Prince (1968) found virtually no depression in most Asian and African countries. However, psychologists such as Zhang and Kleinman have found disorders with similar symptoms, but different names. For example, in the 1980s, Zhang found that in China, there was little mention of depression. However, instead, a disorder called Neurasthenia was far more common. When interviewing Neurasthenia patients, Zhang found that their symptoms matched the symptoms of depression by over 80%. While the term "depression" was practically unheard of in China, Neurasthenia could well have been a similar disorder – or the same thing.
It is also important to take in different cultures ways of classifying depression. For example, in China, many people believe doctors solve physical symptoms, not mental problems. This may have made it more likely for "depression" to be diagnosed as a medical condition like "Neurasthenia."
Typically, in most Western cultures, women are diagnosed with depression twice as often as men. However, men are often more likely than women to die by suicide.
Depression in children can be harder to see. Children who are depressed may have a loss of appetite, meaning that they do not want to eat. They may also be clearly having more trouble in everyday life than before. For example, they may have sleep problems like nightmares; new problems with behaviour or grades at school; or be more irritable than usual.
Major depressive disorder is also referred to as "major, biochemical, clinical, endogenous", or "biological depression". It may also be called "unipolar affective disorder".
There are many subtypes of depression:
As of 2016, scientists believe there is no one cause of depression. There is a lot of argument over whether depression is caused by biological, cognitive, or sociocultural factors:
The United States National Institutes of Health say that depression comes from the brain. However, scientists are still trying to find out exactly why it happens.
There are many theories about what causes depression. These theories include:
Some depressed people also have other mental disorders, such as personality disorders and anxiety disorders.
Depression is usually treated with a combination of medication and other therapy. Good exercise helps deal with depression, since exercise releases chemicals that put a person in a better mood. Having a supportive group of friends and doing outside activities can also help prevent or ease depression.
There are many medications that can help with depression. Many of these are called antidepressants. Examples of medications used to treat depression include:
Sometimes, antidepressant medicine works better when it is used together with another drug that is not an antidepressant. These "augmentor" drugs include:
If people with depression do not take their medicine the right way, the depression can get worse. A doctor must help when they want to change to another medication, or to take a different amount of a medication than before.
Psychotherapy is often a helpful treatment for depression. In psychotherapy, a therapist helps a person to understand and solve problems which cause depression. The therapist also helps the person learn skills for dealing with their depression.
Psychotherapy can help a person make changes in the way they think, in order to help with life problems and understand what makes depression worse. The most effective psychotherapy for depression is Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This teaches a person to think in a more rational, positive, realistic manner.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also called electroshock therapy or shock therapy, is used to treat a small percentage of severely depressed people. ECT uses a small amount of electricity to cause an epileptic seizure while the patient is under anesthesia. This may cause some memory loss (amnesia) or other side effects.
In the past, doctors used different ways of treating depression. These are rarely used any more. They include:
Pet therapy and animal companionship can help people suffering from depression or anxiety.
Qur'an
The Qur'an () is the holy book of Islam. The Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be "The Word of Allah (God)". This book is claimed to be different from other religious texts in that it is said to be the literal words of God, through the prophet Muhammad. Some Muslims call it the "Final Testament".
It has been written and was read in the Arabic language for more than 1,400 years. But, because many Muslims around the world do not understand Arabic, the meaning of the Qur'an is also given in other languages, so that readers can understand better what the Arabic words in the Qur'an mean. These books are like dictionaries to the Qur'an - they are not read as part of the religion of Islam, to replace the Arabic Qur'an. Muslims believe that these translations are not the true Qur'an; only the Arabic copy is the true Qur'an.
Sharia laws "based on the expressions and interpretations of the Qur'an" are problematic in terms of today's universal human rights, equality and individual freedoms.
Muslims believe the Qur'an was first revealed to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel in a cave on the mountain of Hira in Mecca, and then over a period of twenty-three years until his death. The Qur'an was not written all together in book-form while Muhammad was alive; it was kept by oral communication and brief written records. The prophet did not know how to read nor write, but according to Muslims, the prophet's cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib, among others, used to write the texts on something when Muhammad was alive. After prophet Muhammad died, Omar ibn Khattab, one of the khulafa u rashidan, compiled the Qur'an into a single book.
Contrary to the as-Sīrah an-Nabawiyyah works, based on rumors, some researchers believed Muhammad to be an unreal fictional personality for the following reasons:
After the death of Muawiyah, the Kaaba was hit by catapults by the soldiers of Yazid, the black stone that was hit was divided into three parts, and the Kaaba was destroyed. According to the Canadian archaeologist and researcher of Islamic history Dan Gibson, this destruction took place, not in today's city of Mecca, but about 1200 kilometers north of this, ie in Petra.
Gibson has found that the qibla walls of the oldest mosques show Petra. Combining these findings with clues in verses, hadiths, and traditional Prophetic biography sources, Gibson concluded that Muhammad lived in Petra and migrated from here to Medina. According to him, the first qibla of Muslims was not the Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, but the cubic building, which was used as the El-Lât temple in Petra. This structure was destroyed during the Abdullah bin Zubayr uprising among the Muslims Second Fitna.
Ibni Zubayr had taken the black stone along with other sacred items and moved the new temple to the place where today's Mecca is, away from Umayyad attacks. The new place, which won the support of Abbasids who were fighting the Umayyads, was fully adopted after a transition period of several centuries, and the direction of the newly built mosques began to be built towards the new Mecca. However, the mosques in North Africa and Andalusia, which were under the influence of Umayyad, continued to oppose the new qibla by turning their direction in a completely different direction, South Africa.
The language used in the Qur'an was not originally pure Arabic. It can be seen that "at the time when the Quran was written", "an Arabic language structure used only in the Petra region" was used in the Qur'an.
Some poetic expressions in The 54. surah of the Quran, begins:
اقْتَرَبَتِ السَّاعَةُ وَانشَقَّ الْقَمَرُ وَإِن يَرَوْا آيَةً يُعْرِضُوا وَيَقُولُوا سِحْرٌ مُّسْتَمِرٌّ