Depression doesn’t make you a bad Muslim: what the Islamic community can do for mental health I was raised in a Muslim home in the suburbs of outer London, in a family where religion was always […]

I was raised in a Muslim home in the suburbs of outer London, in a family where religion was always important. As a child I was told that depression was not something faced by Muslims.

“Depression doesn’t exist in Islam.” It was said almost in a chorus by family friends in Muslim communities both at home and abroad; the prevailing consensus was that depression was a Western phenomenon. I was puzzled as to what this actually meant.

Did it mean that Muslims were somehow immune from the condition?

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Such views were perhaps understandable at that point in time given the dearth of information relating to mental health.

‘Depression is a Western disease’

Years later I heard similar statements, said with greater vehemence—this time not by members of the community, but by a good friend whom I held in great reverence and admiration.

She was intelligent, poised, and well-spoken – a paragon of what a good Muslim should be. “Depression doesn’t exist: it’s a Western disease, you know”, she said during a discussion on Western psychiatry.

She said, with unwavering conviction, that “if you followed Islam, you would not be depressed.”

It was those Muslims who had not fully embraced Islam in their daily life, those weak in their faith (Iman), who were afflicted with a “disease of the heart”.

The insinuation was that depression was an existential punishment for wrongdoing.

Adding another layer of guilt

Such negative perceptions will not do much to help the feelings of low self-esteem and unshakeable destructive thoughts that are often so all-consuming for those experiencing depression.

I suspect it would just add a new dimension to their internal negative narratives, exacerbating feelings of guilt that Muslims experiencing depression may feel.

Such strong social condemnation is highly damaging, as it often results in people delaying much-needed diagnosis and treatment.

This is particularly worrying when sufferers have suicidal thoughts, made more complicated by the fact that suicide is considered forbidden in Islam.

In some countries, there is also punishment for those who have attempted suicide, casting depression as a social ill rather than a medical issue needing to be addressed.

But there is something we could do

I have seen religious leaders use their position to deliver information and education about HIV during Friday sermons in Muslim countries like Malaysia.

Surely we could get religious leaders to talk about mental health and depression too. They could use their influence to dispel damaging narratives about depression, destigmatise, and offer an entry point to mental health services within the community.

This article is published with permission from The Lancet Psychiatry.