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Shia Muslim Near-Death Experiences and Gratitude
- 2. Shia Islam What is Shia Islam? Who are shias?
- 3. Shia Islam: Five Principles of the Religion Oneness of God Justice Prophethood Guidance Resurrection
- 4. Near-Death Experiences Non-Western near-death experiences (NDEs) Muslim NDEs
- 5. Near-Death Experiences Recent research on Muslim NDEs Joel Kreps (2009): Muslim NDEs “appear to be quite rare in fact” (p. 84). Michael Nahm and Joachim Nicolay (2010) Cheryl Fracasso, Seyed Aleyasin, Harris Friedman, and M. Scott Young (2010)
- 6. Near-Death Experiences Our research and two unique contributions to the near-death literature Participants were Shia Muslims Investigated sense of gratitude
- 7. Near-Death Experiences In light of these considerations, we undertook a study of Iranian Shia Muslim NDEs to: Examine contents of NDEs among Iranian Shiite Muslims, Investigate similarities and differences between Iranian and Western NDEs and aftereffects, and Compare gratitude as an aftereffect between Iranian NDErs and those who survived close brushes with death without NDEs (CBrs).
- 8. Method Procedures Established a website Posted an announcement about the study Posted the questionnaire
- 9. Instruments Demographic survey (developed by researchers) NDE Scale (Greyson, 1983) Development and reliability of Persian version Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6; McCullough et al., 2002)
- 10. Participants and Analyses Self-identified Shia Muslims 18 years and older Living in various cities in Iran Quantitative analysis Qualitative analysis
- 11. Results - Quantitative 46 submitted questionnaires 33 were complete 20 (60.6%) scored 7 or higher 13 (39.4%) scored below 7
- 12. Results - Quantitative 14 9 6 4 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 NDErs CBrs Participants by Sex Men Women
- 13. Results - Quantitative 2 10 5 1 2 1 6 4 2 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 No high school diploma High school diploma Bachelor’s degree Master’s degree Doctoral degree Participants by Education NDErs CBrs
- 14. Results - Quantitative 5 14 1 3 8 2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18–30 31–50 51+ Participants by Age NDErs CBrs
- 15. Results - Quantitative 2 8 1 6 2 11 8 0 2 0 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Participants by Type of Near-Death Circumstances NDErs CBrs
- 16. Results - Quantitative Regarding Persian NDE Scale scores Total score range M SD 13 CBrs 0-6 3.84 2.37 20 NDErs 7-24 13.50 5.41
- 17. Incidence of selected NDE features OBE (Material aspect: Observing physical/material domain) Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 8 4 12 (60%) Case number 2: I was above my body. I could see the street and people around my corpse like a camera that is mounted above. They were worried about me.
- 18. Incidence of selected NDE features Passing into or through a tunnel Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 1 1 2 (10%) Case number 6: I remembered that I separated from my body and exposed to a tunnel of light. I didn’t want to go to the tunnel willingly; it vacuumed me. There was no way out, just a light that I was on the path to reach it.
- 19. Incidence of selected NDE features Positive emotions or feelings Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 8 4 12 (60%) Case number 13: I cannot describe the feeling of pleasure or sense of flight. I perceived love, kindness, and affection to the extent that I wanted to leave my body completely, and then my soul connected to somewhere else. I saw myself full of love and affection.
- 20. Incidence of selected NDE features Encountering an unearthly light Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 6 4 10 (50%) Case number 13: I was going to a gate from which a light was coming. As I came closer to the light it became shinier, more beautiful and more gorgeous, even I could see colorful particles of the light.
- 21. Encountering other beings (mystical beings or deceased relatives or friends) Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 5 3 8 (40%) Case number 6: I saw two strange beings. I cannot describe them. They blamed me for my suicide attempt and told me: “You should not be here. You have to go back.” Our communication was something like telepathy. Incidence of selected NDE features
- 22. Incidence of selected NDE features A sense of alteration of time and place Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 14 3 17 (85%) Case number 4: During my experience, time and place were meaningless. I could see anytime from the past and be anywhere even with long distance involuntarily.
- 23. Incidence of selected NDE features Life review Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 6 2 8 (40%) Case number 8: Suddenly, I felt all my life with all I have done in earth life, all of my sins were shown to me like a movie. This was along with severe mental punishment like shame before God and Martyrs.
- 24. Incidence of selected NDE features Encountering unworldly realms Men (14) Women (6) All (20) 4 3 7 (35%) Case number 5: I felt like I'm in a different place with different feelings. Great, good, tranquilizer, without fear, without pain.
- 25. Gratitude investigate possible differences in GQ-6 scores between NDErs and CBrs Significant with medium effect, t(31) = 3.00, p = .005, d = 1.06. Groups Range M SD NDErs 20–30 26.35 3.34 CBrs 14–30 22.00 5.00
- 26. Results - Qualitative Three NDE narratives translated from Persian to English: Mr. Abolhamid’s Narrative Mr. Behnam’s Narrative Mrs. Batool’s Narrative
- 27. Discussion and Conclusion Limitations: Sample size Translation
- 28. Findings Muslim NDEs do occur and they are not rare. NDE contents same between Shiite and Western NDErs Ineffability—difficulty describing NDE in human language NDErs and CBrs not different regarding gender, age, education, or time since close brush with death
- 29. Findings Aftereffects similar between Shia and Western NDErs Loss of fear of death, Paradox of looking forward to death while holding a conviction that life has purpose Commitment to live life to its fullest, Tendency to become more spiritual while becoming less affiliated with organized religion.
- 30. Conclusions Shia Muslim NDEs may not be heavily influenced by cultural or religious variations. NDEs may be universal in their fundamental nature NDEs may reflect transpersonal and transcendental phenomena
- 31. Unique contribution About using psychometrically sound instrument to assess gratitude
- 32. Recommendation for Future Research Use larger sample sizes of representative Muslim populations.
- 33. And finally… It is hoped that this study and future investigations of non-Western NDEs will advance understanding of NDEs. NDErs in non-Western cultures might face specific challenges openly expressing their NDEs as a result of the dearth of literature and public awareness. If so, studies of non-Western NDEs may advance appreciation of their challenges and hopefully help NDErs address such challenges to the greatest extent possible.
- 34. Special thanks to: Janice Holden, Ed.D. and co-authors: Jeffrey Long, M.D. Farnoosh Faith Nouri, Ph.D. Komeyl Farahnakian, M.A.
Editor's Notes
- The Shia the second largest denomination of Islam. The word shia means followers of Ali, faction of Ali, party of Ali. Ali is prophet Muhammad’s first cousin as well as his son-in-law.
- Belief in that He is One, only, Unique, Absolutely independent of anything. Ever living, Beneficent and Merciful. He has neither a colleague nor a partner. Belief in that God is Just. He will reward or punish any person according to his deeds. It is absolutely forbidden in Islam to believe that the God planned our destiny and that the good and the bad are just His Will and there is no choice for us between them! Belief in the Prophets of God. All prophets of God are perfect and sinless. Prophet Muhammad is the last of the prophets sent by God. It is important to note that no prophet on earth ever denied or rejected any of the other prophets and thus their message was always the same and one in purpose. Belief in the divinely appointed leadership after the death of the Prophet to protect and guide us. God appointed 12 Guides (Imams). The first one is Imam Ali and the last and living Imam. he is LIVING today but is in occultation. he will reappear to all when he will establish true justice on earth. Belief in the Day of Judgment when all human beings will be raised from the dead and all their good and bad deeds will be judged and recompensed accordingly.
- Non-Western (NDEs) may be defined as those reported by people from countries that are not of predominantly Jewish or Christian heritage. A recent analysis of the published literature on NDEs indicates a lack of attention to Muslim NDEs. Thus, there is an ongoing need for investigators to conduct studies of non-Western NDEs including Muslim NDEs.
- Shortly thereafter, two separate investigation teams responded with reports on Muslim NDEs. In one article, Michael Nahm and Joachim Nicolay (2010) reported on eight Muslim NDEs and concluded that “although the documentation standard of the available cases is generally low, these accounts indicate that structure and contents of NDEs from many non-Western Muslim communities are largely similar to those reported in the Western NDE literature”. Reported from a survey of Muslim NDErs in Arak City, Iran: Our results suggest that Muslim NDEs may actually be quite common, as they are in the West, and may not be especially different in their key features from Western NDEs and therefore not heavily influenced by cultural variations, including prior religious or spiritual beliefs.
- We saw the potential to make two unique contributions to the near-death literature. As the majority of people in Iran are Shiite Muslims and no previous researcher had focused on this population, we thought it potentially useful to focus specifically on them. Also, in our review of NDE literature, we detected an aftereffect on which we could not find published research. NDErs often seemed to express an enhanced sense of gratitude for and appreciation of life, including physical existence itself, events, and people. We were curious how people who survived a close brush with death might respond to a formal assessment of disposition toward gratitude.
- We established a website in the Persian language to educate Iranians about NDEs and to recruit participants for our study. Visitors saw an announcement about the research, including an invitation for them to participate if they had survived a close brush with death. The questionnaire was posted on the website. Some participants downloaded the questionnaire, completed it electronically, and returned it as an email attachment. Others printed the form, completed it in hard copy, and returned it by postal mail.
- The questionnaire consisted of three instruments—a demographic survey we devised, the NDE Scale translated into Persian, and the Gratitude Questionnaire GQ-6 in its Persian form and a request for respondents to provide a narrative of the circumstances, contents, and aftereffects of their NDEs.
- Participants in this study were a convenience sample of self-identified Shiite Muslims aged 18 years and older and living in various cities in Iran Some participants stumbled across the website while searching online, and I came to know others through public speeches and personal meetings and then referred them to the website. Regarding quantitative analysis, for participants who scored 7 or higher on the Persian NDE Scale, we calculated mean scores for the total Scale. Using Persian NDE Scale results, we also calculated the percentages of NDErs who endorsed eight selected NDE features that figure prominently in Western NDEs. These features include (OBE), seeing an unearthly light, and life review. For all analyses of differences between NDErs and CBrs, we set alpha level at p < .05. In the absence of norms for effect size in NDE research, we used Jacob Cohen’s (1988) cautious specifications to assess strength of effects. Regarding qualitative analysis, we noted our informal observations of NDE aftereffect themes in our participants’ NDE narratives.
- Of 46 submitted questionnaires, 33 were complete and submitted by qualified participants Of these, 20 (60.6%) participants scored 7 or higher on the Persian NDE Scale, thus comprising the NDErs group, and 13 (39.4%) scored below 7, thus comprising the CBrs group.
- We used an independent groups t test to investigate possible differences in GQ-6 scores between NDErs and CBrs. Results indicated a significant difference with a medium effect, t(31) = 3.00, p = .005, d = 1.06. On average, the 20 NDErs indicated significantly more gratitude than did the 13 CBrs
- To give readers a feel for the qualitative nature of Shiite Muslims’ NDEs as well as a sense of NDE aftereffects, we present three NDE narratives translated from Persian to English. We selected these three because they seemed representative of the narratives our 20 NDEr participants provided.
- Our study had some limitations. First, because our sample size was small, we are not able to generalize the study results to all Shiite Muslims who survived a close brush with death. Translation is another problematic issue in this research. The Persian translation of the NDE Scale may not convey the full meaning of its English language questions to the Persian-speaking subjects in this study’s survey.
- Our results also suggest that because Shiite Muslim NDEs may not be especially different in their main elements from typical Western NDEs, they may not be heavily influenced by cultural or religious variations. Our findings therefore indicate that NDEs may be universal in their fundamental nature and, thus, may reflect transpersonal and transcendental phenomena rather than only materialistic and culturally based phenomena. If this finding is further substantiated by future investigations, the aware ness that people from all cultures have similar experiences at the time of death could be an important tool for cross-cultural understanding and dialogue.
- To our knowledge, ours is the first study to assess the possible NDE aftereffect of gratitude using a psychometrically sound instrument. Because our data were correlational in nature and assessed dispositional gratitude only post-NDE, we cannot say for sure that our NDEr participants were not more grateful even prior to their NDEs; in other words, we cannot claim that their NDEs resulted in their significantly greater dispositional gratitude. However, as many NDErs have described an increase in gratitude resulting from their NDEs, we think it likely that our results reflect this dynamic. It remains for future researchers to investigate this dynamic more unequivocally, and based on our findings and both the psychometric quality and brevity of the GQ-6, we recommend this instrument for that purpose.
- Future studies could focus on the content and aftereffects of NDEs using larger sample sizes of representative Muslim populations. Such research could enhance knowledge of Muslim NDEs and understanding of NDEs globally. NDEs might be an important spiritual concept that could help humanity toward more mutual understanding and global peace.