title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Ethics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bahmani
authors.affiliation: Quality Improvement in Clinical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mitra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amini
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Ethics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. tabeiz@sums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Seyed Ziaeddin
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Tabei
authors.affiliation: School of Theology and Islamic Studies, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohamad Bagher
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Abbasi
mesh_terms: D005239:Fear; D065026:Hope; D006801:Humans; D007514:Islam; D007802:Language; D012068:Religion and Medicine
keywords: Divine beauty; Divine majesty; Fear; God’s grace; God’s wrath; Hope; Islam; Jalāl; Jamāl; Khawf; Rajā