The Muslim Mental Health Field’s Obsession with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Why We Must Return to the Soul
"The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin
There’s a growing movement to make therapy more accessible and accepted in Muslim communities—a long overdue effort to break the stigma around mental health. But in the rush to validate therapy within an Islamic framework, one model has taken center stage almost unquestioned: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Praised for its practicality and intellectual appeal, CBT has become the go-to modality in Muslim clinical spaces. But what if, in our effort to make therapy seem familiar, we’ve unknowingly distanced ourselves from the heart of our own tradition? This article explores the deeper costs of centering CBT in Muslim mental health—and invites us back to a soul-rooted, spiritually honest model of healing.
What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one of the most widely practiced therapeutic approaches in the modern mental health field. Developed in the mid-20th century by psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck and psychologist Albert Ellis, CBT emerged as a response to psychoanalytic models that were often seen as too abstract or lengthy. Instead of exploring the unconscious or early life dynamics, CBT focused on helping clients become aware of—and reframe—their negative thought patterns in the present moment.
CBT’s widespread use is largely attributed to its reputation as an “evidence-based” practice—a term that carries significant weight in clinical and academic settings. It has been the subject of thousands of randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses, leading many to regard it as the gold standard in psychotherapy. This scientific validation has made CBT particularly attractive to institutions, insurance providers, and mental health advocates striving to integrate therapy into broader healthcare systems. In the Muslim mental health field, this emphasis on evidence-based practice is often cited to justify CBT’s prominence—seen as necessary for legitimacy, funding, and professional credibility.
At its core, CBT assumes that our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviors. By identifying distorted thinking (often called “cognitive distortions”), and replacing those thoughts with more accurate or helpful ones, CBT aims to improve emotional wellbeing and reduce harmful behaviors. Its appeal lies in its structured, short-term nature, and its emphasis on practical tools that clients can use in everyday life.
In the Muslim mental health field, CBT has often been embraced as a “safe” therapeutic model—one that can be seen as culturally and religiously compatible. It focuses on rational thinking, self-regulation, and behavioral change—concepts that many Muslim practitioners and clients feel comfortable with. And as Muslim professionals continue to advocate for mental health awareness and destigmatization, CBT is frequently positioned as a bridge between Islamic thought and modern psychology.
But this bridge, while well-intentioned, may not lead us where we truly need to go.
The Rise of “We Have CBT Too!”: Islamicizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
As Muslim therapists and scholars have worked to destigmatize mental health in their communities, there’s been a strong push to demonstrate that Islamic tradition has long held psychological wisdom. One of the most popular strategies in this movement has been to align Islamic scholarship with modern therapeutic models—particularly Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The rallying cry often becomes: “We had CBT 1,000 years ago!”
A key figure frequently cited in this context is the 9th-century Muslim physician and scholar Abū Zayd al-Balkhī (d. 934 CE). In his work Masalih al-Abdan wa al-Anfus (Sustenance for Body and Soul), al-Balkhī explored psychological distress, distinguishing between mental and physical illnesses and even categorizing conditions we might today call anxiety or depression. Scholars such as Malik Badri (2005) and Gamal Badawi have drawn parallels between al-Balkhī’s emphasis on correcting irrational thoughts and the cognitive restructuring process in CBT. As a result, many mental health advocates and practitioners have presented al-Balkhī as an early Muslim precursor to Aaron Beck’s model.
This equivalency approach (i.e. “we’ve had CBT in our Islamic tradition for a long time!”) is rooted in good intentions: by showing that Islam already contains mental health wisdom, it becomes easier to persuade skeptical communities that therapy is not foreign or anti-religious. It helps Muslim therapists gain credibility in both Islamic and clinical settings. And for clients wary of secular models, it offers reassurance that faith and therapy are not mutually exclusive.
However, as Dr. Malik Badri (may Allah bless his soul)—a pioneer in the field of Islamic psychology—warned, there’s a danger in this approach. In his landmark book Contemplation: An Islamic Psychospiritual Study (2000) and earlier works, Badri critiqued the uncritical adoption of Western psychology, particularly when Muslim scholars attempt to validate Islamic insights by comparing them to secular theories. He described this as an “inferiority complex” in the Muslim world, where Islamic knowledge is only seen as legitimate if it aligns with modern science.
By constantly trying to prove that “we have CBT too!!!,” Muslim therapists can become trapped in a posture of justification and imitation—rather than cultivating an approach rooted in the unique cosmology of the Islamic tradition. This mindset risks shrinking our vast heritage into a narrow psychological framework, reducing complex soul-based teachings into simplified cognitive interventions.
The Problem with the Equivalency Approach
While connecting Islamic scholarship to modern therapeutic models may be comforting, it often locks Muslim therapists into a posture of equivalency rather than authenticity. Instead of starting from within the rich epistemology of Islam, we find ourselves constantly looking outward—justifying our spiritual and psychological insights by aligning them with secular theories.
Dr. Malik Badri repeatedly challenged this mindset in his work. He argued that Muslims are not meant to imitate Western psychology, but rather to offer a paradigm rooted in their own worldview—one that begins with the soul (ruh), the self (nafs), the heart (qalb), and the intellect (ʿaql) as interdependent aspects of the human experience. When we over-rely on models like CBT simply because they are dominant in Western clinical spaces, we risk flattening the complexity of Islamic concepts to fit into Western molds.
To be clear, CBT can serve a meaningful role—especially as an entry point for Muslims who are accessing therapy for the first time. Its structured, non-invasive nature may feel safer for clients who are wary of emotional vulnerability or unfamiliar with therapeutic relationships. It can offer accessible language and tools for individuals who have never been in a therapeutic space. But the problem arises when we stop there. When CBT becomes the ceiling rather than the starting point, we deprive clients of deeper healing that involves the body, heart, and soul. An entry point is not meant to be a destination—and as Muslim therapists, we must ask where we are leading our clients beyond that initial threshold.
This brings us to five core tensions in the Muslim mental health field today resulting from centering Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Let’s explore each of these tensions.
Issue #1: We’re Trying to Be “Different” by Proving We’re the Same
In an effort to distinguish Muslim mental health as a unique field, we ironically end up replicating mainstream patterns. We say things like, “Look! We have CBT too!”—as if proximity to Western psychology is the only way to legitimize our work.
But this posture is reactive. It keeps us in a state of psychological and spiritual dependency—forever borrowing language, frameworks, and legitimacy from a field that was not built with the soul in mind. Even when we integrate Islamic terms or mention scholars like al-Balkhī, we often do so in service of proving our worth to a dominant paradigm, not reclaiming our own.
This tendency is not new. In Islam and the Psychology of the Muslim (1979), Badri called this out as a symptom of colonized consciousness—where Muslim professionals absorb secular ideas without realizing they’ve been shaped by them. The goal then becomes to “keep up” with the West, rather than reflect deeply on what makes Islamic Psychology profoundly different in its foundation. In our well-meaning attempts to “modernize” mental health for Muslims, we may be unconsciously reinforcing the very systems that marginalize soul-based wisdom. And so, rather than offering a distinct alternative, we end up dressing CBT in Islamic language and calling it a tradition.
Issue #2: CBT Reinforces an Intellectualized Islam
One of the subtle harms of over-relying on CBT within Muslim therapy spaces is that it reinforces an already common imbalance in how many Muslims live their faith—in their heads rather than through their hearts.
Modernity rewards intellectualism. In academia, policy, and even religious spaces, Muslims are often praised for being articulate, rational, and intellectually grounded. And while the intellect (ʿaql) has a noble place in our tradition, it was never meant to function alone. The Islamic spiritual path centers not just on knowledge, but on qalb—the spiritual heart—as the place where Divine connection is known, felt, and transformed.
CBT, as a top-down model, prioritizes cognitive restructuring. It trains people to catch irrational thoughts, reframe them, and behave differently. While helpful in some scenarios, this approach can unintentionally push clients—and therapists—deeper into their minds, reinforcing the idea that if we can just think differently, we’ll feel better. But this isn’t how the soul works. It isn’t how Islam works.
The Qur’an speaks repeatedly about the qalb:
“It is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts in the chests that are blind.” (Qur’an 22:46)
This verse reminds us that insight doesn’t just come from thinking clearly—it comes from the heart’s capacity to see truth. And when the heart is clouded by unprocessed pain, trauma, or ego, no amount of thought reframing can restore clarity. Healing requires tazkiyah—a purification that involves the body, heart, and soul working together in presence with Allah.
By centering cognitive control, CBT risks drawing Muslims further away from embodied, heart-centered Islam. It may leave them with more insight but less spiritual transformation—more understanding, but less felt connection to the Divine.
Issue #3: Trauma Lives in the Body—And You Can’t CBT Your Way Out of It
One of the most critical limitations of CBT is its inability to address how trauma actually functions in the human system. Trauma isn’t stored in our thoughts—it’s stored in the body, which is contained by the soul. When a person has experienced trauma, especially over time, their nervous system becomes dysregulated. They may cycle through states of hyperarousal (fight or flight), collapse (freeze), or appeasement (fawn), without conscious awareness or cognitive control.
In these states, the brain’s prefrontal cortex—the seat of logical thinking and reflection—goes offline. What takes over instead are more primal, survival-oriented brain regions. As trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains in The Body Keeps the Score, no amount of insight or positive thinking can override a body that feels unsafe. Healing requires more than thoughts. It requires attunement to the body, regulation of the nervous system, and practices that invite safety and integration.
This understanding is crucial for Muslim clients, who—like so many others—are navigating trauma in a world marked by colonization, racism, spiritual abuse, gendered violence, and intergenerational pain. CBT, with its top-down structure, asks people to change their thoughts while bypassing the embodied wounds that continue to dictate their reactions.
Islamic teachings have long acknowledged that the self is not made up of parts in isolation. The nafs, qalb, ʿaql, and ruh are intimately connected—and must be healed together. In Surah ash-Shams (91:7-9), Allah says:
“By the soul and the One who proportioned it, and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness—successful is the one who purifies it.”
Purification (tazkiyah) here is not limited to reframing thoughts. Purification/healing is a full-body, full-soul process that includes recognizing what lives within us, regulating what has been dysregulated (i.e. through the field of Somatic Experiencing, for example), and returning to wholeness with Allah.
CBT may offer symptom relief. But for those navigating the deep valleys of trauma, it often leaves the roots untouched.
Issue #4: When Muslim Therapists Avoid the Body, They Gravitate Toward CBT
Therapists can only guide clients as far as they’ve traveled themselves.
This truth often goes unspoken in clinical spaces, but it’s one of the most significant reasons CBT maintains its dominance in the Muslim mental health field. Many Muslim therapists—shaped by years of academic rigor, cultural pressure, and spiritual intellectualization—have an uneasy relationship with their own emotions and bodies. CBT becomes appealing because it offers structure, distance, and intellectual safety. It doesn’t require the therapist to sit in discomfort, to feel deeply, or to slow down and attune somatically.
And so, CBT becomes a kind of refuge—offering clear steps, worksheets, and reframing tools. But healing doesn’t unfold through structure alone. It unfolds in presence. It requires attunement, softness, and embodiment—qualities that are cultivated not through theory, but through one’s own inner work. If a therapist has not learned to sit with their own anger, fear, or shame, how can they truly hold space for a client in theirs? If they cannot locate emotional tension in their chest or the constriction in their gut, how can they guide someone else to safety in their body?
Many Muslim therapists are also navigating generational and cultural dynamics where emotional expression was discouraged or even punished. Islam itself may have been taught in a way that prioritized obedience over embodiment, intellect over presence. Without conscious healing, this unspoken inheritance becomes the foundation upon which therapy is practiced. The irony is profound: we seek to help others regulate, but we bypass our own dysregulation. We encourage clients to “sit with their emotions,” while we retreat into thought models and cognitive scripts. And we do so not out of malice—but because we, too, are still learning what it means to feel, to soften, and to trust the wisdom of the body that God created.
Issue #5: The Root Wounds Are on the Heart (Qalb), Not In The Head
One of the most overlooked truths in modern therapy—especially within CBT—is that many of our struggles are not cognitive distortions. They are wounds of the heart. These wounds come from abandonment, betrayal, spiritual disconnection, childhood pain, and ruptured belonging. They don’t arise because of faulty thinking; they arise because something sacred was disrupted within the self.
CBT may help reframe the thoughts that swirl around these wounds, but it does little to reach the pain beneath them. In this way, CBT can become like a game of psychological whack-a-mole: as soon as one symptom is managed, another pops up elsewhere—because the root has not been tended to.
In Islamic spirituality, the heart (qalb) is not just an emotional center—it is the vessel through which we know Allah. It is the place of moral insight, sincerity, and presence. The Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) said:
“Truly in the body there is a morsel of flesh which, if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Truly, it is the heart.” (Bukhari & Muslim)
This hadith is not simply metaphorical. It speaks to a deep truth: when the qalb is neglected, clouded, or wounded, the rest of the self falls into disharmony. The Islamic path calls us toward tazkiyah (purification), muraqabah (vigilant awareness), and rahmah (compassion)—spiritual processes that involve feeling, presence, and surrender, not just thought correction. By focusing primarily on thoughts, CBT leaves the heart out of the healing journey. It offers relief, but not transformation. It soothes symptoms but does not resolve the spiritual root. And in a time when so many Muslims are spiritually and emotionally fractured, what is needed is not more reprogramming of the mind—but more returning to the heart.
Issue #6: CBT Reinforces the Belief That a “Good Muslim” Is Emotionally Restrained
There’s a dangerous undercurrent in both mainstream psychology and religious discourse that teaches us: the less emotion you show, the more virtuous you are. This idea—that emotional control equals moral or spiritual strength—gets reinforced in therapeutic spaces when CBT is the dominant framework. Clients are praised for being “rational,” “calm,” or “able to reframe” their thoughts, even if what’s underneath is emotional numbness or deep pain. Over time, this sends a message: emotional expression is a problem to fix, not a truth to honor.
But this belief is not rooted in the Prophetic tradition. The Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) was emotionally present and expressive. He cried at the grave of his son Ibrahim. He allowed himself to grieve. He expressed anger when sacred boundaries were violated. He experienced fear, awe, tenderness, and love—and none of these compromised his spiritual strength. In fact, they were part of it.
By over-emphasizing cognitive control, CBT can inadvertently reinforce a flat, sanitized image of what it means to be a “good Muslim.” It may push people to measure their spiritual health by how well they suppress visible emotion, rather than how authentically they feel, process, and return to Allah through their experiences.
But Islam does not call us to be emotionally stoic - it calls us to be spiritually alive. The Qur’an describes the believers as those whose hearts tremble when Allah is mentioned (Qur’an 8:2), not those who remain unaffected. The early generations weeped out of reverence, sorrow, gratitude. Our tradition is not afraid of feeling—it embraces it as a gateway to Divine closeness.
When Muslims internalize the belief that emotional restraint is a sign of piety, they not only bypass their healing—they distance themselves from the very God who fashioned them with emotion as part of their fitrah.
The Way Forward: Returning to a Soul-Based, Integrated Islamic Psychology
If CBT has become the safe, familiar ground for many Muslim therapists, then Islamic Psychology calls us into sacred, transformative soil—rich with the language of the soul, the wisdom of the qalb, and the wholeness of our Divine design.
Islamic Psychology is not merely about inserting Qur’anic verses or hadith into Western models. It is about beginning from within our cosmology—where the self is comprised of the nafs (lower self), qalb (spiritual heart), ʿaql (intellect), and ruh (spirit). These are not metaphorical concepts—they are real dimensions of the human being that exist in relationship with one another, and with Allah.
In this model, the mind is not privileged above the heart. Emotions are not enemies to regulate, but messengers to understand. The goal is not simply to “cope” or “function,” but to live a life of alignment—where outer behavior reflects inner clarity, and inner clarity is shaped by Divine presence.
Dr. Abdallah Rothman’s work offers a powerful framework for this. His model of the Islamic psyche centers the qalb as the seat of moral and spiritual perception, emphasizing that true healing must involve spiritual purification (tazkiyat al-nafs), not just symptom relief. In Rothman’s words, “Islamic Psychology offers not a treatment of the mind, but a transformation of the self.” (Rothman, 2021). At institutions like Cambridge Muslim College’s Islam and Psychology Diploma (where I completed my own training), students are trained in this integrated approach—grounded in Qur’an, Sunnah, and classical scholarship—while also engaging with embodied practice and spiritual development. The emphasis is on working from the inside-out, not from the top-down.
What This Means for Muslim Therapists
If you’re a Muslim therapist reading this, this is not a call to reject CBT entirely. It’s a call to examine where your comfort lies—and where your growth needs to be.
Have you done your own embodied healing work?
Can you sit with your clients’ emotional pain without needing to fix it through reframes?
Are you attuned to the spiritual and emotional states of your client—not just their thoughts or behaviors?
Do you relate to Islam primarily through ideas, or also through the felt, living presence of Allah in your heart? Do you prescribe religious and spiritual practices rather than sit in discomfort with your client’s struggles to connect with Allah?
Are you trauma-informed, through professional training (i.e. not watching a webinar or reading a book about trauma), and continuing your own somatic healing work? Trauma and Somatics is one example of professional training.
These are not easy questions. But they are necessary ones. Because the deeper your presence, the deeper your clients can go. And the more fully you live from your qalb, the more you can help others clear theirs.
Practical Next Steps for Therapists Who Want to Root Themselves in This Approach
Study Islamic Psychology from the Source: Start with reading, learning, and contemplating on foundational texts, such as those by Dr. Abdallah Rothman and Dr. Malik Badri. Explore the work of Cambridge Muslim College, particularly their Islam & Psychology diploma. Learn about other Islamic Psychology offerings, such additional programs exist and there are differences in their pedagogical approaches.
Engage in Your Own Soul Work: Seek mentorship, spiritual companionship (suhbah), or therapy that integrates somatic and spiritual dimensions. Healing isn’t a checklist—it’s a path of return.
Incorporate Embodied Practice: Learn about the nervous system, trauma healing, and somatic modalities. Self-regulation is part of ihsaan, since greater presence with ourself results in greater God-consciousness. Learn to notice what your body is saying before you jump to what your mind is thinking.
Re-center the Heart in Your Practice: Begin your sessions with a moment of grounding. Invite your clients to locate their emotions in the body. Reference the qalb, not just cognition. Normalize emotional expression as part of the journey toward Allah.
This isn’t about rejecting what works—it’s about reclaiming what’s been forgotten. Our tradition has always been soul-based. It is time our therapy becomes soul-based too. Because healing, in the Islamic tradition, is not just about changing how we think. It’s about remembering who we are—beneath the pain, beyond the trauma, and always connected to the One who shaped us with wisdom, breath, and love.
Closing Reflections
As Muslim therapists, educators, and seekers, we are called to a higher standard—one that doesn’t just adapt to dominant frameworks but remembers the sacred roots of who we are. Healing is not just about reframing thoughts or reducing symptoms. It’s about realignment with our fitrah, purification of the heart, and returning to Allah with more presence, tenderness, and truth.
We owe it to our communities—and to ourselves—to go deeper. To step off the treadmill of intellectual performance and into embodied presence. To stop saying “we have CBT too,” and start asking: What does our tradition uniquely offer?
Because at the end of the day, our greatest healing will not come from cognitive mastery. It will come from hearts that are softened, souls that are witnessed, and journeys that are walked with God at the center.
