Religious spiritual psychotherapy for COVID-19 on Instagram

It has been 50 days from the commence of coronavirus in Iran. The major educational, financial, religious and cultural centers have been locked down for almost 40 days and people have spent Nowruz Holidays at home. As a recreational activity, people have chosen Instagram to pass their time and stay away from boredom. 

This issue has led so many celebrities and social figures to hold live sessions on their Instagram accounts ranging from concerts to lectures and religious prayers. As for praying, so many countries have decided to declare a special day for praying in order to help people spiritually and ask God for help to eradicate corona. It has also been seen that hundreds of people were praying in public. Interestingly, Iranian religious figures were the first ones who called for people to pray. 

As a famous Iranian clergyman and a pioneer social media activist among Shia religious scholars, Shahab Moradi invited thousands of Iranians to pray on his Instagram account every night since the first days of the coronavirus outbreak. Moreover, during these nights of the quarantine period, he holds live sessions on Instagram for his followers to have friendly chitchat. In these sessions, people ask different types of questions related to family, relationships, and personal issues and receive their answers.

The reason for all these activities is that people need friendly tribunes different from rudimentary lectures in which they are only the recipient of knowledge, instead they desire psychological talks with a religious spiritual approach mixed with a friendly tone. The comments on this public figure’s Instagram account show that these prayers have had significant effects on people’s well-being. In other parts of the world, people also have confessed that they have received mental and spiritual peace resulting from prayer. In conclusion, as experience has shown that religious-spiritual prayers can play a very crucial role in societal and individual relief, we can all pray together to overcome this deadly virus.

MNA/