Emotional Well-Being in Sufi Practice:  Khatam Khawjakan and Spiritual Reflexivity in Madura

Ghina Nur Kamila; Mukhammad Zamzami; Ghozi; Wael Hegazy

doi:10.61680/jisc.v4i1.72

Authors

Ghina Nur Kamila UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya
Mukhammad Zamzami Sunan Ampel State Islamic University, Surabaya
Ghozi Sunan Ampel State Islamic University, Surabaya
Wael Hegazy University of California, Santa Barbara

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61680/jisc.v4i1.72

Keywords:

Emotional Well-Being, Khatam Khawjakan, Psychospirituality, Spiritual Reflexity, ; Naqshbandiyah Mudzhariyah

Abstract

Research on Sufi spirituality has associated dhikr with emotional well-being, yet how well-being is subjectively experienced within specific ritual and Sufi contexts remains underexplored. This study examines how followers of the Naqshbandiyah Mudzhariyah Order in Sumenep, Madura, experience and interpret emotional well-being through Khatam Khawjakan dhikr. Using Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, the study draws on in-depth interviews with 10 purposively selected participants. Data were analyzed through epoché, phenomenological reduction, and imaginative variation to identify the essential structure of participants’ experiences. Emotional well-being emerged as a dynamic psychospiritual experience involving orientation toward Allah, emotional relief, acceptance, reflection, tawakal, repentance, and transformed responses to everyday problems. Khatam Khawjakan was experienced not simply as a means of producing tranquility but as a space for reflexively reorganizing relationships with emotions, difficulties, the self, and God. The study conceptualizes emotional well-being as a relational and reflexive process through which spiritual experience extends into everyday life, highlighting the contextual and intersubjective character of well-being in Sufi practice.

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