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all articles gulberg articlesDr. Khalid Sohail: A Pilgrim’s Progress |
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Dr. Khalid Sohail: A Pilgrim’s Progress
Mohammad Gill
November 16, 2005 |
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Dr. Khalid Sohail is a multi-faceted and intellectually gifted person. He is a prolific writer not only in his own professional field (psychiatry and psycho-therapy) but also on topics as varied as religion, mythology, spirituality, agnosticism and atheism, and Humanism among others. To top it all, he is a poet too.
After his long journey from traditional belief and practice of Islam to unbelief and atheism, he concluded, “When I was a believer I wanted to follow religious laws and traditions in this life and go to Heaven after I die. After becoming a Humanist, I aspire to become a person who has:
· The mind of a scientist that enjoys rational thinking,
· The heart of a poet that cherishes aesthetic values, and
· The personality of a mystic that fosters peaceful living and serves humanity.
I have gradually realized that alongside my physical, psychological and social dimension, I also have a spiritual dimension to my personality. But my spirituality is part of my humanity and not part of divinity. I feel strongly that I can live in a peaceful life without God.”
I give the following verse as a specimen of his Urdu poetry.
Ajab skoon haiy mein jiss fazaa main rehtah hoon
Mein apni zaat kay ghar-e-Hira main rehatah hoon
Approximate translation:
I have a strange kind of peace in the ambience that I inhabit
I live in the “cave of Hira” of my own being
By his own assertion, Dr. Sohail is a psychiatrist, poet and a writer who has a wide range of interests and passions. He got his degree in medicine (MBBS) from Khyber Medical College, Peshawar, Pakistan, (although he hails from Punjab), in 1974 and completed his residency in psychiatry at Memorial University, Newfoundland, Newfoundland in 1982. He worked in psychiatry hospitals in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Ontario during 1983-95. He left the hospital practice to open his Creative Psychotherapy Clinic in Whitby, Ontario, in 1995. He is a FRCP (Canada).
He has presented professional papers in conferences on topics such as Mystery of Love, Therapy with Immigrants, Therapy with People suffering from Schizophrenia, etc. He has written books on topics like Therapeutic Encounters, From One Culture to Another (Therapy with Immigrants), Mixed Marriages: A 21st Century Phenomenon, etc.
He has also written poetry (Pages of Heart), short stories (Breaking the Chains) and a novella (A Broken Man). He wrote books on religious topics such as From Islam to Secular Humanism, The Myth of the Chosen One: Serial Killers, etc. I haven’t read any of the above works.
He has also written a book on the profiles of some politicians and social reformers. The title of the book is Prophets of Violence: Prophets of Peace. He gifted a complimentary copy to me which I have read selectively. The book includes chapters on Martin Luther King, Jr., The Dalai Lama, Mohandas Gandhi, Tagore, Iqbal, Jinnah, Ataturk, among others.
So much for his biographical information. However, the more interesting part of this story is how I came to know of him. One day, I was randomly surfing on the Internet when I came upon a website with an amusingly attractive title of “Family of the Heart.” The current topic of discussion was a seminar held on September 4, 2005 with a beguiling title of “Can We Say Goodbye to God?” I bookmarked the site and read the reviewers’ comments in my leisure time. A couple of interacts attracted my attention and I wrote my own comments critiquing the ideas that were expressed in the published interacts. One thing led to another and I started reading about the history of the website, which led me direct to Dr. Khalid Sohail who happens to be one of the founding fathers (if not the founding father) of the website. Some of my published comments came to his attention and he was interested in the ideas that I had expressed. We exchanged a few e-mails and he sent a complimentary copy of his book Prophets of Violence… I was impressed; the man is a genius.
He narrated the story of “Family of the Heart” to an inquisitive member of the family in which he stated that it all started when his dear friend, Dr. Dennis Isaac, and his charming wife Maria (I don’t know them) moved from Pakistan to Toronto. In order to break them into Toronto and the circle of his friends, Sohail invited some ten of his friends who included poets, writers and intellectuals to a dinner at his home. After dinner, he prompted his poet friends to recite their poetical works. Dennis was a playwright so he blended seamlessly with Sohail’s other artistic friends. This dinner party captivated every one so much that they decided to do it periodically at homes and residences and then at restaurants. One thing led to another and “family of the Heart” was born.
As Sohail himself described, “During that time when Family of the Heart was growing my book From Islam to Secular Humanism: A Philosophical Journey was published.” Several meetings followed afterwards in which the book was discussed. And “finally those meetings culminated in a seminar on the subject of Islam, Muslims and 21st Century” in which five of his friends presented articles and others wrote reviews to critique the seminar. This tradition is now continuing.
Sohail asserts, “Creative gifts are like seeds of the tree. If we provide them with fertile soil, fresh air and proper sunshine then those seeds are inspired to grow and blossom. That is what we are seeing (in) the Family of the Heart.”
Dr. Sohail’s story of his early life is indeed very similar to those of many of us. He received religious instruction in his childhood from his mother and religious practice (namaz, rozah, etc.) from his father. Religion was above and beyond questioning and something to believe in and practice. The image of God that he could form in his childhood was both merciful and tormenting. The maulanas told him mostly of the azaab of qabr (torments in the grave) and Jahannum (Hell).
The first emotional trauma in his growing-up years was of the wet dreams. His father gave him a copy of “Bihishti Zewar” as a guide to tide him through his transitional stage of puberty and sexual desires. The Zewar terrified him when he read that he had to take a bath in the morning to cleanse him of the impure discharge in his wet dreams. Imagine the winters of Peshawar and the early morning baths with cold water. This filled his mind with troubling questions as to why God had prescribed such harsh things for the teenager kids.
The next trauma came when the maulanas started telling him that masturbation was not only sinful, it caused incurable diseases also such as mental instability and cancer among others.
He narrated these traumatic facts of his adolescent life in a “matter of fact” style. We can laugh at them now but these facts caused (and may still cause to many others) a great deal of psychological pain. By and by through his education at the medical college, he became aware that “masturbation was quite normal and natural and which is why some people call it self-pleasuring rather than self-abuse.” When he was a teenager and did not know any thing better than what was told him by the “Zewar” and the ill-informed maulanas, “it was a big deal and I felt scared and sinful. It did not help my self-esteem.”
When he read of Embryology at the medical college, he learnt that a male sperm is required to fertilize a female ovum for making a baby. Immediately, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ assailed his mind. He asked a maulana about it, “If Mary had an ovum where did the sperm come from?” The maulana responded, “It was a miracle and God can perform miracles.” As a consequence, Sohail lost his belief in miracles. He came to similar conclusions regarding prayer also. He argued if prayer could deliver which a person asked of God why should he need to go to medical school to learn how to cure ill patients? He lost faith in prayer.
The man has an inquisitive mind right from his childhood and he did not allow it to be dulled down by traditional religious faith.
Although many other thoughts about God continued to perturb him, one which particularly wouldn’t leave him alone in peace was the omnipresence of God. God was always with him in his thoughts even at the very odd and embarrassing moments when he wanted privacy. For example, His presence in the bathroom while he took bath was troublesome to him. Most troublesome was God’s presence and overseeing in his bed room while he made love to his sweetheart and companion, Bette Davis. Irked by His omnipresence, he begged God to leave him alone. He told him he was now a responsible adult and quite capable of managing his own affairs without any help from Him. This is how he bade goodbye to his God and he is happy for doing so.
His personality needs a very large canvas on which it could be painted and depicted and such a task is not possible here within the space of this article. I shall conclude this biographical narrative with some brief information about his sweetheart who is, although not his conventional wife, rightly and most assuredly is his better half.
Bette Davis earned a Bachelor of Nursing in 1984 and got Master of Nursing in 1993 specializing in mental health and psychiatry. They met each other at Day Hospital Treatment Centre at the Waterford Hospital and having common professional interests and attracted by each other’s personality, they became close friends. Eventually, the inevitable had to happen and they became intimate and loving companions when they co-authored their book, Love, Sex and Marriage: Intimate Letters between Two Psychotherapist Friends.
Bette’s specialization includes, among others:
· Coping effectively with workplace stress, negativity and conflict;
· Critical incident stress debriefing;
· Coping effectively with anxiety and depression;
· Anger management;
· Building self-esteem (adult and youth)
Dr. Sohail has developed a new concept in therapy called “Green Zone Living” and written three books under the umbrella of Green Zone. He and his sweetheart, Bette Davis, coauthored their last book of the series called “The Art of Working in Your Green Zone”.
Together they work in the service of humanity bonded by their profession, loving affinity for each other and natural temperaments.
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