Unconventional Duha Research Unitary

Conclusion & Call to Action

The discourse on junūn in classical fiqh was never meant to be a rigid fossil of the past. It was a living attempt by jurists to grapple with the limits of human reason, to discern when Allah’s mercy suspends obligation, and when accountability remains.

Their categories of junūn dāʾim, junūn ṭāriʾ, al-maʿtūh, and ahwāl mutaqallibah were adequate for their time, based on the phenomena they observed. The fuqahāʾ agreed upon a foundational maxim: al-ʿaql māḥall al-taklīf — reason is the locus of accountability. Where the ʿaql is absent, obligation is lifted; where it is impaired, obligation is adjusted.

But the modern world has unveiled new realities.

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis, and the medicated state represent millions of Muslims living neither fully sane nor fully insane — but in a liminal space, where the ʿaql flickers like a candle in the wind. The rise of psychiatric medication has silenced many souls: not by stripping them of reason, but by smothering will, joy, and motivation. This silenced soul is invisible in classical fiqh, yet cries out for recognition.

The central principle of Sharīʿah is that Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity:

“Allah does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear” [Qur’ān 2:286].

And again:

“There is no blame upon the blind, or upon the lame, or upon the sick” [Qur’ān 24:61].

To demand from the medicated schizophrenic what he cannot give, or to excuse him entirely and sever him from worship, are both betrayals of this principle.

The path forward is a middle way: an expanded fiqh framework that acknowledges psychological incapacity under pharmacological suppression as a distinct category of human experience.

Such a framework must also recognize marātib al-ʿajz — degrees of incapacity.

Some patients retain clarity with mild medication and remain fully mukallaf; others are subdued into near-constant sleep, or robbed of will by anhedonia, and in these states taklīf is suspended like sleep or unconsciousness. The question of qaḍāʾ (making up missed acts) also requires clarification: should patients in prolonged sedation be excused entirely, or obliged to make up what they can in lucid moments? Classical jurists differed on junūn in this regard — our time demands ijtihād specific to psychiatric realities.

This is not merely a matter of furū (legal branches), but of maqāṣid al-sharīʿah.

The preservation of aql (intellect) and dīn (faith) lies at the heart of the law, but so too does the preservation of nafs (life), māl (property), and nasl (lineage). Mental illness touches all of these: it disorients the intellect, weakens worship, endangers life through despair, disrupts families, and complicates guardianship and inheritance. To neglect the mentally ill is to fracture the maqāṣid.

This requires collaboration:

Fuqahāʾ (jurists): must listen to psychiatrists and patients, integrating lived experience into legal reasoning.

Psychiatrists: must recognize the spiritual dimensions of illness, not reducing patients to brain chemistry alone.

Families and communities: must learn compassion, supporting worship when possible and withholding blame when impossible.

Patients themselves: must be given dignity, reminded that even in incapacity, their worth before Allah is not diminished.

We therefore issue a call:

To international fatwā councils: convene symposia on mental illness, medication, and taklīf, developing clear guidelines for the ummah.

To Muslim psychiatrists and psychologists: document the lived experiences of medicated patients, so that fiqh rulings are not abstract but rooted in real suffering.

To institutions and madāris: decolonize psychiatry, reclaiming Islamic categories of nafs, rūḥ, qalb, ʿaql, and teaching future scholars to think beyond secular epistemology.

To communities: end the stigma of calling the afflicted “mad” or “weak,” for even the Prophet ﷺ was accused of being majnūn [Qur’ān 68:2, 81:22, 52:29].

The time has come to rethink taklīf under psychiatric medication — not to dilute Sharīʿah, but to embody it more fully. The fuqahāʾ of the past acted with the knowledge of their age. It is now upon us, with humility and courage, to act with the knowledge of ours. To continue relying uncritically on secular psychiatric categories is to perpetuate colonial epistemology; we must reclaim our own legacy and let Islamic categories illuminate medicine, not the reverse.

And perhaps — in the deepest sense — the silenced soul is not silenced at all. Perhaps its very incapacity is its ʿibādah, its patience is its ṣalāh, its tears in secret are its zakāh. Perhaps the heart that whispers lā ilāha illā Allāh in the midst of sedation is more beloved to Allah than a thousand outwardly perfect rituals.

May Allah illuminate the path for our ʿulamāʾ, grant healing to the afflicted, wisdom to the physicians, compassion to the families, and patience to the sufferers. May He make this inquiry a means of mercy, not burden, and a reminder that even in silence, the soul whispers:

Lā ilāha illā Allāh, Muḥammad Rasūl Allāh.