Mania Treatment in Islamic Societies

Cultural and medical anthropologists continue to highlight research on mental illness, but rarely integrate evolutionary, biological, and comparative perspectives. Medieval physicians like al-Razi, considered to be one of the first practitioners of psychotherapy, is known for his many works on melancholia and madness. He believed that sadness emerged due to an attachment to perishable things, or having lost something that one had possessed, which affected the balance between body and soul. Ibn-Sina linked the physiological and psychological illnesses together. The use of religious practices that included prayers and ritualistic prayers in affecting spiritual, psychological, physiological, and moral health, through listening to religious poetry and verses from the Qur’an, and supplication. The use of medicinal plants was practiced in ancient and modern medicine, as well as in complementary and alternative medicine. This paper will describe many methods, practices and techniques for treating madness in general, and mania specifically, using medicinal plants.