Islamic Psychology

Human Behaviour and Experience from an Islamic Perspective

G. Hussein Rassool

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000363081
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Islamic Psychology or ilm an-nafs (science of the soul) is an important introductory textbook drawing on the latest evidence in the sub-disciplines of psychology to provide a balanced and comprehensive view of human nature, behaviour and experience. Its foundation to develop theories about human nature is based upon the writings of the Qur'an, Sunna, Muslim scholars and contemporary research findings.

Synthesising contemporary empirical psychology and Islamic psychology, this book is holistic in both nature and process and includes the physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions of human behaviour and experience. Through a broad and comprehensive scope, the book addresses three main areas: Context, perspectives and the clinical applications of applied psychology from an Islamic approach.

This book is a core text on Islamic psychology for undergraduate and postgraduate students and those undertaking continuing professional development in Islamic psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. Beyond this, it is also a good supporting resource for teachers and lecturers in this field.

Part I

Islamic psychology

Chapter 1

Islamic psychology

Context, definitions and perspectives

Learning outcomes

• Define psychology from a secular perspective.
• Identify the contributions of the Islamisation of knowledge movement in the development of Islamic psychology.
• Identify the problems and issues associated with the secularisation of psychology.
• Discuss the relationship of the Qur’an and psychology.
• Discuss the concept of Islamic psychology.
• Formulate your own definition of Islamic psychology.
• Discuss the different approaches to Islamic psychology.

Introduction

The past decades have seen a proliferation of literature on the soul-searching for an agreed definition, theoretical or conceptual model of Islamic psychology, and its clinical application. Various definitions and attempts to develop a theoretical model, organisational development and a model of the soul have been met with a degree of success (Kaplick and Skinner, 2017; Al-Karam, 2018a,b; Rothman and Coyle, 2018; Keshavarzi et al., 2020). However secular contemporary psychology has been promoted on a global scale, and its dominance has remained unchallenged in most academic institutions in the developing world, especially in majority-Muslim countries. Many Muslim psychologists have been educated in mostly Western universities or even in their own countries have remained in a “psycho-secular bubble.” It is apparent in many Muslim majority countries that the indigenous clinical and counselling psychologists have not only been acculturated by the Orientalist approach to psychology but also have internalised values which are alien to both their culture and Islamic traditions. Some of them have turned into the Muslim Freud with all the psychobabble of the Oedipus and Electra complexes and psychosexual development, and have followed blindly their “master’s voice.” This state of affairs resonates with the experiences of Malik Badri during his first lecture on Islamisation in 1963. Badri states that:

The lay audience liked it but my colleagues in the Department of Psychology were not happy with it. They prided themselves as scientists being guided by a neutral value-free scientific method in which there was no room for religious “dogma”. They used to sarcastically ask me, “Is there a fasiq or evil physics or an un-Islamic chemistry? Then why speak to us about an Islamic psychology? If you do not accept Freudian psychoanalysis, then show us a better way to treat the emotionally disturbed.”

(Khan, 2015, p.161)

The emergence, current conceptualisations and the status of Islamic psychology should be viewed in their broader context, namely, the Islamisation of knowledge (IOK) movement. The Islamisation of knowledge movement gained momentum in the 1970s with the rise of the plight of the Muslim Ummah, the secularisation of the educational system in Muslim majority countries, the global re-awakening of Islamic consciousness and the concern of Muslim scholars towards the adoption of Western-oriented values and life-styles by Muslims. The concept of Islamisation of knowledge was proposed by Al-Attas (1978) who refers it to “The liberation of man first from magical, mythological, animistic, national-cultural tradition, and then from secular control over his reason and his language” (p.41). Al-Faruqi (1982) characterises “Islamisation of knowledge” as “Recasting knowledge according to Islamic tenets. It includes various activities including removing dichotomy between modern and traditional systems of education and producing university level textbooks” (pp.13, 48). According to Ragab (1999), Islamisation refers to the “Integration of Islamic revealed knowledge and the human sciences.” In this context, Islamisation of knowledge also refers to the “Islamisation of contemporary or present-day knowledge.” Yusuf (2015) argues that Islamisation of knowledge

is an attempt to fashion out an Islamic paradigm of knowledge based on the Islamic world view and its unique constitutive concepts and factors. This is because the knowledge as conceived in the West is value laden and has detached itself from Tawhid (unicity and sovereignty of God).

(p.69)

Dzilo (2012) maintains that the concept of “Islamisation of knowledge is not monosemous but involves multiple approaches to the various forms of modern-world thought in the context of the Islamic intellectual tradition, including metaphysical, epistemological, ethical and methodological premises regarding the modern issue of knowledge” (p.247). This means the integration of Islamic theology with scientific knowledge and evidence-based practice in diverse disciplines including psychology, sociology, health and medical sciences, economics and finance. This would result in psychological knowledge based on an Islamic worldview. Rassool (2019b; 2020) suggests that for psychology, the process of desecularisation has begun, and efforts are being made to reconstruct psychology based upon an Islamic epistemological paradigm. Perhaps we need to be reminded of a takeaway message from Malik Badri, the Father of contemporary Islamic psychology, that not all of Western psychology needs to be Islamised. Badri (1979) comments

We do not need to Islamise psychophysics or the physiology of sight and hearing and the anatomy of the eye and ear. Nor do we need to Islamise studies about the role of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin in our sleep behaviour and in adjusting our body clock, the role of the hormone noradrenalin in setting our energy level nor the influence of caffeine, alcohol or heroine on the human nervous system. We do not need to develop our own Islamic statistical psychology or to raise an ethical battle against neutral theories of learning. Such areas, as I said are “no man’s land” between psychology and other exact sciences.

(p.9)

Contemporary psychology: Definitions

Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and as a science deals with the study of the nature of behaviour and experience. As a science, psychology attempts to study nature and nurture; our cognitive process; emotional behaviour; normal behaviour and abnormal behaviour; animal behaviour; social and collective behaviour; evolutionary behaviour; biological bases of behaviour; developmental process; organizational behaviour; health behaviours and illnesses; and how can we modify or change our behaviour. These are the objects of psychological investigation through research and the use of the scientific method, which entails observation, experiment, cause and effect, comparison, generalisation and robust analysis of data. The main goals of psychology are to describ...