Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate. -Edward Said

In the world, a layman thinks that philosophy, education, and politics are different games of life, while he has always been a victim of this web formed by political, intellectual, and religious agendas. As the statement of Edward Said, whenever any empire is in rule or is about to form, most of its education practices, discoveries, policies, and ideas originate from the philosophy and its political tactics to push the world toward its acceptance. And after it becomes the discussion of what philosophy the empire runs on- whether it is for mankind's welfare, or manipulation of thoughts to rule upon, or the discoveries to develop its weapons and military. It is very crucial for everyone who understands not to remain a layman anymore. He must know the philosophy and agendas behind every ism, idea, and agenda to understand the dynamics of this world and celebrate the freedom to choose the best. 

Before the introduction of the idea of ‘Secularism’, it was easy to understand the philosophy behind the thought and behaviour in every domain and to question it. But now with this, the intentions are made hidden with the label of ‘neutral’. It is a world where man-made principles impose their subjective morality with the advantage of keeping away other religions or ideologies from dominating. This is the way religious freedom is violated through the policies of secular governments in the name of law and solidarity with the state. 

As the person learns to know the blessing in the disguise, he must also know the shadow of the luminous. What luminates, often shadows on what is behind. This shadow formed in knowledge when subjects like philosophy, psychology, and politics were separated, and people no longer paid heed to the philosophical origin of thoughts and behaviours, and were limited to materialistic processes observed in labs. The people no longer look into the bigger games being played with them. The students are busy with education and ignoring the philosophy and political world. They no longer analyse how the political and philosophical agendas are introduced into the textbooks of schools and how criticism is erased by erasing and ignoring their literature and works. In the field of psychology and medicine, recent neurobiological searches and findings of the European era are focused on and taught.  This argument does not reject the significance of biological and psychological processes, science studies in human thought and behaviour, but rather keeps philosophy as the major driver of the biology of thoughts and action. Or in fact, whatever is observed does not narrate the whole study, whether it is through the naked eye or any microscope. Limiting the knowledge of human behaviour through a standard of observation and anatomical learning merely focuses on the execution of thoughts through a narrowed and indirect process, just to keep the belief, philosophy, and morals out of the equation. This is the standard that the world admires as the scientific methodology or empirical research. It is the method that signifies the observable and measurable experiments as the methods to understand the world around us. Well, with no doubt, it has opened the gates to explore & understand the natural processes and advances in technology, clinical practices from the early era. But, limiting the standard to only scientific learning itself covers its base, while its implications have been widely acknowledged. Because it didn't start with disapproval and failure of other application methods, rather it has been reintroduced as a school of thought and promoted with instant denial of concepts right after it. It started at a time when previous psychologists, philosophers, and clinical doctors had already found successful cures to diseases and explored the advances of the human psyche, even without microscopic observations. The question it raises is why start from the beginning and not add forward? 

The processes like hypnotism for therapy and as anaesthesia, the therapies like cognitive therapy and others, were already introduced before the rise of modern psychology and practiced. 

The Agenda - Europe and the Suppression of the Medieval, Classical, and Golden Ages 

In the process of exploration and advancement, where further study is based on previous ones, one must not overlook the reason to wipe and recreate the whole study in the rise of Europe during the 16th to 19th centuries. It was an age in the history of mankind appreciated by naming it the age of exploration, the industrial revolution, the Renaissance and Reformation, and wars widely taught and remembered in schools to this date. 

It is very well known that every revolution that came in the aspect of education, politics, and finance had covered an underlying motive to raise the influence of European thought and their psychology. Within the disciplines of psychology and physiology, and politics, there was a connection that was utilised to shape the world in its favour. It has obliterated the values of other philosophies that emphasised consciousness, soul, and belief.  A person with religion and culture sticks to a set of moral values that play a major role in human behaviour. It separated education from values and beliefs, promoting atheism in the name of science as factual, which did not remain with Europe only, but became a standard of study in the continents of the world. The rise of Western influence has spread as a major subject today in Asian continents as well as others. The problem here is not educating people about its ideas, methods, and its advancement, but keeping it superior and exclusively acceptable and recognizable over others in the field of research. It is not surprising that the world knows the history from the 16th century, but it is more surprising that world advancement and practices before that are forgotten and ignored willingly, despite the existing multidisciplinary literature. 

The question a student should ask is Why has it been rejected to integrate the sciences of the pre-European era, such as those of Aristotle, Plato, the 7th to 14th century discoveries of Ibn Sina[ Avicenna], Ibn Batuta, and Ibn Haytham, in the textbook of history in today's world? Why is the 16th century presented as the start of world history, while the history of Arab contributions and the Indian’s like Ayurveda, the discoveries and advancement of Mayans and Africans, and their understanding of psychology does not share the same importance in the textbooks of biology, psychology, and sociology? Why does the research start from an empirical method rendered factual? These philosophical and political agendas have driven the world to a narrow path to explore and research again to the basics. It opens the eyes to understand the physical world and its processes while closing the other eye to connect what is driving the process.

Precursor to modern psychology- Aristotle to Al Balkhi

Before this ’ism’, in psychology, when a psychologist explored the mental state and behaviour of an individual, he focused on what and how the individual was behaving, his beliefs, consciousness, his soul, and nature, as well as his physiology, like humours, playing a part in his positive or negative behaviour. They would focus on the behaviour and what was causing it, and how it was causing it. The concept of state of mind, its effect of emotions and thoughts on physiology, role of consciousness on behaviour along with treatments were already introduced by the early period of the medieval era, classical period and Islamic Golden Age such as the concept of soul by Aristotle, humoral theory of Galen [129–216 CE], introspection, memory, will, and self-awareness by St. Augustine [354–430 CE] till the scientists of the 9th century like Al-Kindi, Al-Razi, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Khaldun, and Abu Zaid al-Balkhi. These scholars advanced the study of the human mind by classifying mental illnesses, recognizing the psychological roots of physical symptoms, and proposing therapeutic interventions. Al-Balkhi described phobias and obsessive thoughts centuries before modern psychiatry; Al-Razi differentiated between psychological and physical causes of illness; Ibn al-Haytham examined perception and cognition; while Ibn Khaldun linked human behaviour with cultural and social contexts. Their integrated approach combined observation, treatment, and theory, shaping both clinical and social psychology long before the rise of Western empiricism. 

 

However, after all these discoveries and practical applications of the pre-European era, the rise of empiricism by John Locke [1632–1704], often called the father of empiricism, restarted the exploration from the base. To the surprise, it is shown that early and former scientists accepted empiricism, the scientific method, as a means to learn things from the process of objective observation, measurement, experiences, and evidence as a source of knowledge rather than speculation, intuition, and belief. The principle of being verifiable and replicable under similar conditions distinguished science from subjective belief and opinions without any objection to other contrasting philosophies. 

John Locke and empiricism 

John argues that the human mind is a " tabula rasa" [‘blank slate’] at birth, and behaviour is shaped by experience and environment, not innate ideas. This argument became acceptable and promoted the school of experimentalism, behaviourism, and then further to cognitive, sociological, and neurological aspects in the 20th & 21st centuries. Looking at the other side, the history highlights the achievements and introduction of later schools of psychology without mentioning the contemporary criticisms and philosophical motives of the scientists. The foretold history of discoveries and advancement hides major philosophical criticisms of that time, which are left untaught, ignored, and erased from awareness. Similarly, the event of strict empiricism, marking the base and standard for every research after it, has its shadows uncovered. 

 Empiricism as an agenda for development

Empiricism gave rise to the industrial and scientific revolutions, where only observable and measurable phenomena were considered real knowledge. It gave rise to capitalism and colonial expansion, standardisation of law, education, and governance, and utilitarianism came along to reduce morals to measurable consequences. It dismissed the spirit of divine sources and ethics as unscientific. In other words, we can say, it advanced technology, but narrowed imagination, boosted economy, but corrupted morals, rationalised society, but erased myth and culture, and replaced morals with materialism, leading to nihilism. 

The scientists, philosophers, and psychologists of that time, like Gian Battista, Jean Jacqueas, William Blake, and others, showed their criticism against John Locke in their works. 

On the aspect of the Industrial Revolution and capitalistic economy in the influence of empiricism, William Blake [1790, The Marriage of Heaven and hell] famously attacked the single vision of Newton and Locke, calling it, “ a philosophy of the senses only”. Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1750] warned in his work, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, that science and empiricism are far from liberating humans, creating vanity and inequality. He even argued, “ Our souls have become corrupted in proportion to the advancement of our sciences.” 

Concerning contemporary literature of that century, it is supported that empiricism was understood as an agenda of destroying morals, reasoning, and economic ethics from its very beginning. In response to its involvement in the standardization of law, education, and governance, where reason and observation replaced tradition, imagination, and spiritual insight, it imposed the other radical empiricism in the claim of removing radical religions. 

Giambattista Vico [ 1725, The New Science] also criticized Locke directly on neglecting history, myth, and imagination- the true foundation of human society. He insisted that, “ men first felt necessity, then looked for utility, next attended to comfort, still later amused themselves with pleasure, then grew dissolute in luxury and finally went mad and wasted their substance.” 

Afterwards, the empiricism and positivism killed metaphysical belief and produced the “death of god”. Friedrich Nietzsche[1882, The Gay Science] exposed empiricism as not pure truth seeking, but a “will to power”- a psychological agenda to control and reduce reality to what can be managed. He warned of the shadow of nihilism in Europe as he said, “ The greatest recent event- that god is dead, that belief in the christian god has become unbelievable- is already beginning  to cast its first shadows over Europe.”

Additionally, what even supports the critiques more is that they are not mentioned openly in the textbooks of psychology, unlike the criticism of other philosophies, such as rationalism and psychoanalysis. The truth behind the agendas is removed from the surface, and the agendas are shown to be accepted and recognised as factual and logical, which is the major issue in the current times. A student of knowledge and exploration is taken away from the holistic way of reason in the name of evidential reason and logic. It ignores the existence of complexity and specificity in humans with the promotion of objectivity. For instance, the empiricism of John Locke, when it comes to understanding human behaviour whose action is influenced by thought and thought is by belief, culture, and nurture, then objectivity becomes subjective to specific culture and thought. 

The behaviour is only replicable when verified within the subjects of similar cultures, nurture, and belief. And the biggest evidence of this is the differences in Indian psychology, Eastern psychology, and Western psychology. As the east and west share the difference, which can not accept the psychological explanation and therapeutic application of others, likewise, with the understanding of human nurture, belief, and thought process, individuals comply with the concept and therapies of the contrasting belief.  Empiricism, a standard of objective research rejecting belief, cultural influences, and specific nature, often misses important factors of the human psyche and behaviours. 

Moreover, with the criticism of its agenda, and its limiting nature, recent advancements in science now come to accept the role of belief in the form of neuroimmunopsychology, placebo effect, psychedelic research, meditation and and in one of the significant therapies like hypnotherapy.  

These are now the well-accepted concepts of the human psyche and successful techniques in therapies that were dismissed as’ fake’, ‘superstitious’, and ‘unscientific' for decades. These concepts emphasize the belief of humans and their role in regulating the immune system and its shifts, managing pain perception, as proven by evidence scans and fMRI.

However, even if one counters that these are also proved with scientific methods such as scans and fMRI, it still poses the question, why was the need to reject it all for once and then reprove again, when it could be accepted as an unexplained phenomenon requiring a thorough study? The utilization of meditation, hypnosis, and neuroimmunopsychology could have been continued and advanced to this date. And if science rejects concepts as ‘non-existent’ and superstitious rather than unexplained, and then it reproves the same superstition as true in the future, then what scientific method and empiricism has to claim for its validity?  

Why Does This Matter?

These examples and evidence show that when science dares to step outside strict empiricism, Belief, imagination, and subjective experience are not illusions — they are active forces shaping the brain and body. The human psyche has hidden potentials (pain reduction without drugs, healing through belief, mystical states as therapy). By integrating these, science can go beyond symptom-control into a deep transformation of consciousness and health. And it can even step forward to re-examine processes which it denies as ‘superstitions’. The unbiased and unrestricted research is very crucial for the advancements in medicines, psychology, education, and society without the influence of politics and particular philosophy, a basis of bias. It would improve Medicines through personalised healing by combining drugs + belief/ritual/hypnosis, Therapies using altered states (hypnosis, psychedelics, meditation) as mainstream, Methods to train both critical thinking + inner awareness, and Society to be more holistic economic and moral models respecting unseen dimensions of human life.

The research should be an open gate to explore every kind of processes, belief systems, behaviours, to be said with an unbiased and equal approach towards every aspect of human life, rather than making a biased standard in labelling ‘unknown’ as ‘non-existent’. At last, it ends with the question: Should curricula be revised? Should research standards be pluralized? And the answer would be a big yes!

References

Badri, M. B. (2013). Abu Zayd al-Balkhi’s sustenance of the soul: The cognitive behavior therapy of a ninth-century physician. London: International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Haque, A. (2004). Psychology from an Islamic perspective: Contributions of early Muslim scholars and challenges to contemporary Muslim psychologists. Journal of Religion and Health, 43(4), 357–377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-004-4302-z

Rahman, F. (1952). The contribution of Ibn Sina to psychology. Isis, 43(1), 32–43. https://doi.org/10.1086/349328

Rassool, G. H. (2022). Islamic contributions to psychology and mental health. In Islamic counselling: An introduction to theory and practice (pp. 45–65). Routledge.

Umaruddin, M. (1996). The ethical philosophy of al-Ghazali. Aligarh: Muslim University Press. [contains discussion of early psychological insights in Islamic tradition].

Windelband, W. (1901/1997). A history of philosophy. New York: Macmillan. [Covers Aristotle, Galen, St. Augustine, and the influence on medieval Islamic thought].

Blake, W. (1993). The marriage of heaven and hell. In D. V. Erdman (Ed.), The complete poetry and prose of William Blake (pp. 34–42). Anchor Books. (Original work published 1790)

Rousseau, J.-J. (1992). Discourse on the sciences and arts (First discourse) (R. D. Masters & J. R. Masters, Trans.). Bedford/St. Martin’s. (Original work published 1750)

Vico, G. (1999). The new science (3rd ed.; T. G. Bergin & M. H. Fisch, Trans.). Cornell University Press. (Original work published 1725)

Nietzsche, F. (1974). The gay science (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1882)