Man, nafs, rūḥ, 'aql

Abstract

This essay takes for granted articles in the Encyclopaedia of Islam and papers by D. B. Macdonald and W. E. Calverley but a brief summary may be allowed. Nafs and rūh were used loosely to mean almost anything connected with life, but acquired new meanings as the years went by. Men differed about the nature and activity of all three constituents of man. ‘Soul’ is almost the equivalent of nafs in its precise sense though it may be hard at times to decide if ‘self’ is not more appropriate. It is easier to admit the existence of soul than to define it for it has neither genus nor proprium; any definition is imperfect and any description inadequate. It is part of the world soul as intellect is part of the world intellect, it is part of the spirit of God, torn off by the instrumentality of intellect, it is simple, incorruptible, and unchangeable. Many were the suggestions; it is a compound of constituents (rukn), union of elements('unsur), a self-moving accident, hot spirit, a nature in perpetual motion. It is a living substance(jawhar) but is not in the body in the same way as rūh is. Another idea is close to a Jewish view that all souls are one and are made different by the influences of the spheres and stars through or by which they pass on their journey to earth. The threefold division of soul into vegetal, animal, and rational was known and may have something to do with the religious division into the soul at rest in faith, the censorious soul, and the lusting soul. Instead of censorious the meaning ‘changeable’ is also given.8 A variant is that a believer has three souls while a hypocrite and an unbeliever have each one.