Title: “A Path to Planetary Well-being: The Practice of Tafakkur (Contemplation) in Nature”
Beginning: January 2023
Summary: Contemplative practices have attracted growing scholarly attention for their potential to support education and well-being in recent years. They are increasingly seen as a way to address the interconnected challenges of our time, including mental health concerns, eco-anxiety, alienation from nature, and fragmented attention. Alongside secular and other traditional approaches, the contemplative heritage of the Islamic tradition is receiving renewed interest, both in Islamic studies and in Muslim communities. Yet this engagement has so far remained largely theoretical or confined to the lived practice of particular groups. While a growing number of empirical studies have explored these practices, few have developed them into a systematic, structured approach that can be implemented and evaluated in educational and well-being settings.
This project addresses that gap by designing an original curriculum that combines contemplative practices from the Islamic tradition and elements of contemporary psychotherapy with insights from Islamic eco-theology. The implementation of this curriculum serves as the case study through which the experiential dimensions of these practices are explored. The curriculum is designed for use both as a well-being initiative and as a formal educational programme.
Supervisors:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Lejla Demiri, University of Tübingen, Germany
Dr. Matthias Kramm, University of Tübingen, Germany
