Ethics of Faith-Based Counseling for Muslims
بسم الله العليم
“O Allah! Cause my faith to reach the most perfect faith, Make my certainty the most excellent certainty, And take my intention to the best of intentions, and my works to the best of works!"
Dua Makarim al-Akhlaq of Imam Ali Zayn al-Abidin (p)
Ethics are a key component of the helping professions including counselors, social workers, chaplains, and clergy. Ethics ensure that the counselor remains aware of their scope of competence and practice, and that no harm is done to the person or group receiving therapeutic care. The counseling profession emerged as a secular response to the mental health needs of the public, and it continues to make space for culturally appropriate and sensitive counseling practices. Faith-based counseling traditions stress the scriptural foundations of ethical practices.
In an attempt to articulate the ethics of faith-based counseling practices for Muslims, we must first delineate its scope and the purpose. It is now overwhelmingly clear that Muslims prefer therapy which is integrated with their faith, or acknowledged their faith affiliation. They may feel unseen or unheard in spaces of secular therapy, and may want to seek out Muslim therapists who identify with their faith. Muslim mental health professionals are tasked with a dual responsibility: to uphold the highest standards of clinical excellence while remaining anchored in the ethical teachings of Islam.
Modern counseling ethics emphasize ethical principles of ensuring the client’s autonomy, acting with beneficence, ensuring non-maleficence, preserving fidelity to professional standards, and advocating for social justice. These principles are compatible with Islamic teachings, and here it can be further advocated that Islamic principles of Tahdhib (Refinement) , Ihsan (Excellence), and Takamul (Integration) can be part of the therapeutic process.
The most excellent of these models of confluence between Islamic and professional ethics is integration. Only when the counselor has cognitively, emotionally, and psychologically engaged with these principles can they become useful tools in the therapeutic relationship. The purpose of ethics is to ensure the competency of the professional, so that the client may receive standardized care. This requirement extends to faith-based counseling, where clients seek to receive care that is cognate with their conceptions of faith and spirituality.
One: Confidentiality and Scope
Confidentiality in Islam is an Amanah. The Messenger of Allah (p) warned us: "Do not harm the Muslims, nor revile them, nor spy on them to expose their secrets.” In a community where seeking mental health can be enwrapped in stigma, confidentiality and safety are essential steps in creating therapeutic space.
Muslims may prefer to first speak with their Imam/Alim and share their concerns. Collective stigma, fear of judgement, ambiguity about mental health concerns, and spiritual dissonance are first encountered in the pastoral space with the Imam/Alim. It is crucial that the pastoral care provider create a safe and confidential space, while providing reassurance that there is hope and possibility of change and improvement.
It is also important that the pastoral caregiver also remains aware of their scope of practice. Imams/Ulama may be the first step for many Muslims facing mental health challenges. They should not be the stations where Muslims encounter spiritual bypassing, which includes dismissal of their concerns. Imams/Ulama may provide pastoral support through the variety of tools available to them, while encouraging Muslims to seek help from a professional who can integrate their faith in the therapeutic process.
Two: Spiritual Integration
The flow of information from the Imam/Alim to the faith-integrated therapist must be guarded with extreme care. Documents such as the “Therapeutic Referral Form” can be used to create a framework of pastoral assessment and referral to the therapist. Ethical faith-integration requires explicit informed consent, release of information, and assurance of safety. In collective cultures with stigma around mental health concerns, confidentiality cannot be overemphasized.
Islam recognizes the human being not just as a collection of symptoms, but as a soul possessing a Fitrah, a primordial, sound nature. The Qur’an declares "So set your face on the religion as a hanif—the nature (fitrah) of Allah on which He originated mankind. There is no altering Allah’s creation; that is the upright religion, but most people do not know." (Quran 30:30). Fitrah is universal to all humans, is not taught or learned, and cannot be replaced. In the therapeutic model, it invites each Muslim to rediscover the Divine in their experience of mental health concerns.
There is no altering Allah’s creation; that is the upright religion, but most people do not know." (Quran 30:30)
Muslim therapists should recognize that counseling emerged from a secular environment and is a tool that is used to serve a wide variety of demographics in the population. Two questions emerge here: What are the ethics of faith-based counseling for Muslims? And what are the tools needed by Muslim counselors?
The ethics of faith-based counseling are based on an Islamic understanding of the Nafs, Ruh, Aql, Qalb, and Jasad. To avoid mapping these concepts onto meta-modern conceptions, they must be understood on their own terms. Islamic principles, originating in the Quran and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah and his infallible Ahl al-Bayt (p). The Aql provides the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood and invites the Muslim to follow the truth. The Ruh is a universal element which is “from the command of Allah”, indicating the source and origin of all life. The Nafs contains imaginative and rational faculties. The Qalb is the site of faith and disbelief in God and His commands. Finally, the Jasad is the physical manifestation containing fire, air, water, and earth. The laws of Islam are acted out through the Jasad in the physical realm.
The goal of Islamic integration is to ensure that the human is in holistic harmony with each of these four elements. They must all function within the realm of Islam and Imaan (faith), and should be invited to reach perfection and submission through the teachings of Islam. This lays aside the secular goals of “restoration of the client” and invites the counselor to consider spiritual, social, and collective elements of well-being.
Ethically, this means the primary goal is to facilitate a return to this harmony. The obstacles to maintaining this harmony may be spiritual, cognitive, emotive, imaginative, social, and somatic. The purpose of faith-based integration is to explore these obstacles, provide coping mechanisms as they may appear dysregulated, ground the Muslim in faith and best clinical practice, and provide “holistic return” as a pathway to healing. Instead of “restoring the client”, faith-based counseling seeks to “revive the Muslim in all their faculties", including spiritual and collective life.
Practitioners must also distinguish between "spiritual bypassing" and "spiritual integration." An ethical faith-based practice does not use religion to dismiss pain; it uses faith to provide a container for it. Spiritual bypassing only creates a space where the avoidance is articulated in religion, and spiritual integration allows the pain to exist within a religious framework. An ethics of faith-integration acknowledges the faith of the person.
Practitioners must not enter the therapeutic space with the goal of "making the client more religious." The exploration of anchoring the client in faith can lead to healing, and the possession of an additional therapeutic tool and intervention. Practitioners can integrate spiritual goals into the therapeutic process, and explore obstacles to reaching spiritual competence for an individual, family, or group.
Three: Spiritual Coordination
It is also important for those in the helping profession to coordinate with the Imam or Alim. The Imam or religious leader often operates from an authoritative, directive style. Their lead principle is often Dawah or Tabligh, ensuring that there is cognitive reception of faith. They may or may not be experts in emotional reception and wellness related to that cognitive reception. The therapeutic journey for a Muslim overwhelmingly begins in sacred space.
The relationship between the Imam/Alim and the therapist is key in ensuring a “warm handshake” in the coordination of care. Mutual respect, awareness of professional and pastoral boundaries, clarity of commutation, and coordination of care through confidentiality are key elements.
The therapist’s lead principle must be to cause no harm and to avoid extenuating any harm in the person’s soul. In the therapy room, the relationship is advisory and facilitative to spiritual growth, along with providing evidence-based clinical interventions. The counselor is a steward of the person’s autonomy, of their role as Allah’s khalifa on earth, and of their connection with their faith.
The therapist, as Nasih or a person providing sincere counsel, should value integrity, accuracy, and truthfulness. A person seeking faith-based counseling should receive an accurate diagnosis, along with therapeutic interventions grounded in faith-informed practice. Truthful speech is presented as a requirement for receiving blessings and improvement of personal actions and conditions (Quran 33:70) .
Four: The ethics of competence
An ethical practitioner consistently assesses their own competence in biopsychosocial-spiritual models. While recognizing that the Quran describes itself as "a healing for what is in the breasts" (10:57), this spiritual healing is often complementary to professional intervention. An ethical practitioner does not ignore the spiritual element within the human being and acknowledges it, is curious about it, and encourages the person to find holistic fulfillment through faith.
Competence is anchored in enhancing religious and cultural knowledge. Tools include training aimed at religious literacy, Quranic knowledge, knowledge of fiqh, and exploration of psycho-spiritual-emotional models in the faith tradition. Parallel to professional development and enhancing clinical skills, practitioners should be aware of their limitations, skills, and needs when providing faith-based counseling.
Sources Cited
Al-Kulayni, M. i. Y. (n.d.). Al-Kafi: Book 1, the book of intellect and ignorance. Thaqalayn.https://thaqalayn.net/chapter/1/1/0
American Association of Christian Counselors. (2023). AACC code of ethics.https://aacc.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AACC_Code-of-Ethics-2023_FINAL.pdf
American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA code of ethics.https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ethics/2014-aca-code-of-ethics.pdf
Hasse, D. N. (2016). Influence of Arabic and Islamic philosophy on the Latin West. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 ed.). Stanford University.https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/arabic-islamic-mind/
Rassool, G. H. (2021). Islamic Psychology: Human Nature, Wellbeing and Muslim Mental Health. Routledge.
Tabataba'i, M. H. (n.d.). Al-Mizan: An exegesis of the Qur'an (Vol. 25). Al-Mizan.https://almizan.org/vol/25/248-293
