Breathing for Life and Talking to God: Spiritual Contemplations of Muslim Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

As research on religion and spirituality at healthcare institutions gains momentum, there is still scarce knowledge pertaining to Muslim patients’ spirituality living in the West. In this article, I present and discuss the results from my qualitative study of 12 Muslim patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at Danish hospitals.

Based on the empirical data, using thematic analysis, the major emergent theme ‘meaning-making’ is subjected to investigation. This is done by bringing relevant Islamic theological terms into the conversation. The aim of this study is to understand how critically ill Muslim patients relate to religion and spirituality in their meaning-making processes.

I argue that there is both a theocentric and anthropocentric worldview prevalent amongst Muslim patients in the meaning-making process and what glues the two worldviews together is a ‘relational spirituality’.