Iowa University in USA to Offer Islamic Psychology Class

Lowa, 17 Syawwal 1438/11 Juli 2017 (MINA) – Students across the state of Iowa in USA, and world this fall will have the chance to take a new University of Iowa-based course about Islamic Psychology, something new in academics.

Introduction to Islamic Psychology is the start of what UI adjunct Professor Carrie York Al-Karam hopes will blossom into an Islamic Psychology Institute offering an Islamic Psychology certificate, IINA News reported.

“It’s not even just a new course at the University of Iowa,” York Al-Karam told The Gazette News. “It’s a new course; nobody is teaching this.”

Islamic Psychology will be offered online for three semester hours this fall to traditional and non-traditional students alike.

The course will cover the past and present ties between psychology and religion and delve into how the Muslim world has dealt with psychology and related ideas.

Proponents of the course say it will take students beyond the headlines and into the lives of practicing Muslims, presenting practical aspects of the world’s second-largest religion. It also could shed stereotypes and highlight broader connections between psychology and religion in general.

“In order to understand any culture and understand its history, understand what’s important to it, understand its cultural products, you have to understand something about religion,” said Diana Fritz Cates, chairwoman of the UI Religious Studies department.

And student interest in Islam as it continues to grab headlines nationally and internationally is robust, according to Cates.

“I think there’s a strong interest on the part of students in understanding their world,” she said. “And they know they really can’t figure out what’s happening, particularly in the middle east, without knowing something about Islam.”

Islam, she said, has a lot to say about the nature of being human, about psychopathology and about healing both mentally and physically.

Students will become familiar with therapeutic modalities in Islam, and they’ll understand the differences between Islamic psychology and mainstream psychology including the central role the soul plays in Islamic psychology.

“In the Islamic traditions,” York Al-Karam said, “there are what are called diseases of the heart, which are actually spiritual diseases.”

York Al-Karam, with her cross-disciplinary academic and cultural background, has a unique perspective on what in Arabic is referred to as the “science of the self.”

The new Islamic Psychology course will connect with other classes with a similar health and healing theme.(T/R04/RS5)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)