Personal Identity and the Soul
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I'd like to add that from the Quran's perspective the nafs (translated as soul) is yourself or "the self" including your identity. There is no you and your soul, the soul is you, there is just yourself. We create our identities, identities dont exist on their own.
Your professor has the christian "soul" concept. A concept where the soul exists inside you as something separate.
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What about personality?
I'm not sure, but it seems to be something that can be inherited, and probably shaped aswell to certain degrees from experiences.
What do you consider to make up a human being, or make up the human experience?
A soul/spirit confined to the flesh robot which has a brain. The brain is a great tool and its RAM and software is the mind. The mind can contain faulty programming, such as irrelevant phobias etc. The mind can be changed albeit with great difficulty. We need to realise that we are not our mind. Our mind is only the thoughts we think, subconscious or not, but is not the real us. Personality seems to be located in the mind, which means thought patterns, or inclinations for thought patterns, can be inherited.
Peace
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I'd like to add that from the Quran's perspective the nafs (translated as soul) is yourself or "the self" including your identity. There is no you and your soul, the soul is you, there is just yourself. We create our identities, identities dont exist on their own.
Your professor has the christian "soul" concept. A concept where the soul exists inside you as something separate.
I agree. I do not see how one can separate the person into different compartements, calling something the soul and something else the body does not make them into to separate things.
Salaam
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Hey Bender,
I think I approach it a bit from the outside, so I don't need an exact definition of the word.
Instead I can give some examplesA person may call herself Orthodox Christian. She says "I am Orthodox Christian". This is an important part of her life.
Another person may "I am a laywer", or "I am a vegan and animals rights activist", or "I am a Muslim", or "I am Portuguese", or "I am an attractive male", or "I am dyslexic", or "I am gay", or "I am black", "I am intelligent", or "I am an artist", or "I am an historian", or "I am a Londoner", or whatever. It would be better if we let it be just "I am." and nothing added on to it.This is what I mean when people build their identity. They take quite worldy concepts, phenomena, groupings and make it part of their self image. This is what they ARE. They ARE these things.
Hi,
That is only the identity of our avatar not our real identity.
And this is partly a problem. The problem is that we drown in these identities and labels. We fail to see the deeper stuff, the things that unite us, and make us more than just flesh robots in a social interaction construct. We fail to see our true selves, being blinded by worldy labels, and how can we know our Rabb if we don't even know ourselves?
In front of God, it doesn't matter what skin color you have, or political affiliation, or hobby, of ethnicity, or caste, or salary, or education, or achievements, or....
I believe there is also a inside identity, the identity how we will be judged by Allah and that is the identity we have to work on I believe.
And that identity is not only "I am" but "I am a liar/deceiver/bragger/egoist/murder/thief/corrupter/haughty, etc"
or "I am a helper, truthful, patient, improver,etc"We have alienated ourselves from eachother. We appear to ourselves as separate individuals, and at the same time we do the same with God, treat it as a separate individual. Enter war and persecution, especially in the name of God.
RED I do not agree with this. According to the quran we are made from 1 soul/entity/whatever but we are now separate individuals but I totally agree that we have to unite and not seperate from each other, that is I believe in the sight of Allah the better way.
GREEN God does not punish Himself and God does not reward Himself.
(Our brain does this automatically, but we should not be slaves to our mind. Check this video out. Do watch it from start till end.)
Cheers
thx for the great video!!! I do not doubt her story, she looks like a wonderful woman who is honest and real.
But I doubt that what she saw really happened, maybe it was a vision.
I absolutely have zero knowledge about biology and how brain works. But somewhere when she was on the otherside she said she was so happy because everything worldly was erased because she had no memories she had to drag with her. But if her side of the brain which stores memories was out of function then how could she remember what happened to her?
Anyway vision or real it is for sure an inspiring story. -
Hi,
Does a dead body have a soul?
Have?
It would be necessary to define soul. The question as posed sets as given tht indeed soul nd body are two separate things. It is aasumed that a body "has" a soul. nd that both things are separate independete things.
My ow feeling is tht I do not know how that works and that other people also do ot know. They just figure and make nice and seemingly logical assumptions.
So for any meaningful discussion difinition of soul first.
I think every human being is a unit, not dissociable into somthig that some call soul, but they could call it whatever, and body, which we think it is very clear because it is materially noticeable.
I think, if we are talking about the nafs, that we have better forget philosofies an Christian figurations and stick strictly to the Qur'an. If we are talking about a soul which is not the "nafs" the quran talks about we should define it.
We do not have to forget that if we r talkig not about the nafs but bout the soul, and we are indeed wanting the Qur'an to throw light we should give what we may consider the equivalent of soul in the Qur'an.
Salaam
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Is the soul similar to the disposition?
Does the child in the pictures have the same goals or deals with situations the same. It's said in the Quran that we are giving ranks (titles) as judged by our deeds. We still kinda eat the same and sleep the same, maybe the soul is a personage of instinct?
What was your take on the lesson? -
I'd like to add that from the Quran's perspective the nafs (translated as soul) is yourself or "the self" including your identity. There is no you and your soul, the soul is you, there is just yourself. We create our identities, identities dont exist on their own.
Your professor has the christian "soul" concept. A concept where the soul exists inside you as something separate.
I agree with A.W.
91/ 7. And the soul and Him Who made it perfect,
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Then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it;
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He will indeed be successful who purifies it,
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And he will indeed fail who corrupts it.
Anyway, on judgment day, the actions of the person will determine what happens to the soul.
41/46 Whoever does good, it is for his own soul, and whoever does evil, it is against it; and your Lord is
not in the least unjust to the servants.In the end it does not matter what the professor professes it only matter what Allah says hmm
3/145 And a soul will not die but with the permission of Allah the term is fixed; and whoever desires the
reward of this world, I shall give him of it, and whoever desires the reward of the hereafter I shall give
him of it, and I will reward the grateful.peace
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Have?
It would be necessary to define soul. The question as posed sets as given tht indeed soul nd body are two separate things. It is aasumed that a body "has" a soul. nd that both things are separate independete things.
My ow feeling is tht I do not know how that works and that other people also do ot know. They just figure and make nice and seemingly logical assumptions.
So for any meaningful discussion difinition of soul first.
Hi,
RED Of course I only speculate what for me sounds most logical.
BLUE I do not have a definition but more what I understand under a soul.
That "thing" that gives a body life is for me the soul.
I have no idea how it "looks" like or what it is but for sure there is something that brings life to a body and at some moment that something leaves the body and then the body is considered dead.I think every human being is a unit, not dissociable into somthig that some call soul, but they could call it whatever, and body, which we think it is very clear because it is materially noticeable.
The unit between a soul and a body is called a human being or animal.
A body without a soul is not a human or animal but cadaver.
When someone dies and you stay in front of the dead body, we do not say he/she is a good person but he/she was a good person.
So for me a body is only like an avatar where a soul resides in.
The big question (at least for me) is what is a soul without a body?I think, if we are talking about the nafs, that we have better forget philosofies an Christian figurations and stick strictly to the Qur'an. If we are talking about a soul which is not the "nafs" the quran talks about we should define it.
We do not have to forget that if we r talkig not about the nafs but bout the soul, and we are indeed wanting the Qur'an to throw light we should give what we may consider the equivalent of soul in the Qur'an.Salaam
The problem with sticking to the quran is that no one here understands the quran. Everyone understands it in his way and thus it also comes down to philosophy.
Does the quran say according to you that the nafs is part of the body?
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Hi,
RED Of course I only speculate what for me sounds most logical.
BLUE I do not have a definition but more what I understand under a soul.
That "thing" that gives a body life is for me the soul.
I have no idea how it "looks" like or what it is but for sure there is something that brings life to a body and at some moment that something leaves the body and then the body is considered dead.The unit between a soul and a body is called a human being or animal.
A body without a soul is not a human or animal but cadaver.
When someone dies and you stay in front of the dead body, we do not say he/she is a good person but he/she was a good person.
So for me a body is only like an avatar where a soul resides in.
The big question (at least for me) is what is a soul without a body?The problem with sticking to the quran is that no one here understands the quran. Everyone understands it in his way and thus it also comes down to philosophy.
Does the quran say according to you that the nafs is part of the body?
Where does the Qur'an says that nafs is a part of something and the body is another part?
You are asking the same question as beefore and I answered it. Fromwhere in the qur'an it it inferred that th body is one thing and the nafs is another thing. The nafs is the person. How do you separate the body from somethign else that should be called a nafs or a soul ad that nobody can circumsribe nor define nor do anything with it.
On the other hand when the Qur'an speaks of how after being dead God will take exract us again... If it were merely the souls understood as somethig separate, wouldn't be they already there without need of being taken out?
My take, with all the uncertainty of lack of knowledge is that the nafs i not the soul understood as something eparate from hte body and istinct from it, but that it develops its being in different fields, physic, mental and spiritual, as a unit, that at some point, like snakes go into hibernation and and also shed their outer skins to get new ones, mankind develop and goes into hibernation and sheds a art of it, too tight for the enxt stage, and gets a new envelope but not one ade up but one developed accordign to the pattern set before, in its previous development "before death", which the Qur'an and all the knowing people tell us that it is not death, just like hibernation is not death for those who undergo it, it is a change of phase. and man is a unit not some clueless matching fo heterogeneous thingsThat is my take, for the moment, and as I repeat without pretending that it is any certainty, becaue neither I nor I think anybody here knows with certainty any of it, however I think if we uphold the Qur'an I would expect that any explation at least would make sense with it.
Salaam
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On the other hand when the Qur'an speaks of how after being dead God will take exract us again... If it were merely the souls understood as somethig separate, wouldn't be they already there without need of being taken out?
Just as we don't really understand what we are )body, soul, nafs ... ) I guess we also don't really know much about the events at and after death.
Also, what were we before we were born? The bodies didn't exist.
Peace
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Zulf,
We were/are a growing seed that last beyond the bodily on another plane of existence (often called dimension). The bodily clouds us from seeing our true selves.
Be well
Amenuel -
Also, what were we before we were born? The bodies didn't exist.
Very good question...
If there's a soul / nafs / atman then it must have existed even before it was born.
And also consider the fact that "time + space" itself is merely a 'creation'..By the way, I find it intriguing that "soul" in arabic (Nafs) and Sanskrit (Atman) has the same literal meanings "breath"..
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Just as we don't really understand what we are )body, soul, nafs ... ) I guess we also don't really know much about the events at and after death.
Also, what were we before we were born? The bodies didn't exist.
Peace
We don't know what happened before life, either. Although I like Amenuel's answer. I wonder how many believe that we've existed before this life.
I see atheists use that reasoning a lot to determine that there is no afterlife. As we didn't exist before we were born, they conclude, we cannot exist after we die. It seems many think all we are is just a body with a brain that thinks and forms connections with a memory, personality and thought pattern, and once we die, all that we are is gone.
That "thing" that gives a body life is for me the soul.
I have no idea how it "looks" like or what it is but for sure there is something that brings life to a body and at some moment that something leaves the body and then the body is considered dead.I wonder then, when does the soul "begin"? When does it start existing?
When we are conceived? When we are a viable fetus? When we are born? Before all that? But according to how I perceive that definition, a soul cannot exist before the body? (Correct me if you think I'm misunderstanding you, Bender.) So many questions. I don't think I have an answer to this right now. I'll have to think about it.
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Where does the Qur'an says that nafs is a part of something and the body is another part?
Salaam,
There are many verses were I find it unlikely that nafs is "body and soul" or a human being as we know it.
If the quran doesn't say that they are 2 entities then it does not mean they are 1 entity because there is per my understanding also not a verse where it states that they are 1 entity.I find this verse intriguing
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Especially the red part.btw I am also not sure nafs means soul.
You are asking the same question as beefore and I answered it.
hmmm, I thought this one was different.
Fromwhere in the qur'an it it inferred that th body is one thing and the nafs is another thing. The nafs is the person. How do you separate the body from somethign else that should be called a nafs or a soul ad that nobody can circumsribe nor define nor do anything with it.
I do not separate them but death separates them and life brings them together.
On the other hand when the Qur'an speaks of how after being dead God will take exract us again... If it were merely the souls understood as somethig separate, wouldn't be they already there without need of being taken out?
I do not really understand your question, can you give me the verse you are referring to.
My take, with all the uncertainty of lack of knowledge is that the nafs i not the soul understood as something eparate from hte body and istinct from it, but that it develops its being in different fields, physic, mental and spiritual, as a unit, that at some point, like snakes go into hibernation and and also shed their outer skins to get new ones, mankind develop and goes into hibernation and sheds a art of it, too tight for the enxt stage, and gets a new envelope but not one ade up but one developed accordign to the pattern set before, in its previous development "before death", which the Qur'an and all the knowing people tell us that it is not death, just like hibernation is not death for those who undergo it, it is a change of phase. and man is a unit not some clueless matching fo heterogeneous thingsThat is my take, for the moment, and as I repeat without pretending that it is any certainty, becaue neither I nor I think anybody here knows with certainty any of it, however I think if we uphold the Qur'an I would expect that any explation at least would make sense with it.
Salaam
BLUE In my view both body and soul evolve. The evolution of the body are the physical aspects and can be seen/measured by others. The evolution of the nafs is spiritual and can not be seen/measured by others except by Allah.
The other main difference is that the body is recyclable, after your death you the earth will swallow you and make from your body new products. After 1000 years there will be an apple with a little bit of your body and there will be a human being with a little bit of your body etc. The ultimate reincarnation. But the soul not. The soul belongs only to you (belongs to Allah) other will not have a share in your soul.
There are more things but I hope you will at least understand my point of view a little bit better now why I think they are 2 different things.RED yes I totally agree.
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Also, what were we before we were born? The bodies didn't exist.
Peace
According to the quran and my understanding of it, is that we were one soul, a unity, "waiting" for bodies to reside in.
This means in my view that every soul is in principle equal, because we are extracted from 1 soul and not from 2 different souls, that is because Allah is Just.
And because Allah is merciful He inspired the soul the direction to follow (huda Allah), this means He inspired the soul what is good and what is bad and that is what we will be judged of when we return to Him.Well of course this is how I see it at the moment, any correction or better understandings or different understandings or ideas or whatever are more then welcome.
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We don't know what happened before life, either. Although I like Amenuel's answer. I wonder how many believe that we've existed before this life.
What is existence? Our body for sure existed as that is just earth. As for our soul if it existed then we can never know this for sure as we do not have such a memory and we do not even know what a soul is, it will always be a believe.
I see atheists use that reasoning a lot to determine that there is no afterlife. As we didn't exist before we were born, they conclude, we cannot exist after we die. It seems many think all we are is just a body with a brain that thinks and forms connections with a memory, personality and thought pattern, and once we die, all that we are is gone.
atheists are dumb
The fact that they are alive is already more than enough prove that there is a "life" after death.
Atheists see every day, every second a new soul entering this world and one of those souls is their own and yet they think Allah is not capable. The question for atheist is how many signs do they want and what kind of signs do they want before they believe. In fact every sign they wish for, Allah already made it or made something similar or made something better but they do not reflect.I wonder then, when does the soul "begin"? When does it start existing?
When we are conceived? When we are a viable fetus? When we are born? Before all that? But according to how I perceive that definition, a soul cannot exist before the body? (Correct me if you think I'm misunderstanding you, Bender.) So many questions. I don't think I have an answer to this right now. I'll have to think about it.
RED when its existing is easy.
When it exactly starts (in human form) is imo not predictable, only Allah knows. No one cares about sperm but a killing a fetus is already very questionable, there must be a very good reason to do this. -
We don't know what happened before life, either. Although I like Amenuel's answer. I wonder how many believe that we've existed before this life.
Not all of us, this kid seems to remember what happened before his life..
Airplane Boy
https//youtu.be/Uk7biSOzr1kBut again... experiencing is believing..
Have anyone here tried "Past Life Regression" session?
I haven't but very interested to try..I see atheists use that reasoning a lot to determine that there is no afterlife. As we didn't exist before we were born, they conclude, we cannot exist after we die. It seems many think all we are is just a body with a brain that thinks and forms connections with a memory, personality and thought pattern, and once we die, all that we are is gone.
I don't see how this issue relate to Atheism..
There are many of those who don't believe in the existence of personal God who really believe in the existence of before-life and after-life..
Hundred of Millions of them..However I do agree that after Jafar (me) died.. Jafar no longer exist..
All the identities (social and personal identity such as name) attached to the persona Jafar no longer exist.. what's left is memory of his presence among the living.. Which also after some time will be forgotten..The same case goes with "Bender", "Comrox", "Man Of Faith" and billions of other identities..
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Old lexicons also say "distance" and "width". It is because Nafs is the growing "seed" of each person. It stays through life cycles. The state of our Nafs determines our growth at the time. Like I wrote, Nafs means morphologically "integrity forth (of) spirit".
That is a Semitic language feature.
If you speak of breath it is metaphorically related to how big your soul's breath is, i.e. how strong it has become.
Usually when the word is understood it is taken as "person" which is the everyday day usage linguistically, e.g. one's integrity and present being.
Be well
Amenuel -
We live in this earthly body, and after the body dies we depart. This Body has influence on the soul
and vice versa. It is the actor or the means of realizing our earthly physical and psychological needs
real or imagined and the are two intertwined and connected.The soul's journey begins in the womb then childhood then moves to young adulthood then adulthood
then to maturity then old age then death and finally to the hereafter. Some are cut short by Allah's leave
(may Allah guide us to paradise). IMHO."They ask you concerning the Ruh. Say 'It is one of the things, the knowledge of which is only
with my Lord. And of knowledge, you have been given very little."peace