Spirit and the Soul
In historical studies of Islamic sciences, we sometimes come across some issues common between theology, the Qur'an, and hadith which have led to several debates and conflicts among people of intellect and tradition. One of them is the issue of the spirit and soul.
One of the books that has managed to examine this issue from various Qur'anic, hadithi, theological, philosophical, and gnostic angels and analyze the different ideas in this regard is the book Spirit and Soul by Professor Seyyed Mohammed Khamenei.
The writer believes that in the view of the Qur'an, the spirit and soul are two separate realities. The spirit is of a divine type and essence and is the cause of innovation and creation in the world. However, unlike the philosophical view, which considers the soul independent of the body, the Qur'an maintains that it generally applies to the collection of the body and life. This work consists of four chapters and two articles, as follows:
Chapter 1: The Story of the Soul and Spirit in Early Islam
Chapter 2: The Spirit and Soul in the Qur'an and Hadith
Chapter 3: The Spirit in Philosophy, Theology, Gnosis, and the Transcendent Philosophy
Chapter 4: The Spirit and Soul in Shaykh al-Mufid's Ideas
1. The Platonic Soul in Mulla Sadra's Philosophy
2. The Soul in Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy
Regarding the soul and spirit in Islamic philosophy, the writer says that they are considered the same reality in Islamic philosophies. Then he continues by referring to Mulla Sadra's theory concerning this problem and says that Mulla Sadra, who, considering the soul's being corporeally created, intended to bring philosophy close to religious teachings, maintained that the soul and spirit are two independent realities, and that the spirit precedes the soul. At the end of his life, when he was writing his Hikmat al-'arshiyyah his view of this issue had come very close to the Qur'anic one.
The second edition of this book has been published by the Sadra Islamic Philosophy Institute in 225 pages.