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HHS.gov write about mental health:

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.

... Many factors contribute to mental health problems, including: (a) Biological factors, such as genes or brain chemistry, (b) Life experiences, such as trauma or abuse, and (c) Family history of mental health problems.

Poor mental health and mental illness can lead to negative consequences, such as suicide and self harm, along with other unsocial behaviors, e.g. drug use, excessive drinking, excessive dieting, gambling, and so on. Included in this list are behaviors strongly forbidden in Islam (i.e., they're major sins).

Question: Is mental health treatment sufficient to make permissible otherwise haram acts?

It's widely accepted in Islam that necessity overrides prohibition (الضـرورات تبیح المحظورات) provided there is no alternative, e.g.:

...If a forbidden insulin is the only choice, a religious leader or doctor should be encouraged to mediate and reduce the patient's guilt feeling and spiritual pain. These advisers would use the doctrine of ‘the sanctity of life’, permissible in Islam. It means that life must be saved at all costs. -- Bashir Qureshi, Diabetes in Ramadan, J. R. Soc. Med. 2002.

While mental health treatment can be life saving, it doesn't usually take the immediate form "undergo treatment X and you'll be cured". Personal friends who have taken antidepressants report a "trial and error" nature, i.e., we can't know in advance whether a treatment works for a particular patient (if it doesn't work, try another medication). So it's not obvious that "necessity overrides prohibition" applies to mental health treatment. Likewise, I'm uncertain whether mental health treatment falls under the umbrella of the hadith:

The Prophet said, "There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its treatment." -- Abu Huraira, [Sahih al-Bukhari 5678] (sunnah.com)

Two prominent examples of conflict I've found in the medical literature are: (a) Muslims not taking medication during Ramadan, and (b) Muslims refusing to take medicine involving pork products. For example:

As ingestion of pork or any of its products is totally forbidden in Islam and it may be considered as committing a sinful act. So if this issue is not identified and addressed, then patients may not only stop taking their medications, and hence leading to relapse of symptoms, increasing hospitalization rates, and increasing healthcare costs but also lead to a poor doctor-patient relationship. -- Sabry and Vohra, Role of Islam in the management of Psychiatric disorders, Indian J Psychiatry. 2013.

Also, surveys report unwillingness of Muslims to acknowledge and seek treatement for mental health issues (interpreting them as e.g. tests from God, or possession by jinn):

Even when Muslims have positive attitudes toward mental healing, social stigma remains strong. -- Ciftci, Jones, and Corrigan, Mental Health Stigma in the Muslim Community, Stigma, 2012.


This question arose as a result of Medi1Saif's answer to How does harm to honour and reason fall under the adage "necessity make forbidden things permissible"?.

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  • In my personal experience, culture plays a large role in the unwillingness to address mental health issues. I don't know much about other cultures, but desi culture has a tendency to undervalue emotional problems unless there is a "proper," tangible reason behind them. Like it's only valid when e.g. you get a bad grade, someone dies, etc. Otherwise you're expected to get over it.
    – Student
    Oct 28, 2016 at 15:46
  • As far as things like not taking medication during Ramadan goes, it's up to the person to use their common sense and have a good understanding of themselves. It's hard to be more objective. I think that our understanding of mental illness isn't advanced enough to say much more. Instinctively, the two examples you gave don't seem like they would fit necessity over prohibition in my view. Not taking medication for mental illness seems to cause short term effects rather than long term harm.
    – Student
    Oct 28, 2016 at 15:50
  • Not taking medication for mental illness seems to cause short term effects rather than long term harm. This particular claim is unfounded and profoundly untrue. For millions of people around the globe, taking daily mental health medications makes the literal difference between life and death. Sep 11 at 7:10

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According to Shi'ite Fiqh, if not taking the medical treatment will be bad for your health care, then don't hesitate to take the medicine. For example you should take a pill every six hours a day, then fasting is forbidden for you, if not eating the pill and postponing the cure to another month or to the night time will yield into harm.

But what about mental health treatment? somewhere you said "unwillingness of Muslims to acknowledge and seek treatement for mental health issues, interpreting them as e.g. tests from God", well, I have never met such an interpretation. I might be tests for those related to the guy, but certainly not for himself. The regular health issues might be tests, so there were scholars that when treated a pain and it was not to be cured in anyway, they were submitted to the will of Allah, accepting the pain to live with. Even there is a poem in Persian/Farsi that reads:

"یکی درد و یکی درمان پسندد، یکی وصل و یکی هجران پسندد، من از درمان و درد و وصل و هجران، پسندم آنچه را جانان پسندد"

which means: "one may prefer pain. the other prefers cure; one may prefer living close to the beloved one, the other prefers being far from that; but I prefer what the beloved one prefers."

But for mental and soul related illnesses, no, the issue is totally different. Allah will never test someone by mental issues. The Soul and mental health is the key point that people should treat most seriously. Body will remain in Dunya, but the mental health will accompany the person up to the Hereafter.

So mental issues are superior to regular issues in importance. But, the rule will be still the same, AFAIK. If you can postpone the treatment to sometimes later so that you can fast, and this will not terminate the treatment in an uncompensable way, then it remains obligatory to fast, and otherwise, it'll be forbidden.

NOTE. I'm not a scholar, this is only my personal understanding.

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  • Note: the answer above is according to shia fiqh. That means the answer is not according to Sunni fiqh.
    – LEGEND
    Nov 17, 2022 at 14:20

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