Today, self-preoccupation is dominated by two specialized fields, psychology (Psychology) and psychiatry (Psychiatry), and then the term "mental health" or mental arose, which refers to the good psychological state of a person that is free of any disorder and in which the emotional and behavioral balance of a person is achieved, which established a narrow concept of mental illness and mental health, for example, homosexuality was classified as a psychological disorder until the early seventies of the last century, and then turned into an option and was removed from the list of mental disorders. But restoring the expanded concept of the soul and mental health beyond the clinical perspective would offer different perspectives on topics in which ethics serves as an interdisciplinary field.
The ancient preoccupation with the human soul was part of multiple fields and disciplines, most notably philosophy - especially moral philosophy - and mysticism, because both fields revolve around self-management - in the terminology of ancient philosophers - or self-discipline and purification in the terminology of mystics. Some of those who combined philosophy and medicine such as Abu Bakr al-Razi (311 e) had classified a book in the medicine of the bodies called "Al-Mansouri in medicine", and then classified another book in the medicine of souls called "spiritual medicine" in which he dealt with moral issues in which the healing of the soul and the search for virtues and payment of vices, and so did Abu Zaid Balkhi, who also combined philosophy and medicine wrote a book called "the interests of souls and bodies", running to divide the human being into body and soul, a division that prevailed In Greek and then Islamic philosophy.
Then came Ibn Hazm Andalusian (456 e) used the expression "healing souls" to refer to the treatment of vices of the soul, and this perspective that sees the ethics of the soul subject treatable due to Galen, who combined medicine and philosophy also have been originally overlapping in the old perceptions of knowledge. Therefore, whoever reads Abu Bakr al-Razi's book will find that it involved issues related to ethics and psychology, which confirms the idea that the soul - in general - is a subject shared by several disciplines and therefore is part of the ethics investigations, which are an interdisciplinary field.
Before psychology was a specialized subject for the fields of psychology and psychiatry, it was also a sprawling topic, in which we can distinguish between 3 approaches: the Qur'an, philosophical and mystical approaches.
It should also be said that faith has a great impact on what is called mental health, because it is inherited in the believer's soul of virtues that enable him to achieve the required psychological balance, in the Qur'an, "Do not the remembrance of God reassure hearts"
Quranic approach
With regard to the Qur'anic approach, we find that the soul occupied a wide area of the Qur'anic discourse, and the Qur'an used the soul in several meanings, including referring to the human self as a whole, and referring to the inner essence of man, which is what we mean here, which is what the Greek philosophers did when they saw that the soul is the essence and that it is the real actor through the body through a set of forces inherent in it. Those who follow the Qur'anic discourse on the soul in the latter sense will find that we can distinguish between 3 issues:
- Topics related to the soul presented by the Qur'an and dealing with the ethics of the soul and its causes.
- And patterns of human behavior that relate to the responses of different souls to adversity, calamities and others.
- The impact of the Qur'anic word on the soul.
As for the topics of the soul dealt with in the Holy Qur'an, they include, in my opinion, 4 main topics:
As for the patterns of human behavior to which the Qur'an refers, they are so broad that some of them discussed "man in the Qur'an", but here I will only refer to 3 behavioral patterns that the Qur'an tells us about, which deal with human behavior in the face of difficulties or calamities.
- The first of these is: "But if he is afflicted with it, his livelihood is destined for him, and my Lord says I am insulted."
- Second: "They know outwardly from this worldly life, and they are oblivious to the hereafter."
- Thirdly, "Among the people who worship Allah according to the letter of Allah, if he is afflicted with good, he will be assured of him, and if he is afflicted by fitna, he will turn against his face, and he will lose this world and the Hereafter."
These three patterns indicate a defect in their perceptions of faith on the one hand, and in the work or behavior due when exposed to calamities and afflictions on the other hand, which causes confusion within a person and reflects on his external behavior. Rather, the Qur'anic stories are worth contemplating in terms of the psychological dimensions that the Qur'an draws for the prophets themselves, as it sometimes tells us about the secrets of themselves, as we find in the story of Moses, who went out of the city afraid and waiting after he poked a man and killed him by mistake, and the story of Joseph, who was told by a dear woman about himself and asked God to distract him from the scheming of women so that they would not aspire to them in a moment of weakness, and the story of Jacob with his children, as in the story of adoption in which the Qur'an said addressing the Prophet Muhammad. May Allah's peace and blessings be upon him and all the previous prophets: "And hide in yourself what Allah is the Creator of, and you fear people, and Allah is more worthy to fear Him." This psychological aspect deserves reflection from multiple sides, as it reaffirms their humanity and draws the best response to such specific facts.
The impact of the Qur'anic word on mental health in the expanded sense, not narrow medical, is evident through roquia legitimacy, which is based on reading verses from the Qur'an, and the Qur'anic word comes in the highest place, although the good word in general has an impact on the soul and its emotions, and for this the Qur'an set an example with the good word and that it is like a good tree in fruitfulness "Did you not see how God struck for example a good word as a good tree whose origin is fixed and its branch is in heaven", and in return he set an example with the malicious word and it does not bear fruit He said: "And like a malicious word like a malicious tree uprooted from above the earth what its decision," and ordered people to say well, he said: "Tell people well," and forbade speaking out bad of saying and said: "God does not like to speak out badly than to say only those who have wronged."
Perhaps it is useful to refer to a saying attributed to Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (may Allah be pleased with him), but regardless of the validity of this attribution, the following statement is derived from the Qur'an and illustrates the psychological impact of the Qur'anic word in human conditions such as fear, anguish, helplessness and hope. He says: "I was amazed at those who were afraid and did not panic to say blessed and exalted: (God suffices us and yes the agent), for I heard God after her say: (So they turned with the grace of God and the virtue of untouched by ill). And I was amazed at those who were overwhelmed, and did not panic to say blessed and exalted: (There is no god but you, Glory be to you, because I was one of the oppressors), for I heard God after her say: (We responded to him and saved him from grief, as well as saving the believers). And I was amazed at those who were deceived by it, and did not panic to say blessed and exalted: (And I delegate my matter to God, that God is a visionary of the servants). I heard Allah say: "Allah has given him evil things that are not evil." And I wondered to those who asked for the world and did not panic to say blessed and exalted: (What God wills, there is no power except in God). I heard Allah say, "May my Lord bring good from your Paradise."
Philosophical and mystical approaches
As for the philosophical approach to the soul, the philosopher and physician Abu Zayd al-Balkhi was one of the first to realize the link between the soul and the body, or that the conditions of the soul and its disorders affect the health of the body. Philosophers and scholars of Sufism have been busy – from an early time – searching for the link between the soul and human behavior, because the soul is the real actor through the body, the soul is the source of the actions carried out by the body as decided in Greek philosophy and then in classical Islamic philosophy. Greek and Muslim philosophers were preoccupied with 3 major issues related to the soul:
- Knowledge of the soul and its forces and its relevance to human behavior.
- And research into the virtues and vices of the soul.
- And research on the susceptibility of the soul to change and how to change the vices in the soul through habituation.
These three questions illustrate how the search of the soul is at the heart of creationist philosophy as we know it in classical Greek and Islamic philosophies. Some Muslim philosophers have written individual treatises on the ills and diseases of the soul, and in the payment of sorrows, especially the fear of death, for example, in which Miskawayh (421 AH) and Ibn Hazm were classified. Al-Kindi (256 AH) was the first Arab philosopher to write a treatise on the trick to pay sorrows about the soul, and these are all philosophical investigations according to the classical perceptions of ethics, and some of them may be studied today within the fields of psychology and psychiatry.
As for the Sufi approach to the soul, it was characterized by richness and detail, due to its practical nature, because it did not stop at the limits of philosophical theorization, as Sufism - in its origin - is a practice before it was later theorized to meet the challenges that faced its legitimacy as a science.
If the philosophical approach is varied between Greek and the philosophizing of some Muslim philosophers, and Islamic framed by revelation, as we find in Ragheb Al-Isfahani and Al-Ghazali, the Sufi approach to the soul is very clear in the search for the outsiders of the soul and its causes with a perspective that goes beyond the narrow materialist perspective of the concepts of disease and health, which prevail in the field of Western psychiatry and absent from them the moral and eschatological dimensions, while this was the focus of the preoccupation of Imam Al-Harith Al-Muhasabi (243 AH), for example, in his early and rich works that enjoyed With a research interest in German, English and Arabic, he can be considered the oldest researcher in the field of psychology.
It is clear from the above that the ailments of souls (or diseases of the soul) are a matter related to the human soul in general independently of geography or religion, but it should also be said that faith has a great impact on what is called mental health, because it is inherited in the believer's soul:
- Virtues that enable him to achieve the required psychological balance, in the Qur'an, "Do not the remembrance of Allah reassure hearts", and in the hadith of the Prophet, "And I made the apple of my eyes in prayer".
- True faith also affects the goodness of a person's soul and pushes him to good behavior based on the provisions of Sharia, correct social custom and good family education.
Thus, the need for mental health (in both the medical and moral senses) is not limited to non-Muslim communities, as well as Muslims who have been exposed to crises or panic in the face of calamities and lose their psychological balance, which affects their behavior and behaves in a non-virtuous manner.
This whole discussion leads us to two things:
- First: that the concept of mental health should expand beyond the narrow perspective of clinical disease, and that faith and eschatological dimensions have a great impact on mental health as well, and for this reason the study of the soul was a philosophical and ethical research rather than a minor medical research.
- Second: The complexities of the human soul and its connection to the fields of philosophy, mysticism, medicine and psychology make it necessary to distinguish between their levels, and not to launch generalizations in any of their parts.
Therefore, it must be recognized that some medical conditions, such as severe depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and others, which may lead to life-threatening consequences, require treatment from a specialist.
Here, we emphasize the importance of distinguishing between two concepts of disease: disease in the therapeutic technical term, which has become part of the competence of psychiatry, and disease in the ethical sense, which was dealt with by moral philosophers and mystics in their literature, which is a more general and comprehensive concept than the clinical medical concept, and goes beyond the idea of mental health in the material sense, because it seeks to acquire virtue and includes eschatological dimensions according to the Islamic perspective, and also deals with evaluations of human behavior in the event that it arises from a psychological disorder that violates the idea of responsibility for the act, which is related to the field of Islamic jurisprudence is also preoccupied with by jurists.