SOUL IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
The discussion
of the human soul, its existence, nature, ultimate objective and eternity, occupies a
highly important position in Islamic philosophy and forms its main focus. For the most
part Muslim philosophers agreed, as did their Greek predecessors, that the soul consists
of non-rational and rational parts. The non-rational part they divided into the plant and
animal souls, the rational part into the practical and the theoretical intellects. All
believed that the non-rational part is linked essentially to the body, but some considered
the rational part as separate from the body by nature and others that all the parts of the
soul are by nature material. The philosophers agreed that, while the soul is in the body,
its non-rational part is to manage the body, its practical intellect is to manage worldly
affairs, including those of the body, and its theoretical intellect is to know the eternal
aspects of the universe. They thought that the ultimate end or happiness of the soul
depends on its ability to separate itself from the demands of the body and to focus on
grasping the eternal aspects of the universe. All believed that the non-rational soul
comes into being and unavoidably perishes. Some, like al-Farabi, believed that the
rational soul may or may not survive eternally; others, like Ibn Sina, believed that it
has no beginning and no end; still others, such as Ibn Rushd, believed that the soul with
all its individual parts comes into existence and is eventually destroyed.
4 The ultimate objective of the soul
References end further reading
All Muslim
philosophers concerned themselves with the subject of the soul. The most detailed and most
important works on this subject are those of al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd.
Muslim philosophers recognized that the first issue, that confronts the human mind with
regard to the soul is its existence. That is why, at the very beginning of his inquiry
about the soul in al-Shifa (Healing),
Ibn Sina (§6) asserts that we infer the existence of the
soul from the fact that we observe bodies that perform certain acts with some degree of
will. These acts are exemplified in taking nourishment, growing, reproducing, moving and
perceiving. Since these acts do not belong to the nature of bodies, for this nature is
devoid of will, they must belong to a principle they have other than bodies. This
principle is what is called soul.
This argument is
intended to prove the existence of the animal soul, which includes the plant soul. The
soul is the source of acts performed by the will, not inasmuch as it is a
substance (an independent entity), but inasmuch as it is the principle of such
acts. The rational soul, on the other hand, need not look outside itself to infer
its existence. It is aware of its existence with immediacy, that is, without any
instruments. Ibn Sinas example of the suspended man is intended to prove that the
rational soul is aware of itself apart from any body. His argument boils down to the view
that, even if the adult rational soul is not aware of anything material, not even its
body, it remains aware of its own existence.
While Islam made
it incumbent on Muslim philosophers to occupy themselves extensively with the study of
the soul and to make certain statements that in some cases appear consistent with Islamic
beliefs, Greek philosophy had the upper hand in forming the real convictions of Muslim
philosophers with regard to the nature of the soul. Unless otherwise specified, reference
to :he soul here is limited to the terrestrial soul to the exclusion of the celestial one,
since Muslim philosophers concerned themselves primarily with the former. It must be
pointed out at the outset that soul. (nafs)
was used in more than one sense in Islamic philosophy; the term was used to refer to
the plant or vegetative part of a living being, the animal or sensitive part, the rational
part and finally the totality of all three parts. The first two are the non-rational soul
and the totality is the human soul. To add to the confusion, human soul is
used only in the sense of this fourth type of soul. The plant, animal and; rational souls
are also called powers or parts of the; soul. Only from the context can one understand,
whether a Muslim philosopher was using soul in the broad sense to mean the
human soul (the totality of the parts of the soul), or in the narrow sense to mean a
specific part of the human soul.
Inasmuch as it has
a certain relation to a body, the soul is a form for that body, that is, the perfection of
that body. It is a form because a natural body is composed of matter and form, which in
the case of animals are body and soul. Since it has been shown that the soul is the source
of will and therefore is not matter, it remains a form. Perfection is of two types,
primary and secondary. A primary perfection is what makes a thing actually a species, as
shape does for the sword, or a genus as sensation and-movement do for animals. A secondary
perfection is an act necessitated by the nature of the species or genus, such as cutting
for the sword and touching for animal. The soul is a primary perfection of a natural body
capable of performing the secondary perfections necessitated by this primary perfection.
Together with its body, the soul constitutes a material substance. This substance can be
the subject of plant, animal or human life.
The soul is a
perfection inasmuch as it makes a natural body into a plant, an animal or a rational
being. However, to define the soul as a perfection does not give us a clue as to what the
soul is in itself, but only inasmuch as it has a relation to the body. The body is,
therefore, an essential element in the definition of the soul. Without relating to a body,
the thing we call soul is not a soul and does not require the body as an
essential part of its definition. Note, however, that in spite of this assertion, perhaps
for the lack of any better term, Muslim philosophers use soul also to refer to
the rational soul after it separates from the body and reaches a complete state of purity
from matter.
In its first or
lowest stages of relating to the body, the soul is the plant soul, which is a primary
perfection for an organic natural body inasmuch as this body can take nourishment, grow
and reproduce. The plant soul is the power human beings and other animals share with
plants. If the body with a soul is an animal, the soul develops into the animal soul,
which is a primary perfection for an organic natural body inasmuch as this body has
sensation and movement through will. While this soul includes the plant soul, it has also
a sensitive power and a locomotive one. The sensitive power has both external and internal
senses. The external senses are, in priority of existence, touch, taste, smell, hearing
and sight. The first three are said to be necessary for survival and the last two for well
being. In Talkhis kitab an-nafs (Middle
Commentary on Aristotles On the Soul), IBN RUSHD
(§3)
asserts that the five external senses may be in potentiality, as in infancy and sleep, or
in actuality, as in daily seeing or hearing. He also argues that there cannot be any
external sense other than these five because there would be no function for it, since
there is no external sensation other than the objects of the five senses mentioned above.
Most Muslim philosophers mention three types of internal senses: common sense,
imagination and memory. IBN SINA (§3) enumerates five
internal senses: common sense, representational power, imagination, estimative power and
memory. On the whole, the philosophers agree on the function of the common sense,
imagination and memory; the function that Ibn Sina limits to the representational and
estimative powers, other Muslim philosophers allocate to the imagination.
The common sense
is an internal power in which all the objects of the external senses are collected.
Contrary to the external senses, which can grasp only one type of sensation, as sight
grasps light and hearing grasps sound, the common sense can grasp all external sensations,
such as that honey is of such and such a colour, texture and smell. The representational
power preserves the sensations of the common sense even after sensible things disappear.
The imagination selects at will to combine some of the objects of the representational
power with each other and to separate the rest. It makes its judgment about external
things, but in the absence of these things. That is why it functions best when the
external senses, which represent external things, are not at work, as in sleep. Ibn Rushd
points out that animals such as worms and flies that do not act except in the presence of
sensible things are devoid of imagination. The imagination is called such inasmuch as it
is an animal instrument; it is called cognitive inasmuch as it is a rational instrument.
The estimative power grasps non-sensible notions of sensible things, such as the
sheeps notion that the wolf is to be avoided. This notion is about a sensible thing
but is not grasped through the external senses, as is the colour or shape of a wolf.
Memory preserves the notions of the estimative power. The imagination acts on the objects
of memory in the same way it acts on those of the representational powers. Like the
objects of the external senses, those of the internal senses are particular and material.
The difference is that they can be experienced in the absence of external things and are
to some degree abstracted from matter.
The locomotive
power branches into that which causes movement and that which actually moves. The former,
the desiderative power, subdivides into the appetitive and the irascible. The appetitive
causes movement toward what is imagined to be necessary or beneficial in the pursuit of
pleasure. The irascible causes avoidance of what is imagined to be harmful or an
impediment in the pursuit of dominance. The power that actually moves uses the nerves to
relax the muscles at the demands of the appetitive power or tighten them at the demands of
the irascible one.
The rational
soul, which is defined as a primary perfection for an organic natural body inasmuch as
this body can act by rational choice and grasp the universals, is divided into the
practical and the theoretical intellects. The practical intellect seeks knowledge in order
to act in accordance with the good in its individual body, its family and its state. It
must, therefore, know the principles for properly managing the body, the family and the
state, that is, ethics, home management and politics. The practical intellect is the
rational soul turning its face downward. The function of the theoretical intellect is to
know just for the sake of having the universals (the realities or natures of things). Some
of these natures, such as God and the intellect, cannot attach to movement; knowledge of
them is metaphysics. Other natures, such as unity, can attach to movement but do not;
knowledge of them is mathematics. Still other natures, such as humanity and squareness,
can attach to movement either in reality and thought, such as humanity, or in reality but
not in thought, such as squareness. Knowledge of these is physics.
The theoretical
intellect is the rational soul with its face upward. The practical intellect looks up to
the theoretical one and moves its body accordingly. In this, the practical intellect is
similar to :the celestial soul that looks up to the intellect of its sphere and moves its
sphere accordingly. Thus, like .the celestial soul, the practical intellect is the link
between intellect as such and matter.
On the whole,
Muslim philosophers followed al-Kindis division of the theoretical intellect into
the material intellect (al-aql al-hayulant), the
habitual intellect (al-agl bil-malaka), the
actual intellect (al-aql bi!-fib and
the acquired intellect (al-aql al-mustafad).
The material intellect is a blank slate with the potentiality for grasping the
intelligible forms or universals. Ibn Sina points out that it is referred to as material,
not because it is actually material but because it resembles matter in accepting the form.
The habitual intellect grasps the universals, as one acquires the skill to write; in other
words, this intellect has the ability to use the universals but does not always do so. The
actual intellect grasps the universals in actuality and is always ready to use them. While
Muslim philosophers differed slightly with regard to their accounts of the acquired
intellect, their general view is that it is the highest human state, the point of contact
with the divine, the agent intellect (the intelligence of the moon, the lowest celestial
intellect), which makes it possible for the theoretical intellect to acquire the
universals in the purest form (see EPISTEMOLOGY IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY §4).
4 The ultimate objective of the
soul
AL-FARABI
asserts that even though the soul is of different parts, it is a unity with all its parts
working for one final end, happiness. While the plant soul, for example, serves a specific
function, it also serves the powers that are higher than it in rank, the animal powers.
Without nourishment, growth and reproduction, the animal powers cannot perform their
necessary functions. Similarly, while the function of the animal powers is to have
sensation and movement, by performing this function they also promote the functions of the
powers above them, the rational ones. The operations of the animal powers, especially
those of the senses, are particularly important for the attainment of the final end. The
external senses strip the forms from material objects and convey them to the internal
senses. The more they are transferred internally, the less mixed with matter do they
become. Since the innermost sense they reach is the imagination, they are there in their
purest material existence (see IMAGINATION).
The role of the
objects of the imagination is not always clearly defined in Islamic philosophy.
Occasionally it is said by somebody like Ibn Sina to be one of preparation for the
theoretical intellect to receive the universals from the agent intellect. At other times
Ibn Sina, like other Aristotelians such as Ibn
Rushd, takes these objects to be the
ingredients out of which the universals are made after the last process of purification
(see EPISTEMOLOGY IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY). It seems, however, that in either case the light
of the agent intellect is needed to complete the process. In the former case, this light
gives the intelligible forms to the theoretical intellect when this intellect is prepared.
In the latter case, it sheds itself on the objects of the imagination, which are then
reflected on the theoretical intellect without their matter. Since the theoretical
intellect is in its first stages in potentiality, it cannot act on the objects of the
imagination directly; hence the need for the agent intellect, which is pure actuality. The
role of the practical intellect in all this is to put order into the body. This sets free
the theoretical intellect from preoccupation with the body and helps the powers whose
function is necessary for theoretical knowledge to function unhampered.
Muslim
philosophers adhered to the view that the acquired intellect is one with its objects, for
they thought the knower and the known are one, as did their Greek predecessors. This means
that the highest human state is one in which unity with the universals or the eternal
aspects of the universe is reached. This state is described as happiness because in it
eternity, an aspect of the objects of the acquired intellect, is attained.
When Muslim
philosophers assert that the soul comes into existence simultaneously with the coming into
existence of the body, some, such as Ibn Sina (§6), who
believe that the rational soul is in essence nonmaterial, are thinking only of the
non-rational soul. Others, such as Ibn Rushd (§3), who
believe that the rational soul is originally not separate from matter, contend that the
whole human soul comes into existence. The latter believe that since the rational soul
grasps the universals from particular sensibles, and since such sensibles are material and
have a temporal beginning, this soul must also be material and must have a temporal
beginning. Those who attribute non-materiality to the essence of the rational soul, such
as AL-KINDI and Ibn Sina, assert that this soul pre-exists the body. While all of them
agree that the non-rational soul is destroyed after the destruction of the body, they
differ with regard to the end of the rational soul.
Al-Kindi and
Ibn Sina, for example, strongly adhere to the view that all rational souls are indestructible
because by nature they are simple. AL-FARABI reminds us that the reason for eternal
existence is the rational souls knowledge of the eternal aspects of the universe.
From this he draws the conclusion, as did ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS before him, that only
those rational souls that have this knowledge at their separation from the body are
indestructible. Other rational souls are eventually destroyed. Ibn Sina finds in the
grasping of the universals the grounds for happiness, not the eternity of the soul.
Ibn
Rushd seems to hold that only the acquired intellect can be indestructible; but the
acquired intellect, he argues (as does his teacher IBN BAJJA), is divine and numerically
one in all. Ibn Rushd was attacked for this view because it denies eternal existence of
individual souls (see AVERROISM; SOUL, NATURE AND IMMORTALITY OF THE).
References end further reading
al-Farabi
(c.870-950) al-Madina al fadila (The Virtuous
City), trans. R. Walter, Al-Farabi on the Perfect
State. Abu Nasr al-Farabis Mabadi AraAh al-Madina al-Fadila, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985. (English and Arabic of the most comprehensive and best known
philosophical work of al-Farabi.)
Ibn Rushd (1180)
Tahafut
al-tahafut (The Incoherence of the
Incoherence), trans. S. Van Den Bergh, London: Luzac, 1954. (A response to a number of
issues raised by al-Ghazali against philosophers. One of the three most important of these
issues is that of the soul and its fate.)
- (c.1174) Talkhis kitab an-nafs (Middle Commentary on
Aristotles On the Soul), ed. A.F.
al-Ahwani, Cairo: Maktabat an-Nahda, 1950. (Includes also four other essays: Ibn
Bajas Risalat al-ittisal (Essay on
Conjunction), Ishaq Ibn Hunayns Kitab ft an-nafs (Book on the Soul), Ibn Rushds Risalat al-ittisal (Essay on Conjunction) and
al-Kindis Risalat al-aql (Essay on
Intellect).)
Ibn Sina
(980-1037) an-Nafs (The Soul), ed. F. Rahman, Avicennas de Anima, London: Oxford University
Press, 1959. (The most important and detailed philosophical treatise on the soul in
Islamic philosophy, the sixth part of the Physics of
al-Shifa. An Arabic edition of the text is
included.)
(980-1037) Ahwal an-nafs (The States of the Soul), ed. A.F.
al-Ahwani, Cairo: Dar Ihya al-Kutub al-Arabiyya, 1952. (Includes Risala fi an-nafs wa-baqaha wa-maadiha (Essay
on the Soul, Its Permanence and Its Second Life), Mabhath
an al-qiwa an-nafsaniyya (Inquiry about Psychic Powers), Risala fi marifat
an-nafs an-natiga (Essay on Knowing the Rational Soul) and Risala fi al-kalam
ala an-nafs an-natiqa (Essay on an Inquiry Concerning the Rational Soul).)
- (980-1037)
an-Najat (Deliverance), ed.
F. Rahman, Avicennas Psychology, London:
Oxford University Press, 1952. (The psychology
of an-Najat is an abridgement by Ibn Sina of his
encyclopedic work al-Shifa (Healing).)
- (980-1037)
Rasad ash-shaykh ar-rais f asrar al-hikma al-mashriqiyya (Essays of the Master
of the Head on the Secrets of Oriental Wisdom), ed. M. Mehren, Traites mystiques
dAvicenna, Leiden: Brill, 1889-99. (Ibn
Sinas oriental philosophy.)
Inati, S.C. (1996) A Study of Ibn Sinas Mysticism, London:
Kegan Paul International. (Includes a detailed analysis of Ibn Sinas notion of the
soul and a translation of the fourth part of al-Isharat
wa1-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions).)
al-Kindi (before
873) Rasail al-Kindi al falsafiyya (Al-Kindis
Philosophical Treatises), ed. M. Abu Rida, Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1953. (Includes al-Kindis most relevant works
on the subject of the soul, al-Qawl fi an-nafs (Discourse on the Soul), Fi an-nafs (On the Soul) and Fi mahiyyat
an-nawm war-ruya (On the Essence of Sleep and Internal Vision).)
SHAMS C. INATI