Supreme, Beyond Body, is Thy Creation God: The Venerability of Soul in Islamic Psychology

Abstract

We, as human beings, are deeply and relentlessly involved in seeking to experience our potentials and live dreams. The postmodern western psychological schools – Psychodynamics, Behaviorism and Humanism – constricted psychology to a therapeutic discipline, where the tool of research – Mind – became the object of their research. Where the existence of soul as an entity was being undermined, some of the psychologists from Fromm, Jung to Gai Eaton and Scott Peck, have realized the spiritual chaos caused by its dearth. The Muslim psychological perspective, from Prophet Muhammad to al-Balkhi till Badri to Almaas, delves into the realm of human satisfaction, aiming at happiness and contentment. This work is an attempt at the psychological approach towards the understanding of man's inner being, specifically analyzing the subject of Soul.