Sufism and mental health

S. Haque Nizamie​, ​Mohammad Zia Ul Haq Katshu​,​1​ and ​N. A. Uvais​2

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This article has been corrected. ​See ​Indian J Psychiatry. 2020 January; 62(Suppl 2): S324​.

This article has been ​cited by​ other articles in PMC.

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Abstract
Human experience in, health and disease, always has a spiritual dimension. pirituality is accepted
as one of the defining determinants of health and it no more remains a sole preserve of religion
and mysticism. In recent years, pirituality has been an area of research in neurosciences and both
in the nderstanding of psychiatric morbidity and extending therapeutic interventions it seems to
be full of promises. Sufism has been a prominent spiritual tradition in Islam deriving influences
from major world religions, such as, Christianity and Hinduism and contributing substantially
toward spiritual well-being of a large number of people within and outside Muslim world.
Though Sufism started in early days of Islam and had many prominent Sufis, it is in the medieval
period it achieved great height culminating in many Sufi orders and their major proponents. The
Sufism aims communion with God through spiritual realization; soul being the agency of this
communion, and propounding the God to be not only the cause of all existence but the only real
existence. It may provide a vital link to understand the source of religious experience and its
impact on mental health.

Keywords: ​Mental health, psychotherapy, Sufism

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INTRODUCTION
Humans have always had the quest to know themselves, to know the world around them, and to
know their place in the world. The history of mankind is replete with people who like ​Mitya​ in
The Brothers Karamazov​ are “haunted by a great unsolved doubt.”[​1​] This quest has led man
from the dogmas of religion to the discourses of philosophy and finally to the empirical sciences.
Though we have made some progress in understanding ourselves vis-à-vis the nature, the
answers still remain elusive. Spirituality, whether associated with particular religions or
otherwise, has been practiced since ages and claims to offer answers to the “unsolved doubts.”
The recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in spirituality and the advancements in
neurosciences offer an opportunity to understand it from a more scientific standpoint and put it in
proper perspective. Across cultures, spirituality forms an important part of belief systems of
majority of the people. It affects the mental well-being and the understanding of mental illnesses
in terms of the etiology, meaning and the modalities of redressal. It seems important that mental
health professionals should be aware of the ways spirituality affects the mental well-being of
individuals in both health and disease states. This paper will outline the basic foundations of
Sufism – a particular kind of Islamic mysticism, how it affects the mental well-being of
individuals associated with it, and its interface with clinical psychiatry in terms of implications
for diagnosis and management.

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SUFISM