The New Testament Jesus befriended the most despised — tax collectors and sex workers. The earliest followers of Muhammad were slaves and those with no tribal connection. The word sufi is said to come from the phrase as-hab as-sufra (people of the bench) referring to the homeless who lived on a bench in the mosque.
But you don't have to be homeless or engaged in a socially despised vocation to feel marginalised or alienated. There is one form of marginalisation of the mind that can afflict just about anyone.
Some forms of depression are severe enough to drive sufferers into a monastery of hopelessness. For depressed believers, often the first place they look for solace is their congregation, the people they associate with God the most. Many recognise their negative mood as a huge threat to their faith, and try to cling to it even harder.
Sadly, the experiences of so many depressed believers I have spoken to about the subject haven't been encouraging. I can only speak about the congregations of Australian Muslims I am most familiar with.
One close friend told me he told his Melbourne imam about being prescribed anti-depressants. The imam responded: 'You don't need to take these. I will tell you some special prayer formulae which will help you.' He followed the imam's advice. In the next six months, he had attempted suicide twice.
Another said that Muslims in her religious circle kept insisting that depression is just a term of psychobabble, and that her real problem was that she had weak imaan (faith) and needed to exercise sabr (patience).
Some years back a South Asian boy in my close family circle committed suicide after struggling with depression for years. His father was plagued with guilt, made worse by people expressing views that those who commit suicide die the death of a non-believer and will burn in hell forever.
The implication was that the father should forget about praying for his son's soul.
God only knows if that father ever heard the (arguably) more theologically correct narrative — that only God decides who enters paradise and that the son's suicide should be regarded as the direct result of an illness.
The ignorance of and stigma attached to depression in