What is the Heart?

Assalaamu alaikum.

Intersting and inspiring message. Thanku for sharing it with us as reminder.

I listened to a recent lecture by a local scholar here in saudi...and this scholar is also a medical doctor...a heart specialist.

He has made several speaches on this very topic, expanding more and more angles towards better understanding of the whole thing.

I listened as one of the members of the audience asked the speaker a question, he mentioned that although there is much reference to the heart as 'feeling' center and emotional...yet scientifically it is merely a muscle which pumps the blood. And it is the brain which actually controls thought, and even controls the beating of the heart itself.

So...with this understanding, scientifically, is it not wrong to assume that our feelings and emotions and even spiritual beings do not actually rest within the heart??

And the scholar's answer was...to begin with, as we are told in the Quran...that our knowledge (even when we ourselves think it to be vast and deep)...is only limited. And then he went on to explain further.

He said that there are many references in the Quran itself, as well as in the sunnah, that the heart is the center of the feelings and emotions and spiritual being. Not the brain. The brain is for thinking, and the heart is for feeling and carrying out those feelings.

And so we should take it on the word of Allah that this is true, as it is mentioned in Quran, as well as mentioned by the prophet(SAAW).

Secondly, he related his own personal experiences as a heart specialist who has witnessed many heart transplants.

He has mentioned that those who have received a heart transplant, their feelings and emotions seem to change. It may not be so noticable to the lay person, but to him it was more obvious.

He mentioned that those patients who he had witnessed after their heart transplant...if they were given a present, for instance (i.e. something to react happily towards)...their reaction was dull and not happy (not necessarily sad, either-but definitely not happy).

And when they were presented with a snake (i.e. something to induce a frightened reaction), they reacted with non-surprise and no fear whatsoever. It could have been simply a glass of water that they were presented with, as well as it was a snake.

This is a simple non-clinical test helping to prove the declaration that the feelings lie within the heart, and not the brain.

The brain may send electric waves of orders...but it is the heart that commands them.

Perhaps similar to this computer and internet connections.

Our fingers do the typing, and we hit the enter key to send it all...but without the cv command center of the computer letting it go thru, then the rest is simply mechanical and worthless (for without the command to go thru, it will not obviously go out nor will the message reach it's destination.)

Perhaps a poor analogy. Sorry. First thing I could think of.

balqees.

Assalaamu alaikum.

I think it is not necessarily the case that we muslims (whether children or adults) listen to the non-muslims in favor of muslim directives. But rather that for all concerned-muslims and non-muslims alike-simply taking advice only on face value is difficult and many times we opt, out of our human nature, to not accept such advice until we have a proven reason to accept such advice.

And the advancements of medical and scientific studies-whether conducted by muslims or non-muslims-helps to only strengthen and verify that which is already existent in the form of perfect advice in Islam, in the Quran and in the sunnah both.

And it is exactly these medical and scientific 'proofs' which have helped to turn many non-muslims towards islam, in fact.

balqees.