Foundations, Pre-requisites and Strategies for the Realization and Promotion of Spiritual Health Based on Islamic teachings

From propounding of spirituality in the field of health has lasted more than 5 decades, but aspects of this important dimension has remained unknown. This study aimed to present main strategies for realizing spiritual health with Islamic perspective.

In this qualitative study, in order to extract the foundations and theoretical literature of the research, revelatory Islamic sources including the Quranic verses and the Hadiths of the Infallibles as well as the phrases of some scholars were reviewed and then, by analyzing the holy texts using hermeneutic and inductive content analysis methods, strategies to achieve spiritual health were suggested.

Three parts including foundations (12 components), prerequisites (3 components), and promotion strategies of spiritual health (10 components) were extracted. The first part explains three main harm factors of sin, lust, and hatred that endangers community spiritual health and both personal and community spiritual health requires Purity of heart and avoid them. Believing in God and Prophets and Divine Parents; and acting on their recommendations; paying attention to the health and disease; hope, patience and trust in God are considered as the prerequisites for spiritual health, and based on them, theoretical strategies to promote spiritual health was presented. Ethical Considerations: In this study, trusteeship was observed in reporting and citating of the texts.

The best sources are Quran and the teachings of the infallibles and the best doctors are infallible imams and divine ones. Thus, providing the ground to practice on these strategies is recommended to realize and promote spiritual health utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods at individual and community levels.