Question:
Assalmu Alaykum
Can you tell me what the soul is? Is our soul immortal in our physical body? Please inform me of easy of a page or book related to this.
Wassalam
Allah bless you.
Answer:
Waalaykumussalam,
Allah Most High said {And they ask you about the ruh (spirit). Say, “The ruh is from the command of my nurturing Lord, and you were not given, of knowledge, but little”} (al-Isra’ 17:85).
Those that were given some of that little knowledge said the rational soul of a human being is an incorporeal entity linked to the body and governing it; that it is originated (created) in time and originally devoid of knowledge; that it has four stages of intellectual development (primordial, constitutive, active, and equipped); and that it can perceive contraries simultaneously and can comprehend intelligibles without limit. See Baydawi, Tawali` al-Anwar and its commentary by Mahmud Asfahani entitled Matali` al-Anzar, translated by Edwin Calverley and James Pollock as “Nature, Man and God” in two volumes (Brill 2002).
Other authoritative discussions can be found in Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Ashraf al-Hakim al-Samarqandi’s al-Saha’if al-Ilahiyya and `Adud al-Din al-Iji’s al-Mawaqif and their commentaries.
Hajj Gibril Haddad
