IMAGE: UNKOWNThe heart is the center of the human being. Many people think that the brain is the center of consciousness, yet the Quran (Islamic Sacred Book) states, “They have hearts that they are not able to understand with.” According to the Muslims, the center of the human consciousness is the heart and not the brain itself, and it is only recently that human beings have learned there are over 40,000 neurons in the heart, in other words, there are cells in the heart that are communicating. Now, it is understood that there is a two-way communication between the brain and the heart: the brain send messages to the heart, but the heart also sends messages to the brain. The brain receives these messages from the heart, which reach the amygdala and the thalamus. The cortex receives input from the amygdala and thalamus that it processes to produce emotion; the new cortex relates to learning and reasoning. These processes are recent discoveries, and although we do not fully understand them, we do know that the heart is an extremely sophisticated organ.
– Sh. Hamza Yusuf
