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Psychology in medieval Islam

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World Psychology: Psychology by Country · Psychology of Displaced Persons

Islamic psychology[1] or Ilm-al Nafsiat[2] (Arabic,علم النفس) refers to the study of the Nafs (meaning "self" or "psyche" in Arabic)[3] in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (8th–15th centuries) as well as modern times (20th–21st centuries), and is related to psychology, psychiatry and the neurosciences.

Some of the advances in medieval Islamic psychological thought included the establishment of the first mental hospitals,[4] the development of a clinical[5] approach to mental illness,[6] and the development of an experimental approach to the study of the mind.[7] Attempts have been made to revive or reexamine concepts from medieval Islamic thought by Muslim psychologists and scholars in the 20th and 21st centuries.[8]


Modern attempts at reviving the medieval Islamic study of the mind have referred to it as "Islamic psychology",[1] though this term should not be confused with the modern discipline of psychology, which began in the 19th century. In the pre-modern context, the term "psychology" refers to the general study of human mind and behaviour, while the term "mind" refers more generally to human intellect and consciousness.


In medieval Islamic medicine in particular, the study of "mental illness was a speciality of its own",[9] and was variously known as "diseases of the mind," al-‘ilaj al-nafs (approximately "curing/treatment of the ideas/soul/vegetative mind," also translated more simply as "psychotherapy"),[10] al-tibb al-ruhani ("the healing of the spirit," or "spiritual health") and tibb al-qalb ("healing of the heart/self," or "mental medicine").[3]

Ethics and theologyEdit



This Quranic verse summarized Islam's attitudes towards the mentally ill, who were considered unfit to manage property but must be treated humanely and be kept under care by a guardian, according to Islamic law.[6] This positive neuroethical understanding of mental health consequently led to the establishment of the first mental hospitals in the medieval Islamic world from the 8th century,[4] and an early scientific understanding of neuroscience and psychology by medieval Muslim physicians and psychological thinkers, who discovered that mental disorders are caused by dysfunctions in the brain.[12]

Philosophical approachEdit

Intellect and consciousness studiesEdit

Further information: Avicennism - Thought experiments on self-consciousness



Al-Farabi (Alpharabius) was a pioneer of social psychology and a pioneer in music therapy and dream interpretation.





"Ibn Rushd succeeded in providing an explanation of the human soul and intellect that did not involve an immediate transcendent agent. This opposed the explanations found among the Neoplatonists, allowing a further argument for rejecting of Neoplatonic emanation theories. Even so, notes Davidson, Ibn Rushd’s theory of the material intellect was something foreign to Aristotle."

Empiricism, tabula rasa, nature versus nurtureEdit

Further information: Avicennisn - Avicennian epistemology and psychology



Sensory perceptionEdit






Sufi psychologyEdit

Main article: Sufi psychology

In Sufi psychology, Nafs is considered to be the lowest principle of man. Higher than the nafs is the Qalb (heart), and the Ruh (spirit). This tripartition forms the foundation of later, more complicated systems; it is found as early as the Koranic commentary by Ja'far al-Sadiq. He holds that the nafs is peculiar to the zalim (tyrant), the qalb to the muqtasid(moderate), and the rūh to the sābiq(preceding one, winner); the zālim loves God for his own sake, the muqtasid loves Him for Himself, and the sābiq annihilates his own will in God's will. Bayezid Bistami, Hakīm at-Tirmidhī, and Junayd have followed this tripartition. Kharrāz, however, inserts between nafs and qalb the element tab', "nature," the natural functions of man

At almost the same time in history, Nūrī saw in man four different aspects of the heart, which he derived in an ingenious way from the Koran:

Sadr (breast) is connected with Islam (Sūra 39:23); qalb (heart) is the seat of īmān (faith) (Sūra 49:7; 16:106); fuad (heart) is connected with marifa (gnosis) ( Sūra 53:11); and lubb (innermost heart) is the seat of tauhīd ( Sūra 3:190).

The Sufis often add the element of sirr, the innermost part of the heart in which the divine revelation is experienced. Jafar introduced, in an interesting comparison, reason, aql, as the barrier between nafs and qalb -- "the barrier which they both cannot transcend" ( Sūra 55:20), so that the dark lower instincts cannot jeopardize the heart's purity .Each of these spiritual centers has its own functions, and Amr al-Makkī has summed up some of the early Sufi ideas in a lovely myth:

God created the hearts seven thousand years before the bodies and kept them in the station of proximity to Himself and He created the spirits seven thousand years before the hearts and kept them in the garden of intimate fellowship (uns) with Himself, and the consciences—the innermost part—He created seven thousand years before the spirits and kept them in the degree of union (waṣl) with Himself. Then he imprisoned the conscience in the spirit and the spirit in the heart and the heart in the body. Then He tested them and sent prophets, and then each began to seek its own station. The body occupied itself with prayer, the heart attained to love, the spirit arrived at proximity to its Lord, and the innermost part found rest in union with Him [26]

Other philosophical theories of the mindEdit








Clinical and medical approachEdit


Al-tibb al-ruhani and diseases of the mindEdit


"In their hearts is a disease."
Qur'an 2:10


Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Iman

Mental hospitalsEdit


Al-‘ilaj al-nafs and tibb al-qalbEdit

Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari's Firdous al-Hikmah written in the 9th century was the first work to study 'al-‘ilaj al-nafs (translated as "psychotherapy" from Arabic)[10] in the treatment of patients. His ideas were primarily influenced by early Islamic thought and ancient Indian physicians such as Sushruta and Charaka. Unlike earlier physicians, however, al-Tabari emphasized strong ties between psychology and medicine, and the need for al-‘ilaj al-nafs and counseling in the therapeutic treatment of patients. He wrote that patients frequently feel sick due to delusions or imagination, and that these can be treated through "wise counselling" by smart and witty physicians who could win the rapport and confidence of their patients, leading to a positive therapeutic outcome.[14] In his chapter on mental illness, al-Tabari first described thirteen types of mental disorders, including madness, delirium, and Fasad Al-Khayal Wal-Aql ("damage to the imagination, intelligence and thought").[9] He also clearly highlighted mental illness as a speciality of its own.

The Tunisian Arab Muslim physician,[34] Ishaq ibn Imran (d. 908),[35] known as "Isaac" in the West,[36] wrote an essay entitled Maqala fil-L-Malikhuliya, in which he first described psychosis, and also described a type of melancholia: the "cerebral type" or "phrenitis". He described the diagnosis of this mental disorder, reporting its varied symptoms. The main clinical features he identified were sudden movement, foolish acts, fear, delusions, and hallucinations of black people.[35] This work was later translated into Latin as De Oblivione (On Forgetfulness) by Constantine the African.[34]




"Its victim behaves like a rooster and cries like a dog, the patient wanders among the tombs at night, his eyes are dark, his mouth is dry, the patient hardly ever recovers and the disease is hereditary."


Music therapyEdit



Cognitive therapyEdit

Al-Kindi developed cognitive methods to combat depression and discussed the intellectual operations of human beings.[14]




Physical and psychological disordersEdit






Nosology and psychopathologyEdit




Anatomy and physiologyEdit



Avicenna discovered the cerebellar vermis—which he named "vermis"—and the caudate nucleus, which he named "tailed nucleus" or "nucleus caudatus". These terms are still used in modern neuroanatomy.[41] He was also the earliest to note that intellectual dysfunctions were largely due to deficits in the brain's middle ventricle, and that the frontal lobe of the brain mediated common sense and reasoning.[39]

File:Ibn al-nafis page.jpg


"The blood permeates first to the back ventricle (hindbrain) then to the other two ventricles. Dissection confirms this and disproves what they say. The permeation of arteries into the cranium is well known not to be from the front ventricle."


"About what he [Ibn Sina] said concerning the sixth nerve being attached to the fifth through membranous facia, I have not so far found a good reason for that attachment, and I have not even verified it. This sixth pair [a confluence of the glossopharyngeal, vagus and accessory nerves] both arises and emerges from behind the fifth, so there is no way it could be attached to it."


"In fact it is not like that, [but] each nerve goes to the opposite side."




Neuropsychiatric conditionsEdit

Avicenna first described a number of neuropsychiatric conditions, including hallucination, insomnia, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, vertigo and tremor.[44] He dedicated three chapters of The Canon of Medicine (1020s) to neuropsychiatric disorders,[35] in which he defined madness (Junun) as a mental condition in which reality is replaced by fantasy, and discovered that it is a disorder of reason with its origin in the middle part of the brain.[45]



Later in the 13th century, Maimonides wrote about neuropsychiatric disorders and described rabies and belladonna intoxication.[43]

Neurology and neuropharmacologyEdit



Experimental approachEdit

Sensation and stimulusEdit


Visual perceptionEdit




File:Al-Biruni Afghan stamp.jpg
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī was a pioneer in experimental psychology who discovered the concept of reaction time.

Reaction timeEdit



Other experimentsEdit


"For when a literate person glances at the form abjad on a written paper , he would immediately perceive it to be abjad [a word denoting the Arabic alphabet] because of his recognition of the form. Thus from his perception that the 'a' and the 'd' last, or from his perception of the configuration of the total form, he perceives that it is abjad. Similarly, when he sees the written name of Allah, be He exalted, he perceives by recognition, at the moment of glancing at it, that it is Allah's name. And it is so with all well-known written words which have appeared many times before the eye: a literate person immediately perceives what the word is by recognition, without the need to inspect the letters in it one by one. The case is different when a literate person notices a strange word which he has not come upon beforehand or the like of which he has not already read. For he will perceive such a word only after inspecting its letters one by one and discerning their meanings; then he will perceive the meaning of the word."


Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288) identified the "psychic faculties" with cognition, sensation, imagination, and animal locomotion,[51] and disproved Aristotle's notion that these come from the heart rather than the brain through observation. After Ibn al-Nafis empirically discovered that the brain and nerves are cooler than the heart and arteries, he concluded that the psychic faculties come from the brain on this basis.[52] He further wrote that it is the brain which controls sensation, movement and cognition.[53]

File:Ibn Khaldoun.jpg
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), considered a father of sociology and the social sciences, made significant contributions to social psychology in his Muqaddimah (Prolegomena).

Sociological approachEdit


Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), considered a father of sociology[13][54][55] and the social sciences,[56] was another Muslim scholar who significant contributions to the area of social psychology. His book Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomena in the West) was a classic on the social psychology of the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula, particularly the Bedouins.[10]

Animal psychology and musicologyEdit



Modern contributionsEdit


In 1991, Saudi Arabian medical researchers discovered "neuro-Behcet's disease",[58] a neurological involvement in Behcet's disease, considered one of the most devastating manifestations of the disease as described by an Egyptian researcher Sahar Saleem.[59] In 1989, Saudi neurologists also discovered "neurobrucellosis", a neurological involvement in brucellosis.[58]

Biopsychosociology and neurochemical pathologyEdit

Dr. Muhammad B. Yunus is a Muslim physician and neuroscientist who practices internal medicine and rheumatology in the United States.[60] In 1981, he published the "first controlled study of the clinical characteristics" of the fibromyalgia syndrome, for which he is regarded as "the father of our modern view of fibromyalgia."[61] His work was the "first controlled clinical study" of fibromyalgia "with validation of known symptoms and tender points" and he also proposed "the first data-based criteria." In 1984, he proposed the important concept that the fibromyalgia syndrome and other similar conditions are interconnected. He showed serotonergic and norepinephric drugs to be effective in 1986, published criteria for fibromyalgia in 1990, and developed neurohormonal mechanisms with central sensitization in the 1990s.[62]


See alsoEdit


  1. 1.0 1.1 Majed Ashy (1999):
  2. 2.0 2.1 (Haque 2004, p. 358)
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Nurdeen Deuraseh and Mansor Abu Talib (2005), "Mental health in Islamic medical tradition", The International Medical Journal 4 (2), pp. 76-79.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 (Youssef, Youssef & Dening 1996, p. 57)
  5. (Syed 2002)
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 Omar Khaleefa (Summer 1999). "Who Is the Founder of Psychophysics and Experimental Psychology?", American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 16 (2).
  8. (Haque 2004)
  9. 9.0 9.1 (Youssef, Youssef & Dening 1996, p. 58)
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 (Haque 2004, p. 376)
  11. Qur'an, Sura 4:5
  12. (Youssef, Youssef & Dening 1996, p. 59)
  13. 13.0 13.1 (Haque 2004, p. 375)
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 (Haque 2004, p. 361)
  15. 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 (Haque 2004, p. 363)
  16. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein; Oliver Leaman (1996). History of Islamic Philosophy, 315 & 1022–1023, Routledge.
  17. (Haque 2004, pp. 365-6)
  18. Hillier, H. Chad (2006), "Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126 - 1198 CE)", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,, retrieved on 2008-01-23 
  19. Rizvi, Sajjad H. (2006), "Avicenna/Ibn Sina (CA. 980-1037)", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,, retrieved on 2008-01-23 
  21. Plott, C. (2000), Global History of Philosophy: The Period of Scholasticism, Motilal Banarsidass, p. 462, ISBN 8120805518 
  22. 22.0 22.1 22.2 (Haque 2004, p. 365)
  23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 (Haque 2004, p. 366)
  24. 24.0 24.1 (Haque 2004, p. 367)
  26. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical dimensions of Islam (1975), pg191
  27. 27.0 27.1 27.2 (Haque 2004, p. 364)
  28. (Youssef, Youssef & Dening 1996, p. 61)
  29. 29.0 29.1 (Haque 2004, p. 368)
  30. (Fancy 2006, pp. 239-40)
  31. (Fancy 2006, p. 209-10)
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 (Syed 2002, p. 7)
  33. (Syed 2002, pp. 7-8)
  34. 34.0 34.1 Thomas F. Glick, Steven John Livesey, Faith Wallis (2005), Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, p. 145, Routledge, ISBN 0415969301.
  35. 35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 (Youssef, Youssef & Dening 1996, p. 56)
  36. Henry George Farmer (1978), Historical Facts for the Arabian Musical Influence, p. 25, Ayer Publishing, ISBN 040508496X.
  37. Saoud, R.. The Arab Contribution to the Music of the Western World. (PDF) URL accessed on 2007-01-12.
  38. 38.0 38.1 38.2 38.3 (Haque 2004, p. 362)
  40. Adamis, Dimitrios; Treloar, Adrian; Martin, Finbarr C.; Macdonald, Alastair J. D. (2007), "A brief review of the history of delirium as a mental disorder", History of Psychiatry 18 (4): 459–69, doi:10.1177/0957154X07076467 
  41. 41.0 41.1 Professor Dr. Aydin, İbrahim Hakkı (2001), "Avicenna And Modern Neurological Sciences", Journal of Academic Researches in Religious Sciences 1 (2): 1–4 
  42. 42.0 42.1 42.2 42.3 Dr. Oataya, Sulaiman (1982), Ibn al-Nafis has dissected the human body, Symposium on Ibn al-Nafis, Second International Conference on Islamic Medicine: Islamic Medical Organization, Kuwait, Encyclopedia of Islamic World,, retrieved on 2008-01-23 
  43. 43.0 43.1 43.2 Martin-Araguz, A.; Bustamante-Martinez, C.; Fernandez-Armayor, Ajo V.; Moreno-Martinez, J. M. (2002), "Neuroscience in al-Andalus and its influence on medieval scholastic medicine", Revista de neurología 34 (9): 877-892
  45. (Youssef, Youssef & Dening 1996, pp. 56-7)
  46. 46.0 46.1 Lutz, Peter L. (2002), The Rise of Experimental Biology: An Illustrated History, Humana Press, p. 60, ISBN 0896038351 
  47. 47.0 47.1 Iqbal, Muhammad, "The Spirit of Muslim Culture", The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam,, retrieved on 2008-01-25 
  48. 48.0 48.1 Bradley Steffens (2006). Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, Chapter 5. Morgan Reynolds Publishing. ISBN 1599350246.
  50. Kennedy, Alan; Radach, R.; Heller, D.; Pynte, J. (2000), Reading as a Perceptual Process, Elsevier, p. ii, ISBN 0080436420 
  51. (Fancy 2006, p. 172)
  52. (Fancy 2006, p. 215)
  53. (Fancy 2006, p. 216)
  56. Akbar Ahmed (2002). "Ibn Khaldun’s Understanding of Civilizations and the Dilemmas of Islam and the West Today", Middle East Journal 56 (1), p. 25.
  57. (Plott 2000, p. 461)
  58. 58.0 58.1 Ravi Malhotra (2004), "Saudi Arabia", Practical Neurology 4: 184-185.
  59. Saleem, S. (2005), "Neuro-Behcet's Disease: NBD", Neurographics 4 (2, article 1),, retrieved on 2008-01-23 
  60. Dr. Muhammad Yunus, MD. HealthGrades, Inc. URL accessed on 2008-01-23.
  61. 61.0 61.1 John B. Winfield (2007), "Fibromyalgia and Related Central Sensitivity Syndromes: Twenty-five Years of Progress", Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism 36 (6): 335-338.
  62. F. Fatma Inanici and Muhammad B. Yunus (2004), "History of fibromyalgia: Past to present", 8 (5): 369-378.
  63. "Further Legitimization Of Fibromyalgia As A True Medical Condition", Science Daily, June 25, 2007,, retrieved on 2008-01-23 


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