Faith as a fortress: Islamic spirituality and mental well-being for Canadian Muslim Youth
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In a climate shaped by Islamophobia, racism, structural exclusion, trauma, global conflicts, and broader uncertainties, Canadian Muslim youth (CMY) face identity struggles that deeply affect their mental health and belonging. This article examines Islamic spirituality as a vital, culturally grounded resource for resilience and well-being, positioning it as an essential dimension of holistic and inclusive social work practice. Drawing on findings from the national study on Canadian Muslim youth identity and well-being (Jamal et al. 2023, p.12), alongside related scholarship, the analysis highlights how spiritual dimensions such as attachment to God, love for the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, tafakkur (reflection), tawakkul (trust in God), ṣabr (resilience), and shukr (gratitude) function as protective anchors. These practices not only counter distress, anxiety, and identity fragmentation but also reinforce youth belonging and strengthen community ties amid local and global challenges. By centering spirituality within social work discourse, the article underscores the need for culturally responsive frameworks that integrate Islamic counseling principles, foster collaboration with Muslim communities, and address systemic inequities in mental health services. Ultimately, this work calls for a transformative reorientation that situates spirituality at the intersection of faith, identity, trauma, and mental health, offering a pathway toward the flourishing and resilience of Muslim youth in Canada.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".