– Radiance News Service
Contributions of Prof. Akbar Husain, former Professor of Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (AMU) and adjunct professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Integral University, Lucknow towards Islamic Psychology has been acknowledged in a book, “Foundations of Islamic Psychology: From Classical Scholars to Contemporary Thinkers”, by Rassool, G.H. and Luqman, M. M. (2023, New York).
Dr. Akbar Husain, who was also Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, AMU, did Ph.D. in Psychology from AMU in 1981. He was awarded D.Litt. in Psychology in 2015 for his work on Explorations and Applications of Spirituality in Psychology. With over 39 years of teaching and research experience, he has supervised 10 M.Phil., 34 Ph.D. and 2 Post-Doctoral scholars at AMU.
Prof. Husain has authored, co-authored and edited 36 books, and contributed 250 research papers, theoretical articles and book chapters to national and international journals and books. He has presented papers, gave invited talks/lectures and keynote addresses at several national and international conferences and seminars. He was Editor of the Journal of Indian Academy of Applied Psychology (2002-2005) and Journal of Educational Research, University of Malaya (2009). He is also reviewer of various national and international journals of psychology.
He has standardized numerous psychological tests and completed research projects. He is Life Member and Annual Member of various national and international associations. He was offered Founding Member of Board of International Transpersonal Association, USA in 2009. Prof. Husain received Sir Syed Innovation Award 2018 Outstanding Researcher of the Year.
In recent years he has been involved in conducting researches on various topics such as spiritual values/virtues, spiritual fitness, spiritual personality, spiritual support, spiritual distress, spiritual coping, strength, etc. related to Spiritual Psychology. His current areas of research are: Clinical-Health Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Positive Psychology, Islamic and Sufi Psychology.
On his recent achievement, Prof. Husain, while talking to radiancenews.com, said, “It is a great achievement since I started working in this particular field for more than 20 years particularly when I was on an assignment working as professor in the University of Malaya (Malaysia) where I wrote a book, Islamic Psychology: Emergence of A New Field. This book has also been reviewed in a chapter in the book by Professor Rassool, G.H. and Luqman, M.M. The paper which I mentioned just now has also been translated into the Indonesian language.
Dr. Husain added, “Presently I am also involved in the development of the tools based on the Quranic concepts. One piece is already published in Scooper Index Journal on Taqwa skills, and another paper, which is under publication in Malaysia, is on Fitrah (natural disposition). And the third is on idealic personality, for example that of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ whose personality is considered idealic for the existence of peaceful co-existence. We have also reviewed more than 200 empirical studies in the field of Islamic Psychology.”
On Prof. Husain’s contributions, Dr. Mohammed Rizwan, Deputy Director, Centre for Study and Research (CSR) New Delhi said, “Alhamdulillah, it’s time for taking a moment to rejoice as our head of Islamic Psychology group and former Chairman, Department of Psychology and former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, AMU, has been rightfully acknowledged for his contribution to the fields of Islamic Psychology, Counseling, and Spiritual Psychology, in a remarkable book, “Foundations of Islamic Psychology: From Classical Scholars to Contemporary Thinkers”, by Rassool, G.H. and Luqman, M.M. (2023, New York). The book has been published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.”
Dr Rizwan added: “Prof. Husain’s contributions have been cited in the book under Section-III, covering 19th to 21st century scholars, academics, and clinicians. It should be noted that Prof. Husain, Prof. Naved Iqbal and other academics and researchers working in the domain of Islamic psychology have collaborated with CSR way back in 2015-16 and held various academic events including an international conference on Islamic Psychology followed by many programs and played an instrumental role in establishing Islamic psychology as an academic discourse among psychology academia.”
