Muslim Women, Domestic Violence, and Psychotherapy

Theological and Clinical Issues

Nazila Isgandarova

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429891557
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Muslim Women, Domestic Violence, and Psychotherapy reconciles newly emerging Islamic practical theology with the findings and theories of contemporary social sciences. It is an inquiry about the lived experience of the Islamic tradition and its application in Islamic counseling with Muslim women subject to domestic violence. By incorporating a holistic examination of the worldview, personhood, and understanding of social and religious obligations of Muslim women in counseling, this book shows how practitioners can empower clients facing trauma and abuse to explore feasible solutions and decrease worry, anxiety, and other negative emotions.

1
Defining Islamic Psychotherapy in the Context of the Islamic Tradition

Islamic psychotherapy, historically, was known as nasiha (sincerity, advise, counselling) and was based on the principles of Islamic belief and practices such as submission to God, integration of material and spiritual life, divine will, social obligation, mutual responsibility, repentance, and so forth.¹ In the prophetic period (610–632), when the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad first introduced many of the basic concepts and practices to Muslims, every Muslim considered it a duty to provide supportive counselling to other Muslims, although spiritual guidance remained the special responsibility of religious leaders such as imams and Sufi masters. Nasiha was fard al-kifaya (duty of the sufficiency or a collective obligation upon Muslims) as it was considered everyday duties of Muslims.² Later on, other healing practices based on Islam emerged including al-tibb al-ruhani (spiritual medicine), al-tibb al-nabawi (religious and traditional medicine that focuses on Muhammad’s practices), and ilaj al-nafs (the treatment of mental health issues; in the Sufi tradition, it also refers to the treatment of the soul).

In an early account of Islamic psychotherapy and counselling, recorded in the Kitab al-Uqala al-Majanin (The Wise Fools) by al-Nishapuri, by using the wisdom of the Arabic language and poetry, a renowned Arabic philologist al-Mubarrad (d. 898) provided deep and meaningful counselling to a young patient who was chained to the wall of a hospital.³ Later on, Sufi masters developed techniques that are still relevant in contemporary Islamic psychotherapy. For instance, in his Kitab Sirr al-Asrar wa Mazhar al-Anwar (The Book of the Secret of Secrets and The Manifestations of Light), Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani⁴ (d. 1166) developed the concept of remembrance of God as a healing technique. For him, this remembrance could only be done outwardly by repeating the divine names and pronouncing them aloud so that the individual and others could hear and remember. Through this practice, the memory of God became deeply embedded, sinking into the heart and eventually becoming silent. The Qur’an also record that “Believers are those, when Allah is mentioned, feel a tremor in their hearts, and when they (see and) hear His manifestations their faith is strengthened” (Q. 8:2). In this context, tremor refers to a sense of awe, fear, and love of God; it is a sign of inner purity, which finds expression in the highest qualities of character, morals, and manners.⁵

Later, madrasah (Islamic colleges) and khanqah or tekke (Sufi centres) would appoint shaykh al-ribat or shaykh al-khanqa (the head or master of a Sufi lodge) and arif (student mentors) to counsel students on various matters and to give them advice. An example is found in Makdisi’s report from Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (d. 1231), a scholar from Baghdad who worked at the al-Madrasa al-Aziziyya in Damascus and who was later involved in advising his students regarding their spiritual and emotional health in a traditional Sufi manner:

when you have finished your study and reflection, occupy your tongue with the mention of God’s name, and sing his praises, especially at bedtime, so that your very essence becomes soaked up and your imagination permeated with Him, and you talk of him in your sleep.⁶

A review of the early accounts of healing shows clearly that the Qur’an and the prophetic tradition constituted the original key foundations of the practice. Attempts to incorporate the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad in the healing of the person were also part of the Islamic practice of healing. In Qasida al-Burda (the Mantle Ode), Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad ibn Sa ‘id al-Busiri al-Shadhili (d. 1297), the Sufi poet who belonged to the Shadhili Sufi order in Africa, describes how he called upon the Prophet as an intercessor on his behalf before God for strength and forgiveness. His vision of the Prophet giving him his mantle was interpreted as a sign of healing.⁷

Various schools of thought including Indian, Greek, and Christian influenced both distinct Islamic branches; consequently, Islamic psychotherapy developed as a highly complex field. For example, the treatises of Muslim scholars⁸ demonstrate a blend of Western and Eastern thought. Not surprisingly, in the past, nasiha reflected the eclectic character of the theological, mystical, and philosophical trends that had infused Islamic thought in those times.⁹

During this time, Muslim scholars established a unique branch of science called Islamic psychology, which was known as ilm-al nafsiyat (the science of the soul/self or psychology). They studied concepts such as the self or the psyche in the modern context of psychology, psychiatry, and the neurosciences.¹⁰ Al-ilaj al-nafsi (psychological therapy) aimed to cure or treat the soul and the mind. In mental hospitals in the medieval Muslim world, Muslim clinicians treated mental illness both as clinicians and researchers.¹¹ These professionals were called al-tabib al-ruhani or tabib al-qalb (spiritual physicians).¹² Their clinical practice included dream work by Muhammad ibn Sirin (d. 728), psychotherapy and music therapy by Abu Yusuf Ya ‘qub ibn ‘Ishaq al-Sabbah al-Kindi (Alkindus) (d. 873), clinical psychiatry by Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (d. 870), cognitive therapy and psychosomatic medicine by Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (d. 934), and physiological psychology by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (d. 1037) whose research included investigations into self-consciousness.¹³ Al-Balkhi, the Muslim psychologist, al-Razi, who was known for his medical encyclopaedia Al-Hawi fi al-Tibb, ibn Sina, and Muhammad bin Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), discussed common cognitive distortions and cultural beliefs to treat mental disorders.

Some of these scholars incorporated other sources besides the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition in their practice of healing and cure. For example, the Samanid¹⁴ governor Amir Mansur b. Nuh b. Nasr (d. 976) suffered from chronic sadness and grief; in response, Rhazes dedicated to him, as a prescription, his famous medical treatise, Kitab al-Mansuri (The Book of Medicine), in which he offers detailed analyses and explanations of the scientific principles underlying psychological treatment.¹⁵ Avicenna integrated his unique and original interpretation of human perception based on five external senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch) and five internal senses (precepts, the imaginative faculty, instinct, the sense of imagination, and intentions) with sense data (the sensus communis or the seat of all senses).¹⁶ Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) further developed Avicenna’s notion of five internal senses by adding a spiritual dimension. This new dimension considers the human’s desire to attain spiritual perfection through ‘aql (intellect) and irada (will). What distinguishes him from Avicenna is his focus on the importance on qalb (the heart) as the seat of control of six powers (appetite, anger, impulse, apprehension, intellect, and will). He posited that, in contrast to humans, animals only have three of these (appetite, anger, and impulse) and this distinguishes him from Aristotle, Avicenna, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Aquinas who all believed that animals cannot become angry.¹⁷ Al-Ghazali also differentiated between two types of disease: physical and spiritual. He believed that spiritual disease was more dangerous. He defines spiritual disease as “ignorance and deviation from God.” For him, spiritual disease also included self-centredness, addiction to wealth, fame, and social status, ignorance, cowardice, cruelty, lust, doubt, envy, deception, and greed. He proposed a therapy of opposites whereby spiritual diseases could be treated by using the imagination to pursue the opposite. For example, ignorance could be countered by learning and hate could be countered by love.

The exemplary personal conduct of prominent Muslim scholars was also a source of inspiration for ordinary Muslims. Although we do not have detailed professional codes of conduct for early Muslim practitioners, the traditional code of practice for early Muslim doctors recorded by al-Majusi, a medieval Muslim doctor, sheds light on this subject. He writes that Muslim doctors:

ought to be God-fearing, and faithful to their teachers. Their aim should be to help and heal the sick and not only to seek financial gains.… [They] should be chaste, intelligent, religious, kind and considerate.¹⁸

Several key Islamic psychotherapy concepts and their explanations were addressed in the writings of classical Muslim scholars, albeit some of the references were brief and incidental. Although Islamic psychotherapy theories and practices did not exist at that time as a distinct professional practice, writings from Islamic classical treatises influenced the direction of Islamic psychotherapy and counselling in the early and later stages of its development.¹⁹

While early discussions on Islamic thought were and continue to be essential as well, classical writings endure as a lasting influence on contemporary Islamic psychotherapy. A major contribution from this period is the distinction that humankind is not simply subject to heredity and left to the mercy of environmental forces; rather, a human is perceived as one being among others, primarily governed, sustained, guided, and controlled by God’s infinite power and will.²⁰

Currently, Islamic psychotherapy is transforming into a professional clinical discipline that is influenced by the spiritual and religious traditions of Muslims and the clinical work of Muslim professionals including psychotherapists, counsellors, spiritual care practitioners, clinical social workers, and psychologists. According to G. Hussein Rassool,²¹ because of different ideologies and approaches there are several models of interventions in Islamic psychotherapy. He also argues that even traditional models of Islamic psychotherapy were also in various forms in the past and the most common form was sincere advice. This approach still is dominant in religious counselling and psychotherapy where traditional healing (based on cultural beliefs), and Muslim personal law based on the legal framework for regulating family life in Islam are applied. The latter focuses mainly on divorce, maintenance, child custody and inheritance, and Sufism.²² In this regard, this model of Islamic psychotherapy is based on the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Tasawwuf.²³ From social work perspective, A. Barise explored the conceptual framework of helping, problem-solving and change with Islamic concepts such as consultation, contemplation, self-monitoring, awakening, seeking God’s assistance, and so forth. Rassool also presents the 11-stage Islamic psychotherapy and counselling practice model using Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. These stages are: qawmah (awakening) and niyyah (intention); istisharah (consultation); tafakkur, istikharah (guidance-seeking), ‘azm (wilful decision); basirah (goal-and-route vision); al-tawakkul ’ala – Allah (absolute trust in God); ‘amal (action); isti’anah (help-seeking); muraqabah (self-monitoring); and muhasabah (self-evaluation).²⁴

In sum, although the theological/religious/spiritual foundations of the discipline are rooted in the Islamic tradition, it also incorporates various theories from the social sciences. The diversity of interpretations of the Islamic tradition makes it challenging to pinpoint specific theories and practices pertaining to Islamic psychotherapy; and this rich variety...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Defining Islamic Psychotherapy in the Context of the Islamic Tradition
• 2 Domestic Violence Literature Review: Definitions/Discussions of Key Concepts
• 3 Divine Testing and Suffering
• 4 Satanic Interference and Evil Eye
• 5 Spiritual Diseases
• 6 Honour and Shame
• 7 Future Recommendations
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index