What is “rooh” (soul, spirit)?
When Jews asked Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) about “rooh”, the following revelation came upon him:
"They ask thee concerning the Rooh. Say The Rooh cometh by command of my
Lord: of Knowledge it is only a little that is communicated to you, (O men!)."
(Holy Qur'an 17:85)
This verse teaches us that the “rooh” is an 'Amr' i.e. the work of Allah or command of Allah. In other words, it is a created thing and does not self exist. The Holy Qur'an does not go beyond that. It does not tell us the nature of the rooh. However, just like our ignorance of the nature of electricity or magnetism does not prevent us from taking full advantage of these wonderful creations, we can advance ourselves at the grounds of rohaniat (spiritualism) by taking full advantage of the functions of the rooh.
“It was difficult for them to define or describe it, and their phrases and
expressions failed to define it. But Allaah, the Exalted, guided those who
responded to Him and His Messenger, and believed in what He told them. They knew
that "the rooh is an entity which is different in essence to this physical body;
it is a sublime entity of light which is lightweight, alive and moving. It
penetrates deeply into all parts of the body and flows in it like water in the
roses or oil in the olives or fire in the coals. So long as this physical body
is fit to interact with this subtle entity, this subtle entity remains
interconnected with this physical body and gives it the ability to feel, move
and want. When this physical body becomes unfit, because of sickness etc., it is
no longer able to be influenced by this subtle entity, then the rooh departs
from the body and goes to join the world of the souls.”
Ibn al-Qayyim (Ar-Rooh, quoted from and attributed to him by as-Safaareeni in
Lawaami' al-Anwaar al-Bahiyyah, 2/29.)
Now, let’s move on and see how Ibn Taymiyyah elaborated on rooh:
"rooh are no doubt created, but they do not cease to exist. Their death
occurs when they are seperated from the body and at the second Trumpet-blast the
souls will return to the bodies." Majmoo' al-Fataawa 4/279
If we compare the rooh with software, picture will become even clearer. Software are created, but cannot be touched or seen or even felt. For example a software called “firmware”1 which exists in all electronic devices, i.e. remote control, printer, phone, computer etc.
Let’s compare a computer with a human being. A computer has its rooh in the form of BIOS2. When the computer is first assembled the only thing that brings this machine to life is BIOS. The computer is then taught a religion by installing an operating system (Windows, Linux, Solaris etc) on it. Every operating system comes with its own sets of rules called “Kernal”3 e.g. shariat in Islam, which deals with BIOS directly and utilizes computers resources, e.g. VGA card, sound card, network card, hard disk etc. We install different utilities and tools to make computer more functional. If we erase the BIOS of a computer, no matter how robust the computer was and how many tools and utilities were installed on it, the computer will be considered dead even it’s plugged in, like a human on life support but with no rooh in it. A human can be on life support for years, but if his BIOS, i.e. “rooh” is not there in him, he is technically dead.
We also know that the word rooh has been used in Quran in different places but indeed suggesting only one meaning:
§
Rooh as Allah’s Revelation [16:2, 17:85, 40:15, 42:52]
§
Allah sent His rooh (i.e. His Angel) to Mary who appeared to
her in the form of a person [19:17]
§
Allah breathed in a chaste lady (Mary) of His rooh [21:91,
66:12]
§
Alrroohu al-ameen (who brought down the Revelation) [26:193]
§
Roohi alqudus, (who brought down the Revelation and
strengthened Jesus) [2:87, 2:253, 5:110, 16:102]
§
Allah strengthens the believers with Rooh from Him [58:22]
§
The Universal forces (Malaika) and the Divine Energy
(Ar-Rooh) ascend unto Him in a Day the measure of which is fifty thousand years
[70:4]
§
Ar-Rooh wa al-Malaika [78:38]
§
Al-Malaika wa ar-Rooh [97:4]
§
Jesus, as a rooh from Allah [4:171]
Allah breathed into man His rooh. Before the rooh was breathed into man, he has been addressed in third person (as ‘he’). After having breathed in the rooh, man has been addressed in second person (as ‘you’) [32:9].
Allah said to Malaika to bow down to Adam When He would breathe into him of His rooh [15:29, 38:72]. Now the question is what is this ‘rooh’ and that was breathed into man?
Let’s distinguish ‘Life’ from ‘rooh’. ‘Life’ is the energy which makes various parts of living beings work and function. As long as there is ‘life’ (i.e. energy), various parts or a part of a living being can work or function. As soon as a living being exhausts or loses all of its energy (i.e. life) [like the power of a battery], all of its parts cease to work or function and that living being is dead. So death is the absence of (manifestation of) energy in a being without it cannot work or function. As far as this ‘life’ or energy is concerned, all living beings have it as long as they are ‘alive’. All animals and plants have got life, as long as there is any manifestation of life (i.e. energy) in them. Rooh, as it is referred to in 15:29, 38:72 and 32:9, is different from of life. This (rooh) is something because of which Malaika bowed down to Adam. Except man, there is only One Being, Allah, to whom Malaika bow down [16:49]. This suggests that Rooh is the essence (of Divine Attributes), which, when breathed into man made him worthy of obeisance by Malaika. Again, I will repeat the previous analogy that ‘rooh’ is like a ‘software’; you can see or experience its manifestation but you cannot touch or feel it like the body (i.e. the hardware).
Now, what software can do, if it’s not installed on a device? nothing!. Can software be kept in some kind of repository? Yes! Is it created? Yes!
In the case of human being, it is a little bit different, our creator takes it back and keeps it in a repository called “Barzakh”4, until the day of judgment when he will give us new bodies but rooh will be the same as we have it right now. Of course, He is the creator of the whole universe and whatever is within it, and we have just started scratching the surface of His created science.
There is nothing else like rooh in this universe, hence, it is extremely hard or impossible for us to understand what rooh really is. Likewise, Allah says in Quran that He has hands, He has foot, He listens, He sees but it is impossible for us to understand how would Allah’s hand, foot, ears and eyes look like or how would they function. All we have is a limited brain, eyes, ears, hands and feet so we cannot even conceive Allah’s wisdom and sophistication who is unlimited, without any beginning or an end.
1Firmware:
The first set of machine instructions to run on the hardware
after the application of power. The firmware may consist of several stages that
bootstrap from one stage to the next. On an x86 machine, for example, the
firmware is the BIOS. It is the responsibility of the firmware to do initial
preparation of the hardware, and to load and execute the OS. This typically
includes probing the hardware to discover attached devices and setting up
configuration information that the OS will read during boot up.
2 BIOS (Basic Input/Output System): The software in a computer’s ROM which forms a hardware-independent interface between the CPU and its peripherals (for example, keyboard, disk drives, video display, I/O ports).
3Kernal:
The Kernel is the core of an Operating System that performs the most basic
system functions of hardware management, such as memory, disk and processing.
4Barzakh: In
Islamic eschatology, Barzakh (Arabic برزخ) is the
intermediate state in which the
soul of the deceased is transferred
across the boundaries of the mortal realm into a kind of "cold sleep" where the
soul will rest until the
Qiyamah(Judgement Day). The term appears in the
Qur'an Surah 23, Ayat 100
References:
http://quranicteachings.co.uk/rooh.htm
http://www.ezsoftech.com/Akram/nafs.asp
http://www.turntoislam.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51499
http://elinux.org/Boot-up_Time_Definition_Of_Terms
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/Page_TechDocs/MASMDoc/ProgrammersGuide/Glossary.htm
http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-95/what-is-kernal-in-os/152527.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barzakh