The Author's Introduction, and Chapter One: Establishing the Proof of the Existence of the Soul

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In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

We begin, with God’s help and the goodness of the success He grants, to write a treatise (1) on the soul; and it (2) is of the composition of the revered father Mār Ghrīghūriyūs Ibn al-ʻIbrī (3) — may God illumine his tomb. Amen.

Set us aright by Your light, O Possessor of the great Throne (4); You are the Patron of all beings and of all good things. Now then: this is a compendium on the science of the human soul, in which nothing has been set down but what is of consequence among the true sciences. We ask God the Exalted to preserve us from sin and from stumbling, and to make us fit for the choicest of knowledge and of practice, by His favour and His kindness. Amen.

Chapter One

On establishing the demonstration of the soul’s existence

We say: the existence of the soul (nafs) is a matter of innate constitution (fiṭrī) and stands in no need of definition, for each (5) of us ( 6 )

points [2] to his own self when he says “I”; and his pointing to it is not a pointing to a thing that is not (1), for to nonexistence there is no pointing. This is known to the learned and to the ignorant alike — I mean that there is no man in the world who is heedless of his own soul; and were he able to be heedless of everything in existence, such as his body, his limbs, his motions and the rest, still of his own self no heedlessness whatever can be conceived

But the opinions of the people of learning have differed concerning this existence. Some supposed it a body, some an accident, and some denied it to be either of the two. Those who supposed it a body claimed that it (2) is this bodily frame — and these are the Muslims (3) one and all, and some of the Christians. Others claimed that the soul is a body confined within this body; and some of these supposed it to be the four humours (akhlāṭ), (4) while others claimed it is the blood alone; others supposed it to be a spirit that issues from the heart to the brain; some claimed (5) it to be the sound organs, such as the nerves, the veins, the arteries, the bones and the rest; others held it to be the principal organs — I mean the brain, the heart, the liver and the two testicles; others supposed it to be water; others supposed it to be [3] air; others supposed it to be fire; others supposed it to be the knitting together of the elements (isṭiqsāt). But Arisṭūṭālīs and his followers and the whole body of the Christians claimed that the soul is neither a body nor an accident; that it uses the body as an instrument; that it does not die with the death of the body; that it is perfected by the divine sciences and takes delight in them, and that if it lacks these it meets with the greatest torment; that it does not precede the body in its existence; and that it does not pass over from one body to another. And along with

— Notes —

[5] 1 ) In the original: wa-ḥusn tawfīqihi wa-naktub kitāb maqālah.

[5] 2 ) In the original: wa-dhālika.

[5] 3 ) Seek his life in the journal al-Mashriq for the year 1898, by the Jesuit Father Luwīs Shaykhū.

[5] 4 ) In an original: yā dhū al-ʻarsh.

[5] 5 ) In the original: kull.

[6] 1 ) In the original: amr ʻadamī.

[6] 2 ) In the original: bi-annahu.

[6] 3 ) In the original: al-muslimīn.

[6] 4 ) In the original: al-arbaʻ.

[6] 5 ) Omitted in the original: wa-qawm zaʻamū.