Happiness and Well-Being in Islam

This book presents a theoretical model to understand happiness and well-being in Islam combining a positive psychology approach and the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah. With the evolution of positive psychology, the study of well-being gained broader and deeper dimensions that today encompass different peoples, cultures, and worldviews. The fact that most of the knowledge disseminated around the world has been built from a Western perspective has created gaps in science about non-Western people’s cultures and worldviews. This reality has given rise to new epistemological trends, such as the revival of Islamic psychology, which seeks to recover classic knowledge and include new theoretical perspectives on the human psyche in line with Islamic beliefs and values.The topic of well-being in Islam has aroused interest among Western researchers in recent years, both in positive psychology, due to its third wave, and in the field of the psychology of religion. While Western science fragments knowledge into different areas of psychology, focusing on behaviors and actions that generate positive emotional states and relationships, the conception of well-being in Islāmic psychology seems to coordinate all these behaviors with values, meanings, and spiritual connections, integrating content from various approaches holistically. It is a system that connects beliefs, religious teachings, spiritual practices, and prosocial behaviors, based on a logic in which God, the individual, and society are closely related to each other.Happiness and Well-Being in Islam will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners in fields such as clinical psychology, psychological assessment, positive psychology, psychology of religion and Islāmic psychology by providing theoretical insights to research as well as valuable information that can contribute to the construction of measurement instruments, interventions, and therapeutic practices in the clinical field, and also in areas such as education, health, social and organizational environments.

Sálua Omais holds a Ph.D. in Psychology by the University of São Paulo (USP-Ribeirão Preto), Brazil, with a doctoral exchange stay in Cambridge (UK). She holds a Master´s degree in Health Psychology & Mental Health and postgraduate degrees in Islamic Psychology, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and in Positive Psychology. She is graduated in Psychology, Law and Dentistry and is the director of PsicoIslam, a group of psychologists who provide mental health guidance to the Muslim community in Brazil. Her research focus is on positive psychology, psychology of religion and Islamic psychology. Dr. Omais served as a voluntary lecturer at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, where she implemented the discipline of Happiness and Emotional Intelligence in the campus. In the last years, she has published articles about Islam and Islamic Psychology in Brazilian academic journals, and authored two books in the field of Psychology in Brazil, one of them titled Manual de Psicologia Positiva ("Manual of Positive Psychology"). Dr. Omais is a speaker and instructor/facilitator of various courses for both public and private institutions.