Chapter Three: On the Doctrine of the Scholars of Truth and the Sages of Veracity Concerning the Spirit and the Soul

and independence of place, whereas the body is not independent of place. So the soul (nafs) is nobler than the body, because of the body's need and the soul's independence of place — nobility lying in independence; for the more a thing is independent of another thing, the nobler it is. Then (the spirit) (rūḥ), which in their view is the intellect (ʿaql): it has existence and subsistence per se and independence of place, and it performs its act without need of an instrument, whereas the soul attains none of its perfections save by its instruments, which are bodies. So the soul, in its acting, needs a body, even if in its existing it does not need one; whereas the spirit is independent of bodies in its working as well. It is therefore nobler.

Then God: existent, requiring no substratum and needing no place, independent in His acting of all instruments and independent in His existing of any bringer into existence — whereas the spirit requires a bringer into existence to bring it into being. So God is the absolutely Self-sufficient, the true King, who is independent of everything and upon whom everything depends. Glory be to Him whose perfection the truthful and the false alike confess, and the description of whose majesty the evildoer and the doer of good alike have come to know.

This is the doctrine of that party, which I have set out by way of abridgement and reported in the manner of narration and recital. My own belief agrees with their doctrine in nothing of what I have reported from them, except in their saying that God is independent of everything and that everything depends upon Him, and in the need of accidents for a substratum and of bodies for a place.

Gate Three: On the Doctrine of the Scholars of Truth and the Sages of Veracity concerning the Spirit and the Soul

The verifying scholars and the verifying sages hold two doctrines concerning the spirit. The first, which is the safer of the two, is that they should not speak of its quiddity nor discourse upon its reality. They said: God, exalted be He, did not make it plain to His Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and He said, "Say: the spirit is of the command of my Lord, and you have not been given of knowledge save a little." That is: the more manifest part of the spirit is hidden from you — namely your own organs and your own parts — and you are ignorant of what is weightier than this question, namely the messengership; so what ails you, that you ask about a question upon which the soundness of Islam does not depend? To busy yourself with prying into what God did not make plain to His Messenger is excess in religion and obstinacy; and to plunge into what no Qur'an has conveyed and no demonstration has established is excess upon the earth and corruption.

The second is that the spirit is a luminous body which desires nothing but obedience to God and chooses nothing but the worship of God; the lack of pores does not keep it from entering into narrow places, nor does distance of station turn it back from reaching created things. It is therefore the noblest of divisions among contingent things, and it is fitting to say of it that it is a body, but not like these bodies: for it is subtle yet not like feeble air, and strong yet not like dense stone — whereas of the bodies we have, whatever is subtle is feeble and whatever is strong is dense. And within a single stretch of time the spirit is found at the beginning of it in the west and at the end of it in the east, so that one supposes of it that in a single instant it was in two places.

Then they said: this too is a sound road, because it is inferred from the Book of God and drawn out from the speech of the Messenger of God. For He, exalted be He, said concerning the spirit, "So We sent to her Our spirit, and he took for her the likeness of a well-formed man." Now a body is that which takes on colours and assumes shapes; and it is possible for a single body to be seen in different colours, for glass is seen white when what is in it is white, and red when what is in it is red. Likewise it is possible for it to assume different shapes, for vapour stretches and spreads until it fills the wide air, and gathers until a sand-grouse's nesting-hollow can hold it. But what is not a body cannot possibly be seen in any colour or shape. And He, exalted be He, said, "The trustworthy spirit brought it down" — and descent is among the attributes of bodies.

If it be said: it has been transmitted that God descends to the lowest heaven, and He is exalted above any need of place — we say: interpretation (taʼwīl) is permissible only where taking the wording in its literal sense is impossible; otherwise no confidence would remain in the reports of those who report. But where descent is kept in its literal sense, the one who descends is a body, and everything that is a body is originated in time, while God is eternal; so He is not a body, and therefore descent is not literally His, and it is taken to refer to the traces of His mercy and the keepers of His bounty.

As for the spirit: if it is a body, it is originated in time — and so it is; there is nothing far-fetched in that and nothing impossible. And He, exalted be He, said, "On the day when the spirit and the angels stand in rank" — and this is of the description of bodies. It has been transmitted in the sound reports that Jibrīl, peace be upon him, came to the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, while he was in houses whose doors were shut, and that he saw him in a form. These verses and these reports have indicated the attributes we have mentioned; and when the inference is from the speech of God, exalted be He, and the report of the Messenger of God, the road is sound.

Further, God, exalted be He, praised those who infer matters from the speech of God and set them next after His Messenger, where He said of them, "Those among them who elicit it would have known it." As for God's not having made it plain to His Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, we say: He did not make it plain when the Jews asked him about the spirit in order to dispute with him about it. For they knew that the question was the battlefield of the speculative thinkers and that there were differing doctrines about it, so they asked him about it so that, whenever he gave an answer, they might say, "The answer is not so," and bring forward the sayings of earlier men. Now disputation is carried through only in a place of disagreement upon which no conclusive demonstration stands and over which no radiant light rises, so that the contenders pull at the ends of the discourse. So He, exalted be He, said: do not answer them about what they ask you, for it is not incumbent upon you to make it plain, nor upon them to know it, and they have asked you only in order to dispute with you. Likewise in the matter of the number of the Companions of the Cave He did not make it plain, for their number was a matter of disagreement; had He made a number plain to them, they would have said, "It is not so, on the evidence of the saying of so-and-so and so-and-so." So He set out what had been said about them and did not make plain which of it was the truth — and this although there is no danger in mentioning the number of a people, whereas in the matter of the spirit it might well breed corruption in belief, since what the philosophers held about it carries a grave danger and a great corruption.

If it be said: had it been as you claim, He would have set out the doctrines of men concerning the spirit, as He set them out concerning the number of the Companions of the Cave — we say: the doctrines about their number were confined to three, whereas the doctrines about spirits and their species were widely scattered. And again: in mentioning the sayings of men about the Companions of the Cave there is no danger, whereas in mentioning the sayings of men about the spirit there is danger.

If it be said: then why have you yourself embarked upon mentioning the sayings of the ancients, for all the danger in it? — we say: the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace — no one of us is of his condition. For at every moment he chose what was most excellent, so that of speech he said only the most excellent of it, and of acts he did only the most complete of them — to the point that when he forgot in his prayer what he forgot, his lapse was of greater benefit than its absence, because by means of it there was made plain to his community what they were to do.

And it may be said that his sleeping in his bed with his family at his time of sleeping was more beneficial than his forgoing sleep. The principle in this is that if he, peace be upon him, had shunned women, abandoned food and drink, kept alone by himself and not mixed with people, and had then given news of hidden things and brought marvels and uttered judgements of wisdom, the falsifier could have said that it was acquired. But since he uttered judgements of wisdom without having learned from any book, and brought wonders while keeping to the way of other people, it was known that what he possessed was not acquired by him, but was rather of God's giving. And consider his not having been taught: for learning is a merit in everyone's case, yet for the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, it would have been no merit. This becomes clear in this way: if one of us busies himself with reading and repetition, or persists in reflection and recollections, and then speaks a fine speech or makes something wondrous, it is said that this is the effect of learning or the result of reflection. But if he spends the length of his day in diversion and play and the whole of his night in sleep and heedlessness, and then, when talk arises, speaks with the utmost subtlety, and when he undertakes a work undertakes it in the soundest way there is, everyone knows that it comes from the strength of his acumen, or the acumen of his strength.

There is no disagreement among the intelligent that acumen is not acquired, but is only of the giving of God, exalted be He. This is the striking of a likeness; and the Messenger of God has a likeness higher than this, and to God belongs the highest likeness.

Once you know this, I say that our own age turns much to play, or to lying that goes by the name of tactful accommodation — for we often call the wrongdoer a doer of good and the ignorant man a scholar, and say to an enemy, "I am your friend." Moreover, religion is now secure from defect, and the foot of the people of the revealed law is safe from stumbling, through the firm rooting of faith and the attaining of certainty; so that mentioning the doctrine of those men is a thing that obliges the scholars to give thanks for God's favour upon them, inasmuch as they come to know that the revealed law is better than anything else — whereas had it not been mentioned, it might have been supposed that in their doctrine there are realities more complete than what is in the revealed law. It was not so in the earliest time of Islam, for the revealed law had not yet come forth in the assemblies and reached the ears; so to mention the discourse of the philosophers in the earliest time of prophethood would have bred a doubt in minds and a weakness in faith, and therefore neither the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, nor his Companions mentioned it.

And when you have come to know the spirit, we say: God has adorned the outward of the spirit and its inward, and ennobled its resting-place and its dwellings. Its outward has of forms the most beautiful, of shapes the most complete, of colours the finest and of scents the sweetest — as though every one of its members were, in beauty, a face, and as though all of its parts were, in knowledge, a heart. It has no shameful part, and in it there is no nakedness.

The spirits sent down from God, and Jibrīl, peace be upon him, are of this description.

As for the human spirit, it too is of this description. God, exalted be He, created it before the bodies and then breathed it into the body. The spirits were like marshalled armies, and when they were breathed into the embodied bodies, those of them that had known one another came into concord and those that had not recognised one another fell into discord. And the spirit, when it was breathed into the body, came to permeate it and to run through its veins and its members, as fire permeates charcoal and as water runs through the rose. This is the soundest view.

Some of the scholars said that the spirit in a human being is a small part which, when it was breathed into him, settled in his heart. But the first view is better; for there is no part of the body but that in it is something of that light, as with a live coal, no part of which is without something of the fire. Animals likewise have spirits permeating them, save that the relation of human spirits to the spirits of beasts is as the relation of human acts to the acts of beasts — and we shall mention them.

The human spirit existed before its body; but I do not hold that the bestial spirit existed before the body of beasts, and in this there is a subtlety, namely that the body of man was created for his spirit, while the spirit of beasts was created for their body. Further, just as the human spirit existed before the knitting together of its parts, so it remains in existence after the sundering of its members. He, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: when one of you dies, his spirit hovers above his bier, saying, O my family, O my child, let not this world play with you as it played with me. It has also been transmitted in the reports that the spirit of the believer is in a lamp beneath the Throne; and it has been transmitted that the spirits are in a garden among the gardens of Paradise, or in a pit among the pits of the Fires. So spirits mostly remain after the death of the body; and if it dies, it lives again with the restoring of the body, while if it does not die, the body is restored and the spirit is interlaced with it as it was. Concerning the death of the spirit there is disagreement.

As for the soul, it too is a subtle body, by which the intellect is realised — the intellect upon which the pivot of moral obligation turns. The soul, then, is as it were the human spirit.

The soul has three states: in the first it is commanding to evil; in the second it is reproaching; and in the third it is at peace.

The exposition of this is that God, exalted be He, joined the dense body to the subtle soul, so that the body might be perfected by the soul and the soul by the body, and He made the perfecting proceed first from the side of the soul: so it first perfects the body until the body grows strong for works, and then it is itself perfected by the body, so that it grows strong for good things. Thus man, at the outset of his affair and the beginning of his life, has for his concern the growth of his frame and the strengthening of his sinew; his occupation is eating and drinking, that his parts may extend in length and breadth, and his habit is diversion and play, that his limbs may grow firm in stretching and gripping. Then, when he grows up, he is commanded to purify the soul by abandoning habit and performing worship, yet he continues in the habit of his boyhood and the appetite for delight has grown within his passion; so need calls him and habit carries him to slackness in obedience and shortcoming in worship. How should it be otherwise, when in his childhood he was in his father's keeping, free of concern for his morrow, and upon reaching maturity the procuring of his sustenance became binding upon him, since his affair was put into his own hand? So he requires food that is savoury and drink that is pleasant and a spouse that is comely and fruit freshly plucked; and he gets it from wherever it may be and feeds himself, caring nothing whether another is pleased or is harmed; so he persists in his error and finds the pasture of his transgression agreeable. Thus his body is perfected by his soul and reaches the limit of its zenith, but his soul remains deficient, in the service of his belly and his loins; and so long as the soul is in this condition it is commanding to evil. Then, when he reflects upon his affair and reflects upon what has passed of his life, he knows that the matter tends to cessation, that the end of a lifetime is removal, and that there is no escaping departure and the turning of one's state. So he says: suppose I live a thousand ages and acquire what no reckoning can contain — what then comes after that? And he says: everything perishes. Then there is no escaping restoration and an abiding either in felicity or in misery. So he says: O wretched man, you procure the sustenance of tomorrow by force of striving and harshness of toil, though you do not know how things will run, and before that sustenance is used up; so your occupation with the affair of your final end is among the weightiest of your occupations, and your turning to righteousness for the sake of what lies ahead of you is better than your busying yourself with the business of your present state. At this the soul becomes reproaching. Then, when it busies itself with the worship of God for the sake of his return to Him, the body contends with him by demanding what it is accustomed to; so at the beginning of the affair bodily works oppose him and base occupations crowd in upon him, and he is at the night prayer while with his heart he passes the evening in talk with the elegant, and at the day's office of devotion while with his mind he gambles with the tradesmen — so that you see him devoutly withdrawn in the mosque with his body, while with his heart he is standing in the market. Then, when he presses on in worship, obedience becomes for him like the things he is accustomed to; then his affair rises, until he is at times nourished by worship and is plainly harmed by the things he was accustomed to: if he breaks his fast for a day he sickens, and if he fasts an age he is sound. At that point the soul becomes at peace. And in every state it has degrees: for when it is commanding, it may command excess in what is permitted, and elegance, and jesting, without commanding iniquity and fornication; and it may command the eating of what is forbidden, and drive a man to the killing of the noble, and call him to abandon Islam and to the worship of idols. These are two extremes, and between them is the degree of one whose soul calls him to a grave sin, or to persistence in a slight one, and who then regrets it after a short while, so that it brings repentance hard upon the offence.