Member of the Faculty of the Research Institute ‎of Ethics and Spirituality:‎

‎Coronavirus has created a deep earthquake at the level of our identity

Dr. Ahmad Shakernejad said, “The Coronavirus has created a deep earthquake at the level of ‎our identity, disintegrated our minds and caused a rift.” ‎

News ID: 450052

Date: 29 April 2020 - 12:57

RNA – Speaking in an online conference entitled “The Future of Spirituality and the Islamic ‎Seminaries in the Post-Coronavirus World" held by Rasa News Agency. Dr. Ahmad ‎Shakernejad, a member of the faculty of the Research Institute ‎of Ethics and Spirituality at ‎the Institute of Islamic Sciences and Culture, said, “Spirituality is taken seriously in all crises, ‎including floods and earthquakes, but the challenge of the Coronavirus, which has emerged ‎as a global pandemic, has become a public issue.”‎

The teacher at al-Mustafa International University stated that the discussion and question of ‎spirituality has become a ‎question among everyone and said, “Human beings have four ‎basic fears that have been with us since the creation of human beings ‎and human societies – ‎death, illness, old age and oppression. In the contemporary world, other fears have ‎been ‎added including: hidden loneliness, environmental crises and the pace of change.”‎

Dr. Shakernejad added, “Modern man suffers ‎from the weakness and rootlessness of ‎communication and in his secrecy, he faces a deep loneliness. Another concern in ‎the ‎modern world is the environmental crisis, which didn’t exist in the past, and the third fear is ‎the speed of ‎change and transformation that we have never seen in history and today, ‎historians aren’t idle for a moment and they have to record the cases at any moment.”‎

He said, “The Coronavirus has created a deep earthquake at the level of our identity, ‎disintegrated our minds and caused a rift. Peter L. Berger [Austrian-born American sociologist ‎and Protestant theologian] discusses how we try to transform existing anomalies into order ‎with our own epistemological systems, including the discussion of the sacred canopy.”‎

He noted, “According to this view, by using traditional religions and modern achievements, ‎we can delineate a sacred canopy and quickly get out of confusion, and this is very sensitive ‎for modern man, because the speed of change is high.”‎

In other remarks, Dr. Shakernejad said, “Until two weeks ago, people were thinking about ‎what to do during the holy month of Ramadan. The people used to say that if the ‎pilgrimages and congregational prayers are suspended, will the month of Ramadan also be ‎suspended? It was interesting to me who should answer these questions and, in this regard, ‎the Academy of Medical Sciences made a statement and presented a way for the people, ‎while in this way, no voice was heard from the seminaries.” ‎

Rasa News Agency

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