SUBJECT & OBJECTIVES: A significant body of research has consistently supported the effectiveness of spirituality-based interventions in influencing a range of psychological variables. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Iʿtikāf intervention on happiness and resilience in a group of adults. METHOD & FINDING: This quasi-experimental study adopted a pretest-posttest design with a control group and a one-month follow-up. The research sample consisted of 60 adult men and women, aged 18 to 60, from Sanandaj, Iran, in 2024. The participants were selected through convenience sampling and were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group (30 individuals per group). The participants in the intervention group attended a 10-night spiritual Iʿtikāf ceremony held in mosques. They completed the items in the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ-SF) and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) at three pre-test, post-test, and follow-up phases. Results from the repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that the spiritual Iʿtikāf intervention significantly increased the participants' levels of happiness and resilience in the post-intervention phase, and these improvements were retained at the follow-up stage. CONCLUSION: Consistent with previous studies that have addressed the mental health benefits of spiritual interventions, the present study introduced Iʿtikāf as a spiritual intervention and a therapeutic option for enhancing the psychological well-being, specifically the happiness and resilience of adults.
