Name of Questioner: Jansje, Netherlands

Question

As a social worker, I have a client who is a Muslim and he is diagnosed as having schizophrenia. in addition to the treatment by a psychiatrist he is going to his home-country, Morocco to be treated by a Muslim healer. This healer treats him with verses of the Koran. could you enlighten me about the nature of this treatment? The effect is not very clear to me but neither is the treatment of the psychiatrist. What does Islam say about the cause of schizophrenia? I would be very happy if you can answer my question so that I will be able to help my client. Do you where I can find more information about the Islamic view on psychiatric illness? cause, treatment. thank you very much.
Name of Counsellor
Mohammad Sadiq

Topic: Non-Counseling

Answer

Your question is very important and merits a very detailed response. The Islamic perspective on mental illness cannot be satisfactorily explained in a short answer; and this forum is not meant for long explanatory responses. However, I will attempt to clarify a couple of points you have raised.

◊ How does healing through Qur’anic verses work, or does it even work?

Muslims understand the holy Qur’an to be the word of Allah s.w.t. It is meant to provide: guidance for daily life, clear indications of what is right and wrong – what is desirable and undesirable, what is safe and what is risky, what is dangerous and clearly harmful, and what is good and evil. It’s words, phrases, and verses are also believed to have the power to cleanse and heal from the filth and diseases of body and soul with the Will of Allah the Almighty. The last phrase of this last sentence is very important to remember. What it essentially points out is that the holy Qur’an is not a book of spells and charms, or a prescription book for various diseases that may be tested in a laboratory or in the field through scientific research, simply because the effects of the independent variable (the verses of Qur’an) are determined by many other independent variables that may not be controlled, such as, the spiritual enlightenment of the healer, the beliefs of the person being healed, the environmental conditions, and ultimately the Will of Allah. This is not much different or unique than measuring the effects of a psychiatric, psychological or medical treatment, which are also dependent on similar independent variables – the knowledge and experience of the professional, the psychological and bio-chemical make-up of the patient, the patients willingness to follow the treatment regimen, various other environmental conditions. So, does this healing work? We, the Muslims, believe it does, but the effects and length of time it takes varies based on some of the independent variables I mentioned above.

Islam does not specifically address the issue of schizophrenia or, for that matter, any other mental or physical disease. Islam is a faith, and like other faiths, it is meant to provide guidance and principles for a healthy, meaningful, and successful life. In this vein, the holy Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) provide hints to factors that may cause a person to act like a mad man, and it also provides guidance about prevention and healing from such madness. As I mentioned in my introductory sentence above, it will take a lot of explaining to clarify all the concepts, beliefs, causes and effects of these factors.

To help us understand further Wa’el Hindi comments:-

What is important to emphasize is that using the Qur’anic verses in treating psychiatric patients is a form of religious psychotherapy which can help believers only , and in fact not all believers but those who can understand the meaning of the verses.
Then in which form of psychotherapy could the meaning of Qu’ranic verses be put, the answer is surely in the cognitive form, for this reason we can’t use it with an actively psychotic patient (one who is deluded or hallucinating), then for using the holly Qur’anic in treating a chronic schizophrenic Moslem could only be helpful when cognitive psychotherapy could be applied, to help him restructure his cognitions in a way that is compatible with his religious culture .

The use of Qur’anic verses in treating a schizophrenic Muslem patient thus needs:
◊ The healer who knows what is schizophrenia
◊ the patient who is a suitable candidate for cognitive psychotherapy.

When we search for the healer in the Arab world we only talk of psychiatrists or advanced psychologists or social workers who carry at least a master degree , however most of such healers neither practiced nor talked about treating schizophrenics using Qur’anic verses, simply because most of them have western way of thinking !

Then the person who was treating your patient in Morocco was a traditional healer. Whereas Western science looks into the etiology of schizophrenia, Islam says Allah Knows for is a multi-factorial disorder that has its origin in the total psycho bio-social constitution of the patient, which needs management with scientifically qualified persons, the psychiatrists and their co-workers, the Islamic view is originally the same like that of behavioral sciences.