ABSTRACT
The past decades have seen a proliferation of literature on the soul-searching for an agreed definition and theoretical or conceptual model of Islamic psychology and its clinical application. Many Muslim psychologists have been educated in mostly Western universities, or even in their own countries have remained in a “psycho-secular bubble.” Badri’s warning was to save Muslim psychologists from being trapped in the “lizard’s hole” that is implicit in other disciplines of human life and thoughts. The emphasis on the secularisation of modern psychology is based on the premise that religion is based upon faith which cannot be evaluated by objective methods, whereas science is based on empiricism and experimentation in order to establish facts that are verifiable. Muslim scholars have used various terms to describe the concept of Islamic psychology and psychotherapy, including Tib al-nufus, c Ilaj al-nafs, al-Tib al-ruhaniy, Tahdhib al-nufus, Tathir al-nufus, Tazkiyyat al-nafs, Tasfiyat al-nufus, Mudawat al-nufus, etc. Islamic psychology or ʿilm al-nafs or the science of the Nafs (soul or self) is the philosophical study of the soul from an Islamic perspective. Islamic psychology is the study of the soul, mental processes and behaviour according to the principles of psychology and Islamic sciences. Whether we are able to develop a unified Islamic theoretical framework from “indigenisation from within” and from “indigenisation from without” remains a challenge.
