Unconventional Duha Research Unitary

Introduction

This reflection paper explores the epistemological tension between the discourse of “integration” and the tawḥīdic worldview that underpins Islamic psychology. Many contemporary Muslim scholars and clinicians continue to frame the relationship between Islam and psychology through the paradigm of integration—attempting to merge Western psychological models with Islamic spiritual principles. While this intention is noble, it risks perpetuating the very dualism that tawḥīd seeks to overcome. This paper argues that a truly Islamic psychology must move beyond integration toward epistemic coherence, recognising the unity of all knowledge under Allah. Within the tawḥīdic paradigm, psychology is not a discipline to be integrated with religion, but a sacred science that already belongs to the domain of revelation and divine order.

The Problem of Integration

Since the late twentieth century, the revival of Islamic psychology has often centred on the idea of integration—the effort to reconcile Islamic spiritual wisdom with Western scientific psychology. The aim was understandable: to heal the colonial rupture that separated human understanding from revelation. Yet, in adopting the language of “integration,” Muslim psychologists inadvertently accepted the ontological assumption that these two systems—Islam and psychology—are independent entities in need of synthesis.

The tawḥīdic worldview, however, recognises no such division. Tawḥīd is not merely a theological statement but an epistemological principle: there is only one Source of truth, and all realities, whether material or immaterial, derive coherence through that Source. To “integrate” implies prior separation; to be tawḥīdī is to acknowledge that knowledge was never divided to begin with.

Thus, the problem with integration is not its aim, but its premise. It assumes that Islamic revelation and secular psychology exist as parallel systems that can be harmonised through methodological negotiation—whereas tawḥīd begins by rejecting any ontological fragmentation of knowledge.

Epistemological Background

Western Psychology and its Epistemic Roots

Modern psychology emerged from post-Enlightenment philosophy, founded upon empiricism, materialism, and secular humanism. Its epistemic foundations limit knowledge to what is observable, measurable, and falsifiable. As a result, the human being is defined primarily as a biopsychosocial organism—a creature of stimulus, cognition, and behaviour, but stripped of spirit (rūḥ), moral purpose, and divine accountability.

This framework cannot, by its very nature, accommodate transcendence or metaphysical realities. Even when psychology studies “spirituality,” it often reduces it to subjective emotion or coping style, detached from revelation and divine truth.

Islamic Psychology and its Epistemic Roots

By contrast, ʿIlm al-Nafs begins from tawḥīd: that the human being is an integrated unity of nafs (self/soul), ʿaql (intellect), qalb (heart), rūḥ (spirit), and jism (body). Each dimension interacts harmoniously under divine law (sunan Allāh).

Its epistemic foundation is dual yet unified: naql wa ʿaql—revelation and reason. Revelation provides ontological grounding; reason serves as a tool for interpretation. Knowledge, in this paradigm, is not discovered but unveiled—for reality itself is a sign (āyah) of Allah.

Therefore, the so-called “Islamic psychology” is not a new hybrid discipline—it is a rediscovery of a science that was never meant to be severed from its metaphysical source.

The Epistemic Contradiction of Integration

To “integrate” Islamic and Western psychology assumes that both are compatible fields of knowledge standing on equal ontological ground. But this is philosophically incoherent. Western psychology is secular by design—it denies metaphysical causality. Islamic psychology is sacred by design—it begins with the recognition of divine causality.

Integration, therefore, can only ever be partial and unstable. It is like attempting to merge light and shadow while ignoring the difference in their nature. A science that grounds itself in revelation cannot truly integrate with one that defines itself by excluding revelation.

The tawḥīdic paradigm instead calls for reclaiming coherence—that is, reordering knowledge so that every branch of inquiry is subordinated to the metaphysical truth that “Allah is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden” (Qur’an 57:3).

As Professor Al-Attas argued, secularisation did not begin with immorality, but with epistemic dislocation—the exile of the sacred from knowledge. Integration, if unexamined, risks reinforcing that same exile by implying that the sacred and the secular are separate realms requiring negotiation.

From Integration to Coherence: The Tawḥīdic Alternative

The alternative to integration is epistemic coherence—to restore alignment between ontology (the reality of being), epistemology (the means of knowing), and axiology (the purpose of knowing).

In a coherent Islamic psychology:

Epistemically, truth is unified. All genuine knowledge is from Allah, regardless of the method of discovery.

Ontologically, the human being is both body and spirit; psychological distress cannot be understood apart from spiritual imbalance.

Axiologically, the goal of healing is not mere functionality, but nearness to Allah (qurb ilā Allāh).

Western therapeutic methods may still be used, but as tools, not as truths. The criterion is not compatibility with Western science, but submission to divine ontology. Techniques such as cognitive restructuring or mindfulness can serve as wasāʾil (means), provided their underlying worldview is reframed through revelation—turning “self-awareness” into muhāsabah, and “mindfulness” into muraqabah.

Thus, Islamic psychology is not a fusion but a reorientation: all psychological insight must revolve around the axis of lā ilāha illā Allāh.

Implications for Clinical Practice

1. Training and Curriculum:
   Islamic psychology education must begin with ontology—the nature of the human being as ʿabd and khalīfah—before methodology. Students should learn ʿilm al-nafs, ʿilm al-qalb, and ʿilm al-rūḥ alongside counselling skills.
2. Clinical Goals:
   Healing is redefined as tazkiyah (purification) and taswiyah (balance), not mere symptom reduction.
   The clinician becomes a murabbī al-nafs, not only a therapist.
3. Ethical Orientation:
   Every intervention must aim to restore harmony between the nafs, ʿaql, and qalb so that the person returns to the state of nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah — the tranquil self, as described in Qur’an 89:27-30.

Conclusion

To reclaim Islamic psychology is not to integrate it with the secular, but to liberate it from epistemic colonisation. The language of “integration” belongs to a world that presupposes disunity; the language of tawḥīd affirms that all knowledge is already interconnected within the Divine order.

True decolonisation, therefore, is not achieved by merging paradigms, but by restoring coherence — by returning the study of the human self (nafs) to its rightful metaphysical home.

“Say: My prayer, my sacrifice, my living and my dying are all for Allah, Lord of the worlds.”
— Qur’an 6:162