as there was a particular field-configuration prior to the emergence of the new form of the Qur'an, so too there is a reformation of the entire field of those first Muslims, based upon the Qur'anic interpretation of mystery, so that the prohibitive directive can emerge and be embodied as actual form. So effective was the process of reformation that when the prohibition was finally revealed those whose cups were filled with alcohol immediately poured it out and the production, trade and use of alcoholic beverages, in general, ceased. Subsequently, the Islamic tradition would consider the use of alcohol as a most heinous sin, and by analogy all other mood-altering drugs (except for medicinal purposes, of course). It would be a mistake to think that all use of alcohol stopped. One early account details an incident:

Narrated Abu Salama: Abu Huraira said, "A man who drank wine was brought to the Prophet. The Prophet said, 'Beat him!'" Abu Huraira added, "So some of us beat him with our hands, and some with their shoes, and some with their garments (by twisting it) like a lash, and then when we finished, someone said to him, 'May God disgrace you!' On that the Prophet said, 'Do not say so, for you are helping Satan to overpower him.'"

According to one writer this was the harshest of three measures used upon those who, after the prohibition, continued drinking. The first was the social pressure of one's fellow Muslims and the fact that alcohol was no longer regularly available. This is also a technique used by AA. AA stresses the fact that it is a fellowship and one of their usual sayings is "If you don't want to slip, stay out of slippery places" meaning that to be in proximity to alcohol, or where it is easily available, increases the chances of drinking. The second measure was direct disapproval from Muhammad himself, and the third and harshest was the public beating. (The few books on alcohol speak favorably of "aversion techniques".)

But we are concerned here with the success, which by any standard, and certainly when compared to American attempts at prohibition, was astounding. We can say that the prohibition was successful largely because of re-formation that had already taken place in various poles of the field. The re-interpretation of mystery, combined with Qur'anic directives towards a change in social structure, increased hygiene, and a new sense of self as part of a new, divinely inspired community-with-a-purpose represent a reconfiguration of the human-as-field such that the directive concerning alcohol was now easily embodied.

The change in behaviors regarding alcohol are, in essence, symptomatic of the spiritual change. That is, the change in behavior is due to a change in awareness of and response to the mystery of formation. This awareness and response is necessarily reflected in the other poles of the field.

MUSLIM HERMENEUTIC OF MYSTERY

Out of the formation field that Muhammad was, a new and powerful form emerged: the Qur'an. The Qur'an not only provides an interpretation of the mystery, but claims it is a communication from the mystery itself. Thus, the directives for human formation it contains-- which allegedly point the way to consonance-- are being provided by the actual foundation of all formation whatsoever. The profundity of such a statement cannot be over-emphasized and was not lost on Muhammad's contemporaries. In looking at the situation of the Arabs we noted that, from within a field perspective, the origination of the dissonance could not be reduced down to any one pole of the field. However, the beginning of Islam and the origin of new directives in addressing the dissonance clearly originates out of the spiritual pole, though it shows as phenomenal by means of subjective, social and physical formation.

The Qur'an itself specifically denies being authored by Muhammad and Muhammad himself claimed that it was from God, not of his own devising.

The revelation of the Book is from God, the Exalted in Power, Full of Wisdom.

(This is) the revelation of the Book in which there is no doubt,-- from the Lord of the Worlds. Or do they say, "He has forged it"? No, it is the Truth from your Lord...

It is not the word of a poet: Little it is you believe! Nor is it the word of a soothsayer: Little admonition it is you receive! (This is) a Message sent down from the Lord of the Worlds.

The mystery is God, has certain attributes and does certain things. These attributes of the mystery found in the Qur'an are often codified as "The 99 Names of Allah" such as are contained in this verse:

He is God; there is no god but He. He is the Knower of the Unseen and the Visible; He is the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate. He is God; there is no god but He. He is the King, the All-Holy, the All-Peaceable, the All-Faithful, the All-Preserver, the All-Mighty, the All-Compeller, the All-Sublime. Glory be to God, above what they associate! He is God, the Creator, the Maker, the Shaper. To Him belong the Names Most Beautiful. All that is in the heavens and the earth magnifies Him; He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.

The attributes of the mystery, however, are not all what we would call "nice". Some are down-right scary. The mystery is "The Preventor" (Al-Mani), "The One Who Causes Loss" (Ad-Darr), "The Abaser" (Al-Khafid), "The Giver of Death" (Al-Mumit), "The Humiliator" (Al-Mudhill), etc.

The mystery acts, it does things:

It is God who splits the grain and the date-stone, brings forth the living from the dead; He brings forth the dead too from the living. So that then is God; then how are you perverted? He splits the sky into dawn, and has made the night for a repose, and the sun and moon for a reckoning. That is the ordaining of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing. It is He who has appointed for you the stars, that by them you might be guided in the shadows of land and sea. We have distinguished the signs for a people who know. It is He who produced you from one living soul, and then a lodging place, and then a repository. We have distinguished the signs for a people who understand.

And yet, the mystery qua mystery remains, it is wholly transcendent:

Say; "He is God, the One, the Eternal. He neither begets, nor is begotten. There is nothing like God, Unique"

Mainstream, orthodox Islam is quite strict about maintaining a sense of absolute transcendence in spite of the identification of attributes of the mystery. That is, they respond to the same difficulty we face: how to talk about that which is not phenomenal. How do we talk empirically about the non-empirical mystery? There must always be some degree of distinction between the mystery and our talk about it-- we are stuck in a type of dualism in the sense of discourse being possible only by means of "two-ness"-- and discourse itself is the negation of mystery. The mystery, however, represents a unity in that it is what is consistently present through all phenomena-present-to-consciousness. We have already seen that in van Kaam this can show up as the need to distinguish the transcendent from the functional and the subjective from other aspects of experience. This need to distinguish, necessary for any discourse, can then be mistaken in such a way that it encourages the Cartesian-style duality we are trying to escape. This issue points the clinician in a direction for the assessment for spiritual health: to what degree does a given individual confuse discourse about the mystery for the mystery itself? That is, is there a confusion between the experience of discourse on mystery with the experience of mystery qua mystery? Does the individual mistake the discourse for the reality?

The Muslim tradition has wrestled with this in light of discussions on the proper hermeneutic of the Qur'anic statements concerning the actions and attributes of God. Given the belief in the Qur'an as direct revelation, there is a tension between the tendency to then interpret the Qur'anic text in a figurative (moving away from discourse to mystery) or literal (holding only to the phenomenon of discourse) manner. The history of Islam is wracked by this debate. Keller writes:

Others have gone to the opposite extreme of barring all figurative interpretation, among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal (Allah be well pleased with him), who even forbade metaphorical interpretation of Allah's words, "'Be!' and it is" (Koran 36: 82), some of his school claiming that this is an actual utterance of articulated letters and a voice, proceeding from Allah Most High at every moment, commensurate in number with every existent being....

[Hanbal] forbade figurative interpretation in order to close the discussion in the interests of the people, for once the door is opened, the rift widens and the matter gets out of control, exceeding the bounds of moderation.... there is no harm in sternly warning against figurative interpretation, a position that is attested to by the behavior of the early Muslims, who used to say, "Accept such things as they have come." When asked about Allah's "establishment on the Throne", Imam Malik (Allah have mercy on him) said, "'Establishment' is known, the how of it is unknown, belief in it is obligatory, and questions about it are reprehensible innovation (bid'a)."

The way of moderation between all this... is a very fine line and difficult to perceive, one which few people know except the successful."

This is essentially an attempt to delineate a proper ordering between the transcendent and the mundane, the non-empirical and the empirical, the mystery and the phenomena by which mystery appears and thus the co-presence of data. By means of this ordering the integrity of mystery qua mystery is maintained. (But as we shall see below, Islam too runs into problems because of the necessity of distinction.)

The Qur'an repeatedly points to phenomena as signs (ayat) of the mystery-as-deity to humans. That is, the alleged transhuman epiphany of the Qur'an points to, or draws attention to, the cosmic and human epiphanies as revealing the same truth about reality as is articulated in the Qur'an by the transhuman epiphany. This is a constant theme and closely parallels the "epiphanies" of the mystery spoken of by Byrne and van Kaam. This would seem to add to the probability that Formative Spirituality has indeed captured some trans-temporal, trans-cultural elements in its theory.

Once this hermeneutic is accepted, directives to formation are provided, the essence of the directives being to "submit" which is the meaning of "islam". That is, to submit to the will of God/mystery as it is revealed-- in van Kaam's terms to abandon oneself to the mystery-as-benevolent in order to move towards consonance.

TAWHID

The central phrase of Muhammad's preaching was la ilaha illa Allah, which roughly translated is: there is no god but God. The Muslim understanding of mystery, and the implications of la ilaha illa Allah is contained in the construct of al tawhid, an untranslatable term referring to the unity or oneness of the mystery-as-deity and the implications therefrom.

Traditionally and simply expressed, al tawhid is the conviction and witnessing that "there is no god but God." This seemingly negative statement, brief to the utmost limits of brevity, carries the greatest and richest meanings in the whole of Islam. Sometimes a whole culture, a whole history lies compressed in one sentence. ...All the diversity , wealth and history, culture and learning, wisdom and civilization of Islam is compressed in this shortest of sentences-- la ilaha illa Allah (There is no god but God.) ...Al Tawhid is a general view of reality, of truth, of the world, of space and time, of human history and destiny...

Tawhid is a concept that those coming out of a Newtonian-Cartesian heritage cannot easily grasp. 'Alija 'Ali Izetbegovic writes that "...it is not possible to express Islam using European terminology." Faruqi writes that Islam is "radically different" from Greek, Jewish and Christian humanism. From within a familiar, Euro-Christian world-view, Islam is not a religion in that it does not separate the mystery from phenomena. And yet, it is neither pantheistic, nor is it panentheistic. Islam, as expressive of a tawhidian world-view, is a wholly other hermeneutic category.

Islam knows no specifically "religious" literature in the European sense of the word...

Islam is Christianity reoriented toward the world.

Religion [in the Euro-Christian sense] accepted the world of facts and became Islam.

By these statements Izetbegovic does not mean to point to a difference between Euro-Christian and Islamic activism, but to the splitting of mystery from phenomena. From within the tawhidian hermeneutic this Christian tendency to split mystery from phenomena is contained in Jesus' directive to separate the tribute to God from the tribute to Caesar. It is the thought, often found in Christian discourse, that to increasingly deny the physical means that one is necessarily more fully spiritual. From within the tawhidian world-view Christianity is unacceptably other-worldly. The separation of the spiritual from the physical, subjective, and social aspects of human formation simply does not exist in Islam and thus provides a rich body of material for the further development of formation theory.

Tawhid contains five core principles that parallel both the Twelve Steps and formation theory. These principles contain what is considered to be self-evident truth in Islam. "They constitute the core of al tawhid and the quintessence of Islam."

A. Duality. Allah ("the God"), the Muslim interpretation of the mystery, is ontologically separate from space-time human experience. The transcendent is utterly so. Thus, there is never the tendency to de-mystify the mystery by means of our discourse about the mystery. This is commonly expressed through a strict prohibition of certain types of symbolic images and an abhorrence for anything that smacks of anthropomorphism.

B. Ideationality. The relation between the spiritual/transcendent and the mundane, between the mystery and phenomena, is ideational in nature. Human discourse is the point of reference for this relationship. People can comprehend what is demanded by this relationship in service of their quest for consonance. Understanding is provided with material by the mystery (revelation from Allah), and by disciplined observation. Indeed, a transhuman epiphany is not even a strict necessity for the human to express its spiritual form potency in a consonant manner. "The Quran told of man's endowment with the senses, with a capacity for knowledge of nature, of God and of His will, strong enough to be trustworthy indeed to substitute for revelation or to be its equal."

C. Teleology. The processes of formation are meaningful and purposive: "It was not in sport that We created the heaven and the earth and all that lies between them. Had it been Our will to find a pastime, We could have found one near at hand." The purpose or goal of these formative processes is attainable: the mystery itself will guide and assist and will never impose a formative burden that cannot be borne. Formation has direction.

D. Capacity of the human and the malleability of nature. In van Kaam's terms: the human process is one of form reception and donation with a degree of freedom. The Muslim is capable of understanding the will of God for creation and embodying that will through molding him/her self as well as the non-human world.

E. Responsibility and judgment. It is the individual Muslim who is responsible for formation, and is able to appraise various directives to formation.

Tawhid is not only a statement concerning the nature of reality, but a methodological principle as well, consisting of three principles. "...first, rejection of all that does not correspond with reality; second, denial of ultimate contradictions; third, openness to new and/or contrary evidence." This is similar to what van Kaam calls "field thinking". Tawhid points to the dialogical nature of human apprehension and formation which necessitates an openness to form appreciative apprehensions and directives, the attempt to integrate those that are novel, and a grounding in actual phenomena. Tawhid functions in Islam as does a field model for those immersed in a Cartesian-Euro-Christian faith and form tradition. That is, it is a means by which the co-presence of data can be approached and organized.

DUALISTIC TENDENCIES IN ISLAM

People engage in certain behaviors, such as use of intoxicants, because they alter mood. The behaviors make them feel good, or better than they did, or better than they normally do, at least temporarily. Mood-altering is essentially an issue of the subjective aspect of the human field of formation (though this is not to reduce our understanding of mood-altering behaviors to the subjective). I have rarely seen this type of mental health issue addressed in Muslim writings. They do not really address the issue of the individual feeling bad. The tradition seems to have integrated well into its hermeneutic of the mystery the social and the physical, and has a relatively concrete interpretation of the mystery, but compared to the Euro-Christian, has neglected parts of the subjective. Islam certainly addresses suffering, but not the fullness of the subjective experience of suffering that may show as mood-altering behaviors.

We have seen that Formative Spirituality emerges out of a concern for the reductionistic and dualistic limitations of the Cartesian world-view. Thus, we frequently encounter van Kaam writing about bio-psycho-social formation in light of transcendence in order to communicate that aspect of experience marginalized by Cartesianism. Again, the reader of van Kaam is cautioned not to mistake this as indicating some type of a subtle duality in addition to the one pointed out previously between subjective experience and other aspects of experience. Spirituality, under the influence of Christian other-worldliness and Cartesian-inspired reductionism, has, in the West, been relegated by many to non-existence, to something not a real part of human experience. The use of a field model allows them the means to re-view the unity of human experience-- including experience of the mystery-- and thus their spirituality.

Islam, by virtue of its tawhidian world-view, never lost sight of the essential unity-- the field-like quality-- of reality, and thus did not lose sight of the mystery. It has always had a clear view of the goal of human formation, consonance, and the necessity of spirituality as the central component of that consonance. Tawhid recognizes the "fitting together" of phenomena as a consonant unity, and recognizes the dialogical quality of phenomenon as distinct. "All creatures are interdependent, and the whole of creation runs because of the perfect harmony which exists between its parts." This is fine in principle, but contrary to tawhid, Islam seems to suffer from a reductionistic tendency similar to the Cartesian reduction to the physical-subjective. The Islamic form tradition tends to skew its hermeneutic to the social thus neglecting the subjective.

Because of tawhid-- Islam's means of ordering the co-presence of data-- the Islamic prohibition of intoxicants and gambling is not reducible to the issue of spirituality though the prohibition originates directly from the mystery, i.e. it is a command from God. For many Muslim writers it is not even a primarily spiritual issue other than in terms of one's obedience or disobedience to it. There is no indication of the subjective perspective on the prohibited mood-altering behaviors. Indeed, there is no discussion that I have found that talks about them as mood-altering. Rather, the form appreciative apprehension of the directive to prohibition is seen in the usual social terms. Thus it is not surprising to read:

Some Islamic postulates are religious only in title, form, or origin. Nevertheless, they are Islamic in the best sense of the word. This clearly applies to the... prohibition of alcohol."

The prohibition of alcohol in Islam primarily has a social character since alcohol is firstly a social evil. Religion in general can have nothing against alcohol... When Islam forbids alcohol, it functions as a science, not as a religion.

Notice that the writer does not see the use of alcohol as primarily spiritual, nor as a way to alter, or give form to, one's subjectivity. It is primarily social. This statement is not only debatable (could use of alcohol be firstly an evil with regard to the drinker's physical health?) but would almost seem to violate a tawhidian approach to the issue. Could this Cartesian-like emphasis be because Islam emerges out of a communal sense of self, from a milieu where subjective response is tied more to the fortunes of the group rather than the individual as unique? Izetbegovic writes that "The Qur'an rarely addresses the individual. It more frequently addresses the people, and when it does, sometimes as citizens only." Indeed, it appears that throughout Islamic intellectual history there has always been a tension with, or a suspicion of the subjective as roughly represented by reactions to the Sufis.

Early in Islamic history there was a tension between ijtihad, personal interpretation, and ijma', interpretative consensus of the community.

...a theory of the infallibility of the Ijma' was developed whereby the early concept of a pragmatic authority of the Community's consensus was changed into a theoretical absoluteness of the Community in terms of truth-values.

...The qualifications for ijtihad were made so immaculate and rigorous and were set so high that they were humanly impossible of fulfillment.

This essentially functioned as a close-to-complete denial of subjective interpretation of Qur'an as having any validity. Hermeneutic validity was almost purely social, or intersubjective. The individual could only function as an interpretative being in and through a school of law. Only those individuals who had been thoroughly trained within these schools of law could even hope to engage in valid ijtihad-- and even then it was the rare individual who would claim such a privilege. This is not to say that even in its legalism Islam denies subjectivity, "Indeed, the trans-legal religious and moral state of the agent's heart (faith, intention and will) is demanded by this system to be present in all behaviour." But for those coming from the Cartesian perspective, which emphasizes the subjective, the Islamic integration of the subjective seems to be almost non-existent.

A type of balance and integration between the subjective (Sufi) and social-legal intellectualism (kalam) was achieved by al-Ghazali (d. 1111):

The kalam formulates the Command: mysticism reveals it to man in a way that his whole being is transformed into its receptacle and organ. ...The synthesis thus achieved by al-Ghazali between Sufism and kalam was largely adopted by orthodoxy and confirmed by Ijma'.

And yet, there were those who opposed al-Ghazali and so the dualistic split continued. This dichotomy, somewhat similar to the idealism-positivism dichotomy that spurred van Kaam's concerns, shows up today in the almost Pharisaic legalism of many contemporary Muslims, contrasted with the "vehement" call for ijtihad by "modernist thinkers". But it would appear that within the Muslim tradition there has not been a recognition of the essential problem-- what I call Muslim "suspicion of the subjective". In Muslim writing the problem of valid interpretation is couched in profoundly social terms. Discussion of the permissibility of ijtihad is always in terms of the ummah, the trans-cultural, almost post-nationalist conception of the "community of believers". This also shows up in organizational structures which evidence a profound mistrust of anyone who might seek a position of authority. If we understand law to be the field that orients social relations we can easily see the reductionist tendency in Islam, albeit to the social pole of the human-as-field, rather than the subjective.

As an explicit field model of the human aids in the correction of Cartesian extremism, so too could it aid contemporary Muslims.

VAN KAAM'S "AUTARCHISM" AND MUSLIM SUSPICION OF THE SUBJECTIVE

And yet, we saw that at the time of Muhammad the old communal self was breaking down and being replaced by a new sense of individualism, a new appreciation for subjective experience as set against social experience. At that time there would thus seem to be a similarity here with the West's experience of a Cartesian hermeneutic in that there appears to have been a tendency to exalt subjective experience over and against the other three aspects of human experience (or at least, for the pre-Muslims, over and against the social). Van Kaam calls this "autarchy" (or sometimes "autarky") which means "self-sufficient". For van Kaam autarchism represents, and is the result of a hermeneutic that denies the field-like quality of reality, and exalts subjective experience over and above social, physical or spiritual experience. It is what I call "subjective prejudice". Autarchism is essentially another way of discussing the Newtonian-Cartesian hermeneutic of human experience, but it can be used to illustrate Muslim suspicion of the subjective and exaltation of the social. Van Kaam writes:

No form can be perceived as an isolated, autarchic entity. ...The autarchic pride-form may create the illusion that the person in isolation is the source of the formation of life and world.

This... cuts life off from the mystery of human formation. When people become captives of their own isolated transcendent subjectivity, everything they know, understand, possess, and encounter is valued only in relation to the isolating pride-form of life. The world around them, including their culture and its underlying form traditions, has no directive value for them. Everything is appraised as useful or useless according to the subjective criteria of their project of self-actualization.

Van Kaam's use of "autarchic" explicitly distinguishes the subjective from the rest of the field. We have already noted that this could feed a reader's tendency to understand formation theory in a manner that reflects the remnants of a Cartesian, rather than field method of cognitive organization. Now we have also seen that the Islamic tradition seems to over-emphasize the social pole of the field to the neglect of the subjective. The pre-Muslim Arab sense of "self-actualization" was tribal, not personal. Would it not be more descriptive of actual formation dynamics, and in keeping with our theoretical constructs thus far, to understand "autarchism" as a description of the over-emphasis of any one pole of the field? That is, a Muslim autarchism would be a tendency to exalt the social, a Cartesian autarchism would be a tendency to exalt the subjective. A Materialist autarchism would exalt physical health. Autarchy would thus denote a skewed balance amongst the poles of the field. It would indicate that an individual's sense of "self" has been reduced to particular poles of the field (thus exalting them), but without indicating the actual field-dialogical makeup of that self-concept. If we accept this broader understanding of "autarchism" we are able to anticipate a clinical term and tool for assessment that would "map" the degrees of emphasis the individual places on various poles of the field. The clinician assessing spiritual health would look for a conspicuous de-emphasis of mystery as significant for the client's sense of self, and a concurrent exaltation of some other pole of the field as primarily significant for the client's sense of self.

The Qur'an directly addresses the issue of autarchism, denying any human self-sufficiency and reserving such a quality for the mystery itself. It thus contains an implicit hermeneutic of the subjective-- or of whichever pole the "self" is thought to reside in. "The Self-Sufficient" is one of the names or attributes of the mystery-as-deity. The Qur'an specifically warns those who would consider themselves "self-sufficient", i.e. those who are being autarchic. Their "path to Misery" will be made easy and indeed "man does transgress all bounds, in that he looks upon himself as self-sufficient". Such an attitude is associated with those who are rich and powerful.

TOWARDS AN ISLAMIC HERMENEUTIC OF MOOD

If we understand psychology to be the field that studies subjective experience contemporary Muslim writing is just beginning to dialogue with psychology. There is little evidence that psychology is even recognized as a legitimate field of inquiry by many, and those Muslims attempting psychology articulate it in profoundly social terms. In contemporary Muslim writings on the issue the discourse is couched under a rubric of "psycho-ethics" with the emphasis on the "ethics". There is also the tendency to refer to the great al-Ghazali mentioned above. This seems natural as he was the main Muslim writer to integrate the subjective (Sufi) with the social (legal) in light of the alleged transhuman epiphany of the Qur'an. However, this tendency also shows the Muslim intellectual neglect on the issue over the last few centuries. The writing just doesn't seem to dialogue with contemporary issues on the topic, but seems more like a type of historical study.

The question of the Islamic hermeneutic of subjective mood would, of course, relate to tawhid and what in life is the "cause" of purely subjective formative events such as mood. Because tawhid speaks of unity Islamic thought approaches phenomena-as-discrete in a way that is different from the Newtonian-Cartesian mechanistic paradigm, but in a way that anticipates contemporary trends in philosophy of science.

Some Western scientists, notably those of the nineteenth century, have claimed that the patterned fabric of nature is deducible from nature itself; i.e., from empirical observation. The same position was advocated by Muslim philosophers a millennium earlier and al Ghazali has refuted both with equal philosophical finesse.... That X follows Y... is a far cry from the scientists' claims that X was brought about, or caused, by Y; or that X will always follow upon Y because it is its necessary effect.

Nature, thus perceived through al tawhid, is fit and ready for "scientific" observation and analysis. For the Muslim scientist, the so-called "introduction-leap" [of scientific presupposition or paradigm] is not a leap at all, but another step in an ethymematic syllogism which begins with La ilaha illa Allah as its major promise.

For the Muslim, all causality is referred back to God, to the mystery. There is no sense of a deus otiosus. Each moment is new and shows only a relation of pattern to what goes before and what comes after. Essentially, Islam's scientific presupposition is that reality is mystery-- that all refers back to God-- including mood. The basis for such an understanding, and thus a Muslim psychology, is found in the Qur'an itself: "It is God who sends laughter and tears." Thus, a certain type of mood-altering behavior is not just a social problem, not just a physical problem, not just a "sin" of disobedience, but a denial of the patterns and causalities we observe. It is a denial of the very nature of reality itself in that it seeks to replace mystery-as-causal-agent with the intoxicant-using-self as causal agent.

Now this "powerlessness" of the human form as causal agent (including ultimate power over mood or subjective experience) does not imply a denial of form donation, nor does it encourage some type of passivity: "it's all God's will". This is not the same as denying the human potency to give form to and to be a ground out of which new forms emerge. It has more to do with our apprehension and appraisal of the actual processes of formation-- that in reality all experience begins and ends in the non-empirical mystery-- and thus there is a spiritual ground to human formation. Moods are "negative" or "positive" more by means of one's hermeneutic of mystery rather than by means of any inherent quality in the phenomena of mood itself, or any inherent quality one may discern in phenomenal patterns related to mood.

Of course, this brings us into the realm of the Muslim understanding of free-will-- clearly outside the scope of this project. Suffice it to say that Islam reflects the phenomenalism of van Kaam in that it accepts the lived experience of free choice, even though it traces the root cause back into mystery. Form reception and donation are indubitable as are the unique forms that emerge from the human. An activism, a sense of free responsibility, is part of the human experience and is also demanded on the part of the Muslim by God in the form of jihad, or struggle to give form as directed by the mystery. But in Islam even that activism is not caused by the subject, but has its ultimate cause in God, or the mystery.

...the ontological power which diffuses being and non-being is God's alone to have and exercise. Humans are not creators. They can neither give being nor take it away, though they act as agents of such giving or taking away. Once made, such realization becomes a second nature to man, inseparable from him during all his waking hours. One then lives all the moments of his life under its shadow. And where man recognizes God's action in every object and event, he follows the divine initiative because it is God's. To observe it in nature is to do natural science, for the divine initiative in nature is none other than the immutable laws with which God had endowed nature. To observe the divine initiative in one's self or in one's society is to pursue the humanities and the social sciences. ...the universe is, in the eye of the Muslim, a living theater set in motion by God's command and action. The theater itself, as well as all it includes, is explicable in these terms.

In Islam, "secularization" refers only to the "removal from nature of the many theurgical causes, of ghosts and spirits, which superstitious people and mystery-mongers have falsely ascribed to natural events. Science does not require the removal of God from nature, but that of ghosts and spirits that act arbitrarily and unpredictably." The Qur'an points to the fact that mystery-as-God is not only benevolent, but regular. "You will never find exception to the patterns of God in creation. His patterns are immutable." These patterns necessarily include a degree of dissonance, of patterns of growth and destruction, life and death, hardship and ease, judgment and forgiveness, riches and poverty, laughter and tears. That is, these patterns include patterns of mood. The Qur'an does not just describe these patterns, but provides directives concerning the proper response to and understanding of these patterns. Some examples of these directives are jihad in the social and personal arenas, study of the physical, patience in the subjective and faith in mystery's benevolence in the spiritual.

The Muslim at ease with tawhid, with the dialogical, wholistic and mysterious quality of human experience, maintains a hermeneutic of essential integration of experience, and hence, an underlying contentment or acceptance of the "will of God", a dispassionate scientific-scholarly approach to experience, that is, a particular mood based upon the essential hermeneutic of mystery. The "Muslim mood", called taqwa, flows naturally from a regular and consistent awareness of, and foundational abandonment to the mystery as benevolent. This healthy spirituality precludes the need for, or even the desire to alter mood. Thus, for the Muslim, both a (subjective) "negative" mood and the (also subjective) desire to give form to that mood by prohibited means may indicate a spiritual disorder, a disturbance in the awareness of or relation to the mystery. The reformation of the subjective by prohibited means could be due to an insufficient degree of submission to the will of God as that will is expressed by the fact of mood. It could be due to an inclination to deny God as cause of all events by trying to "cause" mood, or it could be a failure to see the mood as part of formative patterns, that is, as one part of the wholistic dialogue that is the human form. Thus, prohibited mood-altering behavior would indicate an insufficient immersion in the tawhidian world-view and thus indicate a spiritual disorder.

It would seem that, within the Islamic-tawhidian hermeneutic, to alter mood in a prohibited way is to take on the job of God, or the mystery, in the sense that one interprets one's own self as the cause of mood, or attempts to be that cause. We shall see in the next chapter how AA begins with a statement of human "powerlessness" over phenomena. Tawhid is a similar statement about the human condition. It is also implied within "islam" ("submission") itself which is echoed in the AA saying "Let go and let God" and in the Third Step, "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him". Formative Spirituality echoes these sentiments with its concern for autarchy and abandonment to the mystery as a necessary condition for consonance.

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