Conceptualising and addressing mental disorders amongst Muslim communities

Approaches from the Islamic Golden Age

Bibliographic Data

ID2395367
AuthorsKarim Mitha (0000-0003-2538-5130, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume57
Issue6
Pages763-774
Publication date2020-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTranscultural Psychiatric Research Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0041-1108 • E-ISSN: 0315-4386
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363461520962603
PMID33059527
OpenAlexW3093366680
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited52

Although Islam is the world's second-largest religion, there continues to be misconceptions and an overall lack of awareness regarding the religious and social worlds that make up the global Muslim community. This is particularly concerning when examining notions of mental ill-health, where a lack of cultural awareness, understanding, and sensitivity can impede adequate treatment. As a global religion, Islam is practiced within various cultural milieus, and, given the centrality of faith amongst Muslim communities, a conflation of religion and culture can occur when attempting to understand mental health paradigms. Whilst much of the discourse regarding Muslim mental health centres on cultural formulations, this article discusses how, historically, conceptualisations relating to medicine and mental health were ensconced within the particular medical paradigm of the day. Specifically, it considers the frameworks within which mental health and illness were understood within the medieval Muslim medical tradition and their relevance to contemporary debates in psychology and psychiatry. In sum, this paper seeks to demonstrate that cultural formulations of mental illness, often viewed as 'Islamic', are distinct from historical Islamic approaches to mental health which employed contemporaneous medical discourse and which act as the reference marker for the emergent revivalist Islamic psychology movement seen today

Archaeology · Islam · Mental health · Psychiatry · Sociology · Education and Islamic Studies · Gender Studies · History · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology