elements in the universe, along with God, matter,
time, and space. God allowed the soul to fulfill its
desire to become embodied in matter but gave it
a degree of his own intelligence in order to help
maintain order in the universe and eventually find
its way back to its primordial state of existence.
al-Farabi (d. ca. 950) and ibn sina (d. 1037)
adopted the Neoplatonist concept of cosmic cre-
ation through a sequence of emanations beginning
with God, the uncreated Being and First Cause,
followed by intellects, and the material world—the
lowest level of creation. The human soul, embed-
ded in material existence, had different faculties,
some that linked it to the worlds of animals and
plants, and others, especially the faculty of reason,
that could incline it to engage in ethical actions
and eventually lift it to the eternal light world of
pure intellect. Only an elect few could ever hope
to attain this level of existence, however, and souls
unable to live virtuous lives were condemned to an
eternity of suffering.
Similar currents of thought were pursued
by Sufi thinkers and visionaries. Many held that
humans were a compound of soul, spirit, and body
and drew a particularly sharp distinction between
the lower soul (nafs), which chained the seeker to
the transient world of the baser passions, sin, and
blameworthy actions, and the heavenly spirit that
linked people to God. Sufis strove to discipline their
“selfish” impulses and purify themselves of negative
qualities and attachments in order to strengthen
their higher spirit (ruh) and experience abidance
in, or unity with, God, the Beloved. They also spoke
of the heart as a soul-mirror that was capable of
becoming a reflection of God through ascetic prac-
tices. Expressing patriarchal cultural bias, they often
portrayed the lower soul and the material world as a
woman. mUhyi al-din ibn al-arabi (d. 1240), how-
ever, identified the nafs with God’s essence (dhat).
A 13th-century masterwork of Sufi literature, Farid
al-Din Attar’s Mantiq al-tayr (Conference of the
birds), portrayed the process of overcoming worldly
attachments and experiencing perfection in God as
an epic journey of a flock of soul-birds across seven
valleys to the palace of their king, the simUrgh. Only
a select few reached their goal. Another mystic who
wrote in Persian verse, Jalal al-din rUmi (d. 1273),
spoke of the higher soul as a falcon striving to free
itself of the world and ascend to its heavenly home.
Likewise, he wrote that humans occupied a place
in creation between angels and animals, the for-
mer possessing pure intellect, the latter possessing
pure sensuality. By following the intellect, humans
could surpass the angels, and by succumbing to the
senses, they could fall lower than the animals. Life
was a struggle between these contending aspects of
human nature.
It was in philosophy and mysticism that Mus-
lim understandings of the nature of the soul and
spirit were most fully developed before the mod-
ern era. In modernity these understandings have
become more widely known than ever before,
thanks to the publication of printed editions and
translations of Islamic texts dealing with these
subjects. At the same time, however, contempo-
rary Muslim understandings have been affected
by modern scientific ideas and Enlightenment
rationalism. salaFism and Wahhabism have played
a major role in limiting speculation on such spiri-
tual matters to the Quran, hadith, and the consen-
sus of traditionally minded ulama.
See also adam and eve; allah; asceticism;
baqa and fana; ethics and morality; ismaili shiism;
martyrdom; sUFism; theology.Further reading: William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path
of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1983), 27–41, 173–193;
Marsha K. Hermansen, “Shah Wali Allah’s Theory of the
Subtle Spiritual Centers (Lataif): A Sufi Model of Person-
hood and Self-Transformation.” Journal of Near Eastern
Studies 47, no. 1 (1988): 1–25; Leor Halevi, Muhammad’s
Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Duncan
B. MacDonald, “The Development of the Idea of Spirit
in Islam.” Muslim World 32 (1932): 24–42, 153–168;
Michael E. Marmura, “Islamic Concepts of the Soul.” In
Death, Afterlife, and the Soul, edited by Lawrence E. Sul-
livan, 223–231 (New York: Macmillan Publishing Com-
pany, 1989); Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad, The
Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2002).soul and spirit 633 J