Ruqyah and What Western Says

Bismillah.
Assalamualaikum w.b.t 

I would like to share my part of writing for English subject. So here is it :

          Ruqyah is a word in Arabic with meaning “spell, charm and incantation”. It also brings meaning of enchanting, bewitching, or of being armed against baleful, maleficience or sorcery. In Muslim world, Ruqyah is another type of Exorcism that Muslims conduct. It is  the recitation of specific and choosen al-Quran verses, a method of supplication and rememberance to treat sickness especially ailments that are related to mental illness, djin affliction, devil’s eyes, black magic and possession.

            Nowadays, Ruqyah treatment is an alternative for modern medical if the patients that are being treated, have a normal diagnosis result but they are actually very sick. We can see this is being applied in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Kubang Kerian campus, or well-knowned with the existence of its hospital, HUSM. Specialists will recommend the patients to refer to Islamic Treatment (Ruqyah) for any peculiar cases that they cannot identify the reasons which they cannot solve. When it comes to this kind of ailment or involving metaphysical cases (beyond physical experience), advance modern technology nor social science studies definitely cannot explain because it is beyond of our limitations.

WHAT PSYCHIATRISTS SAY

From The Huffington Post, United Kingdom edition on 20^th April 2016, written by Sara C Nelson entitled “Malaysia School Shuts after Ghostly Figure Sparks Mass Hysteria” which had happened in Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Pengkalan Chepa 2, situated in Kelantan. Recorded that possessions and disturbance of supernatural (djin) had taken place for few days, which happens almost a week. So, Ruqyah treatment was given following the Islamic Tradition because the school places majority number of Muslims’ students including the administration itself.

Cited from the article saying that:

“Psychiatrist Scott D Mendelson believes the phenomenon of “mass hysteria” - often diagnosed as “conversion disorder” - is a psychiatric, rather than neurological disorder and occurs more often in women rather than men. “

            According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ‘Conversion Disorder’ is a psychoneurosis in which bodily symptoms (as paralysis of the limbs) appear without physical basis-called also conversion hysteria, or conversion reaction which is first used in 1980.

From website Encyclopaedia Britannica, the definition of Psychoneurosis:

‘’Neurosis, plural neuroses, also called psychoneurosis or plural psychoneuroses, mental disorder that causes a sense of distress and deficit in functioning.

Neuroses are characterized by anxiety, depression, or other feelings of unhappiness or distress that are out of proportion to the circumstances of a person’s life. They may impair a person’s functioning in virtually any area of his life, relationships, or external affairs, but they are not severe enough to incapacitate the person. Affected patients generally do not suffer from the loss of the sense of reality seen in persons with psychoses.”

From the view of Western, they have been discussing about physical sickness, only through medical concern. If there is nil definite outcome from the diagnosis, specialists will refer the case to psychiatrist.  Therapy that including counselling will be held for few sessions that is compulsory for them to attend. For problems of stressing and hallucination, the patients will be given routine medicine but we have seen the fact that this method is far from par excellence and of course not an absolute solution.

An article wrote by Jules Evan on 16 May 2016 recorded a view from a psychiatrist, Dr. Copsey who has been saying in her presentation in University of London’s Psychiatry Department that they are actually marginalized spiritual aspect. Part of her words said that :

“Psychiatrists operate from a frame which excludes the spiritual most of the time, while our community includes it.”

          Teaching in Islam, sourcing from al-Quran and Hadith(Prophet Muhammad PBUH), speak about an aspect that is indispensable to fathom beforehand, that is about Tauhid. So, in study of Tauhid, there are aspects such as being and existence and a lot of metaphysical matters that mankind can only know through Revelation (Al-Quran and Hadith). Thus, in order to solve these problems of mental illness, djin affliction, devil’s eyes, black magic and possession, we need to recognise and acknowledge this part. A secularized individual will deny that this aspect does exist in human world, which is crucial in order to understand the connectivity of this world order (Sunnatullah). 

REFERENCES

1- N.a.  1 December 2015.  "Ruqayya". Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruqayya 

2-Evans. J.         16 May 2016.  “Connecting NHS mental health with Islamic ruqyah healing in East London”.                  The History of Emotions Blog.

https://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/2016/05/connecting-nhs-mental-health-with-islamic-ruqyah-healing-in-east-london/

3-Nelson, C.      20 April 2016. “Malaysia School Shuts After Ghostly Figure Sparks Mass Hysteria”.         The Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/malaysia-school-shuts-after-ghostly-figure-sparks-mass-hysteria_uk_57175999e4b0f22f021a6f41

4- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.    “Psychology’’.            Neurosis.            http://global.britannica.com/science/neurosis