The Concepts of Hope and Fear in the Islamic Thought: Implications for Spiritual Health

Abstract

The Holy Qur'ān and medieval Islamic writings have many references to "hope" (rajā) and "fear" (khawf) as both single and paired concepts. However, a comprehensive analytical study on these two notions from an Islamic point of view still seems lacking. Both paper and electronic documents related to Islamic and Qur'ānic literature are being used in this study. Also Web resources are searched for keywords of fear, hope and Islam in three languages of Arabic, English and Persian, including Tanzil.net, Almaany.com, Tebyan.net, Holyquran.net, Noorlib.ir, Hawzah.net and Google Scholar. Findings indicate that hope and fear are comprised of three conceptual elements: emotional, cognitive and behavioral, and are identified as "praiseworthy" hope or fear, when associated with God as the ultimate object. Nonetheless, this praiseworthy hope or fear is only distinguishable as "true," when both are in equilibrium, a necessary condition for spiritual health, which results to perfection. Islam rejects excessive hope or excessive fear, describing both as a "pseudo"-type, which would respectively contribute to self-deceit and despair, and end in spiritual decline.

The Effects of Spirituality and Religiosity on the Ethical Judgment in Organizations

“…Alternatively, some Muslims, overcome by fear of God's punishment, experience anger and torment to such a degree that they give up on God's forgiveness and mercy. We hypothesize that these spiritual emotions may also impact negatively on adherents' ethical judgments (Bahmani et al 2018). A third school underlines the necessity for moderation when dealing with beliefs and underlying emotions of God (Ibn Taymīyah 1999;Izutsu 2006).…”

“…Therefore, for religious people, spiritual belief concerns individuals' worldview, supported by their own personal views of God. In this article, spirituality is represented in terms of three spiritual emotions about God: the Hope View (HV), the Fear View (FV) and the Balanced View (BV) (Bahmani et al 2018). These are discussed in the next section.…”

“…Love generates yearning, and veneration generates awe, with the outcome that "truly they vied with one another, hastening to good works, and called upon Us out of yearning and awe; and they were humble to Us" (Quran 21: 90). In other words, balancing the two emotions of awe and yearning is a necessary condition for faith (Al-Ghazali 1991;Bahmani et al 2018;Ibn al-Qayyim 2000, Ibn Taymīyah 1999Izutsu 2006). Faith is not constant, but increases when Muslims perform good deeds, and decreases when they perform bad deeds.…”

“…The Islamic literature reveals the spiritual importance of these views of God, which can be conceptualized as a three-dimensional model comprising HV, FV and BV (see Al-Ghazali 1991;Ibn al-Qayyim, 2000;Awn 1983;Bahmani et al 2018;Chittick 2013Chittick , 2014Qusheirī 2009;Sviri 1987). The ISBM demonstrates that some religious interpretative frameworks emphasize hope for God's blessings, mercy and forgiveness to such an extent that behaving ethically becomes less essential to individuals' relationships with Allah.…”

The Resilience of Women Who Are Divorced and Choose to Live with Their Children

“…Sometimes people have hopes when they are in difficult situations to increase their productivity. Hope is a primary term related to belief and desire to change to be better in the future [21]. In other words, they pray to make their wishes come true.…”