Islamic Psychology and the Contribution of Islamic Psychologists in Social Sciences

Abstract

Western historians of psychology trace the beginning of the discipline in ancient Greece and then leaping from 3rd century BCE to the 16th Century BC, concentrating only on the period of renaissance and the enlightenment. Ignoring the middle ages in which the actual seeds of the enlightenment were sown. The common belief towards the Islamic scientists is negative and it is believed that the origin and the transmission of knowledge is limited to the Greeks and the West. However, it is also consensually accepted that Muslim intellectuals, scholars and scientists from the 8th, 9th and 13th century made a remarkable progress in the numerous scientific fields including psychology. More than thousand years ago Muslim thinkers and physicians made a seminal contribution to psychology psychotherapy and psychiatry. The restructuring of psychology and other sciences in the Islamic framework entails the identification of the works of Muslim scholars, thinkers and physicians of earlier times which deal with the themes of psychology and psychotherapy. The paper shall focus on the major works of some of the Islamic scientist’s, scholars and the modern Islamic psychologists towards the discipline of psychology. The paper shall also focus on the analysis of original Arabic texts and the resent studies of psychologists. We shall put light on the criticism of western scholars on Islam and Muslims, as the Islamic scientists and scholars made an important advancement in field long before psychology’s actual birth.