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Spiritual Aspects Of Al-Kindî and Razi In Islamic Psychology

An Islamic psychologist, Al-Kindî was a pioneer in experimental psychology. He was the first to use the method of experiment in psychology, which led to his discovery that sensation is balanced to the motivation.

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The works of Abû Yûsuf Ya‘qûb ibn Ishâq Al-Kindî (d. c.870) and Abû Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya ibn Yahya al-Râzî (865-925 or 932) were influenced by Aristotelian and Neoplatonic texts and they discussed the soul and mind through the Islamic perspective.

Spiritual Aspects Of Al-Kindî and Razi In Islamic Psychology

Al-Kindî explained the soul has various stages to be proximity to its creator; it is qualified to relate to God’s activities, not to his essence. Al-Kindî not express the relationship of the imagination and intellect, but imaginative forms partially abstracted from matter. Here he leaves his ultimately dualistic psychology.

As an Islamic psychologist, Al-Kindî was a pioneer in experimental psychology. He was the first to use the method of experiment in psychology, which led to his discovery that sensation is balanced to the motivation. He was also the earliest to realize the therapeutic value of music and attempted to cure a quadriplegic boy using music therapy.

Al-Rāzi also was inspired by the view of plato on the soul and colored by accounts of creation and salvation. Rāzi often spoke about  the three souls, the rational of divine one enlisting the higher passions of the animal soul to control the base of the vegetative soul.

Razi goes into further physiological detail concerning the accountabilities of the various psychic organs. The special faculties required for the brain to exercise its soul’s dominion are identified as the imagination (here called wahm, a term that Avicenna was to adopt and expand upon); a cogitative power (al-fikr) and memory (al-hifz).

While Razi constructed his psychology with borrowings from Plato, Galen and Aristotle. He believed there were five eternal cosmic principles, one of which was a world soul that needed divine intervention to liberate. He introduced this message in Al-Ṭibb al-Rūhānī; it reveals that the immortal rational soul of an individual must strive to free itself. Rāzi as well as Al-Kindî sketched the components of psychological aspects.

Al-Fārābī

Abū Nasr Muhammad ibn Tarkhān ibn Awzalagh al- Fārābī better known in Islamic philosophy and psychology. He is the second outstanding representative in Islamic scientific discipline after Al-Kindî. He was born in wasij, in the district of Fārāb in Turkestan, around the year 257/890. He was influenced by the works of al-ghazālī and Ibn khaldūn during his educational period.

After capturing the introduction of the Qur’ān, al Farābi learned grammer, literature and religious science. Al- Farābi, spent his time learning Islamic philosophy and immersed in that studies and in new findings. He died in 339/950.

Al-Fārābīs Psychology

Al-Fārābī wrote numerous works on different branches of science known to the medieval world, without medicine. He wrote all his works in Arabic. Scholars both traditional and modern have generally praised his simple and clear Arabic philosophic and psychological prose.

He has different categories in his works. In these, his second category consists f a number of independent scientific treaties on such subjects as psychology, zoology, and metrology. His psychological works was ‘kalām fiāḍa’al-hayawān (Discourse on AnimalOrgans).

Al-Fārābī discuss psychology mainly in four of his well known works, the ‘Riāalat fil –‘agal, al –madīnat al -fāḍīlah, al-sināsat al-madanīyah and Fuṣūṣ al-Hikam’. He explained in these works, the development of the various faculties of the soul, the discussion of intellects (‘aql).

The elements of Al-Fārābī’s psychology (especially the doctrines of the intellect were brought from various sources- Aristotelian and Neoplatonic as well as Islamic. The greater warmth (as well as strength) in human’s organs and limbs make men generally more aggressively forceful than women, who in turn generally excel in the “weaker” qualities of mercy and compassion.The sexes are equal, according to sensation, imagination and intellection.

Farabi adapts this originally Aristotelian idea. Al-Fārābī’s most detailed study of the intellect is in the name of“Epistle on the Intellect,’ Risāla fi’l-‘Aql’. He begins by showing the diverse contexts in which nominal and verbal forms of ‘intellect’ and ‘intelligence’ are employed.

ibn sīnā

Ibn sīnā is well known as ‘the philosopher of eastern world’. His major works are ‘Qānūn’ and ‘al-shifā’. He gave a new elaboration to the soul and human limb. In his opinion, the mind is an essence and origin. So, the mind manages all activities of the body and other parts of the body of human beings. The first connecgtion of mind is to the soul. He elaborated the functions of soul in his major worls ‘al-Qānūna’ and ‘al-shifā’. It consists of rejoice and pain of soul.

His psychological related thoughts are basic in the study of the mind of human beings. Ibn sīnā’s view is most related to Mc Dougall, that is the moving of mind and soul is only for the perfect of the human body. The study of Muslim philosophers on mind of men, reaches to God and spirituality, but western psychologists said that the man is an animal, so almost of activities are related to animal.

The western psychologists find the treatment of mind of cocnsole the soul and to motivate it, but the Muslim psychologists find the treatment in spirituality and stable faith in God. So that, the influence of Sunnah and Qur’ān in Islamic psychology is formidable. The soul is in an accidental relation to a particular body. The soul was formed by the particular nature of its specialized body, which it tries to bring to maral and intellect perfection. Ibn sīnā proves that the soul is an independent intelligent substance. Ibn Sina noted the close relationship between emotions and the physical condition and felt that music had a definite physical and psychological effect on patients.

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