Towards an Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy

Abstract

Due to the destructive legacy of colonialism within the Islamic world, traditional or premodern wisdom has, in large part, been brushed aside in favor of a materialistic and reductionistic outlook based on the shifting sands of modern intellectual fashions. Modern Western psychology emerged through the secularizing trajectory of the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment project; all of which contributed to the purging of metaphysics and the human soul’s intrinsic connection to the spiritual dimension within the discipline. Due to the growing interest in restoring this vital dimension, Islamic psychology—akin to other traditional understandings of the mind known as perennial psychology—addresses this need to understand human behavior in light of the sacred.