Narrative Hikmah: Al-Ghazali’s Sufi Ethics of Wisdom in Dialogue with Narrative Therapy

Abstract

This article examines the concept of hikmah in al-Ghazali’s Sufi thought as a spiritual-ethical resource for recovering meaning and places it in dialogue with narrative therapy as developed by Michael White and David Epston. Drawing primarily on al-Ghazali’s Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din and al-Munqidh min al-Dalal, this study argues that hikmah should not be understood merely as theoretical knowledge, but as a transformative orientation that purifies the heart, reorders desire, and directs the self towards God. Narrative therapy, with its emphasis on externalising problems, re-authoring personal stories, unique outcomes, and alternative narratives, offers a psychological vocabulary for understanding how individuals may move beyond problem-saturated self-understandings. Using a comparative-philosophical method, this article analyses the convergence and difference between al-Ghazali’s account of spiritual transformation and narrative therapy’s model of narrative reconstruction. The analysis shows that hikmah may enrich narrative therapy by providing a spiritual-ethical horizon for meaning-making, self-purification, and moral responsibility, while narrative therapy may help articulate how wounded self-narratives can be reinterpreted and reconstructed. The article therefore proposes narrative hikmah as a theoretical framework for recovery that integrates Sufi wisdom and narrative reconstruction while preserving the distinct foundations of Islamic spirituality and contemporary psychotherapy. Rather than presenting a validated clinical intervention, this article offers a conceptual contribution to the study of Sufism, meaning-making, and spiritually oriented psychotherapy.