Not a promise about people we haven't hired yet. The bar we won't lower.
Most Muslim mental health platforms use the word vetted without defining it. Every therapist and every imam, chaplain or spiritual advisor at Zaha must meet all six standards below before their first client. If someone can't, they don't see clients.
For therapists: active state licensure (LMFT, LMHC, LPC, LCPC), checked against the state board before their first client, no active disciplinary actions. For imams and spiritual-care providers: an ijazah from a recognized scholar, an accredited-seminary degree, or documented advanced Islamic studies (Hartford International, Zaytuna College, Al-Maghrib, Bayyinah, Darul Qasim, or equivalent), verified in writing with the issuing scholar or institution before their first client. They also need three or more years of documented one-on-one spiritual care experience and a signed scope agreement, before their first client, covering when to defer to the therapist, when to escalate a safety concern, and what stays inside spiritual scope. Self-taught study alone is not enough.
Every therapist is trained in at least one evidence-based modality relevant to the programs they serve: CBT, ERP for OCD, EMDR for trauma, EFT for couples, or grief-focused therapy. Every provider commits to coordinated care: shared plans, joint sessions, written updates between therapist and spiritual advisor.
Two things, not one. Faith literacy: the provider understands Islam. What the prayers mean, why qadr matters, how scripture frames suffering. Cultural fluency: they understand that Muslims are not monolithic, that a Pakistani-American daughter, a Black American convert, and a Bosnian refugee carry the same faith through very different families and histories. At launch, every clinician and every imam or spiritual advisor at Zaha is Muslim by practice. A cultural-competency certification program for non-Muslim clinicians is on our roadmap. "Has worked with Muslim clients before" alone doesn’t count.
Full background check. Community reputation verified. Any one of these ends the conversation, for either seat:
A public allegation of misconduct — financial, spiritual-care, or gender-based. Refusing the principle that therapists lead clinical direction. Treating mental illness as primarily a faith deficit. Framing women as inherently fitnah. Advising against medication categorically. Refusing to recognize intimate-partner violence as a clinical issue.
Therapists sign our Clinical Safety Manual before their first client: C-SSRS risk screening, escalation protocols, and documentation standards. Imams bring clinical chaplaincy training, CPE preferred.
Therapists will carry $1M per occurrence / $3M aggregate professional liability before their first client, with Zaha named as additional insured. Imams and spiritual advisors will carry $1M per occurrence / $1M aggregate professional liability of their own before their first client. No provider sees a client before vetting and approval are complete. No exceptions.
Zaha only works if therapist and spiritual advisor stay in their lanes. Here's what that means in practice.
Neither overrides the other. Neither replaces your local imam or your primary care doctor. Each provider does what only they can, and hands off when they can't.
A coordinated care model only works if it’s deliberate about who decides what, what happens when providers disagree, and how a crisis is handled. Here’s how Zaha runs that.
Diagnosis, treatment plan, modality choice, medication referral, risk assessment, and safety planning are the licensed therapist’s call, sometimes in consultation with our Clinical Advisor. The imam doesn’t override them. Imams cannot diagnose, prescribe, or treat clinical mental health conditions. Their lane is spiritual.
It will happen. The protocol: the disagreement gets surfaced in the provider thread (not in front of the client), and the Clinical Advisor weighs in within two business days. If it’s a clinical question, the clinical view holds. If it’s a question of religious content, the spiritual advisor’s view holds. If it’s a question of scope, the Clinical Advisor decides. We document the resolution. We don’t paper over it.
If a client is caught between conflicting guidance, that’s a process failure on our side. The client is told plainly, and we make it right.
Crisis never waits for Zaha: 988 or 911 first, every time — the platform is not monitored around the clock. Anything a client posts that suggests self-harm, harm to others, or imminent risk is treated as top priority under the Clinical Safety Manual, both providers are looped in, and it jumps the standard one-business-day reply window. Every client also builds a written safety plan with their therapist at the first session, so the numbers and the people are already in hand.
For any client (or anyone reading this) who can’t wait: 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7) or 911 for immediate danger. Our crisis & safety page has the full list.
Our imams are not licensed mental health providers. They cannot diagnose, prescribe, bill insurance, or accept clinical referrals as the primary treating provider. They complete Zaha's onboarding on recognizing clinical signs, deferring to the therapist, and referring escalations up, before their first client. Their work is spiritual: spiritual framing, religious guidance, accompaniment. The scope agreement keeps clinical care with the licensed clinician.
A Clinical Advisor, or a documented consulting clinician, is in place before the first client is seen, owning risk escalation on fixed clocks (hours, not days), sampling documentation on a set cadence, and owning the Clinical Safety Manual every provider signs. Outcomes (PHQ-9, GAD-7, program-specific measures) are tracked from intake to graduation.
Zaha is for Muslims who want care that actually engages with their faith. We don’t sort you by school of thought, and we don’t ask you to pick sides. Our spiritual-care providers are imams, Muslim chaplains and spiritual advisors. They offer guidance focused on the spiritual and emotional. Most people seeking mental health support aren’t looking for fiqh rulings; they’re looking to feel less alone. We ask about gender at intake rather than assuming. For both seats, and we match to what you tell us. Tell us at intake if you have a preference about who you are paired with. Our team is small, so we honor it when we can and say so plainly when we can’t.
A Scholar Advisory Board is on our roadmap: scholars from across mainstream Islamic traditions reviewing the spiritual-care team, with a clinician trained in Islamic studies alongside them.
We're not listing names until they've signed on. Ours will appear here, with photos and credentials, as each member signs. Until the board is seated, every imam goes through the six standards above before approval.
We’re listening.
hello@zaha.health