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Goodbye Islam, hello humanism
Dr. Khalid Sohail has traveled through space, time and belief systems to reach the secular spiritualism that now informs his psychiatry practice
By Gabrielle Bauer
When Whitby, Ont., psychiatrist Dr. Khalid Sohail wrote his book From Islam to Secular Humanism, he had no idea that the religion of his birth would soon be under global scrutiny. Nor did he realize that his book would surface amid a flurry of media discussions that challenged Islam to defend itself against the charges of extremism and fanaticism.
Dr. Sohail's personal odyssey exemplifies the very opposite of extremism. As outlined in his book, his spiritual evolution has been toward increasingly fluid beliefs and increasing tolerance of all people.
Born in a region of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan, Dr. Sohail describes his family of origin as traditional and devout Muslims. In his early years, he too believed the political and religious tenets he grew up with. "I considered the Hindus to be enemies," he admits. And in his book, he writes that "many times I arose at 3 a.m. in the darkness of early morning . . . to pray to God to convert the entire world to Islam."
But the road less traveled beckoned to Dr. Sohail during his teenage years, when he began to study science. Attracted not only to scientific facts but to the "scientific attitude," which he saw as contradictory to the religious philosophy he had been imbued with from birth, he found himself in a state of mounting inner conflict that reached a climax during his university years. "Eventually, science won out," he says. "I realized there was no turning back to what I had been and believed."
Dr. Sohail's creative juices also began flowing during that time. He wrote numerous poems and short stories, publishing them in university periodicals. "I actually wanted to become a poet," he says with a chuckle. But his mother, like mothers the world over, posed the question: "And how will you live?" She advised medicine, and he acquiesced.
But even when he attended medical school in Iran, the poems didn't stop. To the contrary, they became bolder and more controversial. In one of his poems, "The Red Circle," he described the mental turmoil of a pregnant woman who wanted to have an abortion. Another poem he called "Lesbian." "I used the English word because there was no equivalent in my language," he says.
He published several books of poetry and nonfiction, and found a small circle of like-minded spiritual seekers.
Still, Dr. Sohail realized he would always be an outsider in Pakistan or Iran, and that his future lay elsewhere. Deciding on psychiatry as a specialty because "it combines art and science," he applied to residency programs all over the world. He was accepted at a Newfoundland hospital, which is how he ended up in Canada.
When he first settled in his adopted country, Dr. Sohail recalls being confused by the concept of given and family names. "Where I grew up, we don't have first and last names—we just keep adding names on to people," he says. On one occasion, a hospital administrator asked him for his Christian name. Thoroughly mystified, Dr. Sohail ran through his various names in his mind, then answered, "Mohammed."
From Newfoundland, Dr. Sohail moved to a Whitby psychiatric hospital, where he concluded that the currently fashionable neurobiological approach to psychiatry was too concrete for his tastes. He moved on to psychotherapy, attracted by the "humanistic and spiritual element" of the discipline. " 'Psyche' means 'soul,' after all," he says.
Five years ago, Dr. Sohail joined the Creative Psychotherapy practice in Whitby, where he has been practising ever since. Although he treats numerous individual patients, his main focus is on marital therapy. "I'm interested more in the dynamics between people than in people as separate entities," he explains. "Perhaps it's the influence of my Eastern background."
As for his own marital status, it's resolutely single. "I think very few people can combine a creative life with a family life," he says. "At some point I decided to devote myself fully to the creative life." When not treating patients, he spends his time lecturing, writing and making documentaries under the umbrella of his film-production company, Darvesh Films Canada. He also enjoys the company of a wide circle of friends, which he calls his "family of the heart."
Since the publication of his book, Dr. Sohail says about 50 Muslims have contacted him to say they agree with his secular views. "But not in public," he says. Although he downplays the courage it took to go public about his own beliefs, he admits he doesn't know anyone else who has done the same. "People are scared they'll be perceived as traitors and shunned from their community, that they won't be able to marry off their daughters."
While Dr. Sohail himself has no daughters to marry off, he still has numerous relatives in Pakistan. He says they give him and his writings mixed reviews. "The younger generation—my nieces and nephews—is somewhat more open to what I have to say," he says. As for his generational peers, Dr. Sohail says "they're a little embarrassed. They don't quite know what to make of me."
Vocal not only on the subject of his religious nonbeliefs, Dr. Sohail has plenty to say about the military activity following the Sept. 11 attacks. What strikes him is how both the U.S. and the Taliban used the same language to describe their enemies. "It's tribal thinking on both sides," he says. "It's just more of the us-and-them mentality, which has never got us anywhere."
As a humanist, Dr. Sohail believes in ferreting out similarities, rather than differences, between people. It's an attitude he brings to his practice, where he tries to help couples bridge their surface differences. "If we all realized we were part of the same human family," he says, "neither couples nor countries would be putting so much energy into fighting with each other."
Gabrielle Bauer is a Toronto writer.
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