What is the Ruh (spirit)?

  

Dajjal (Anti-Christ), the Qur’an and the Beginning of History

What is the Ruh?

 

When the Qur’an described the event of the creation of the human being, it located that event in the spiritual realm, before human beings were excluded from al-Jannah, i.e., heaven, and sent down to the material universe. Even so, it declared of that event that man was created from ‘humble clay’:

(Qur’an, al-An’am, 6:2)

He it is who has created man out of clay, and then has decreed a term for him—a term known only to Him Most High.  And yet people doubt. 

 

(Qur’an, al-Hijr, 15:28)

Allah Most High declared to the angels that He was about to create mortal man out of potter’s clay, out of dark mud molded into shape. 

 

The only way that mankind could have been created of ‘clay’ in a spiritual realm, prior to being transformed to material form in this world of space and time, is if that ‘clay’ was, itself, spiritual in nature and form, i.e., ‘clay’ which existed as spiritual substance, and which had not as yet been transformed to material form. Can there be such a thing as ‘spiritual’ clay?

 

When the Qur’an declared of Allah Most High that He is the Nur (light) of the Samawat (or the parallel universes, i. e., the seven worlds of space and time that exist beyond our materiel universe) and the earth (or the material universe), (alNur, 24:35) the implication is that all of creation is ultimately resolvable or reducible to Nur, i.e., light, and that all of creation must have emerged from Nur. Hence, at the level of spiritual substance all things must exist as Nur or ‘light’. It is that ‘light’ which is, perhaps, heated up to become ‘smokeless fire’, from which the Jinn were created, and then cooled down to be transformed to ‘material clay’, in which form human beings emerged in this material universe. (For a better explanation of this complex subject see Dr. Muhammad Fazlur Rahman Ansari’s two books entitled ‘Foundations of Faith’ and ‘Quranic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society’. World Federation of Islamic Missions, Karachi.) 

 

We may conclude from the above that all human beings existed in the form of spiritual clay before emerging in the form of material clay in the material universe. Hence all human beings existed in the spiritual realm with a spiritual body prior to emerging in this material universe with a material body. We may recall, in support of the above, that the Qur’an has declared that all human beings—including those who have not as yet been born in the material universe—were created at the dawn of creation (i.e., in the spiritual realm) and endowed with the means with which to ‘see’, to ‘hear’ and to ‘understand’:

 

(Qur’an, al-An’am, 7:172)

And mankind must know that when their Lord-God brought forth from the progeny of Adam, at the dawn of creation, their offspring, generation after generation until the last, and caused them to bear witness to their divinely-ordained status, He asked them: Am I not your Lord-God? They replied: Yea, indeed, we do bear witness thereto! Allah has reminded us about this event lest some people complain on the Day of Resurrection that they were unaware of this.

 

We may now also recall to advantage an incident which occurred in the Battle of Uhud when the companions saw the Prophet ṣallā -llāhu taʿālā ʿalayhī wa-sallam looking up in the sky while uttering the words ”Subhan Allah” (i.e., glory be to Allah)! A companion of his, Sayyiduna Hanzalah bin Abi `Amir Rahib, was killed in the fighting while he was still in a state of Janaba (the state of ritual impurity that exists after sexual intercourse, and which requires a Ghusl or bath to be taken in order for a state of ritual purity to be restored), and the Prophet observed the Angels in the sky giving Ghusl, i.e., a bath, to the body of that companion. 

 

While the material dead body with its distinctive shape and form, was lying on the battlefield, a spiritual body of identical shape and form as the material body, was observed in the sky, and that is why it could be recognized as the Companion who had just been killed. Both bodies were created from the same original clay; but the body in the sky appeared in clay in its spiritual form, while the body lying on the battlefield was comprised of clay in its material form. 

 

The supra-rational bond which connected the spiritual body with the material body was such that when some Companions who had heard the comment of the Prophet, went to examine Hanzala’s material body on the battle-field, they found drops of water on the body. (See Kitab al-Maghazi by alWaqidi; edited by Rizwi Faizar, translated to English by Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail and Abdul Kader Tayob, and published in Routledge Studies in Classical Islam, Routledge. Oxford. 2011. p. 134).

 

There is a similar incident which revealed to us that the spiritual body of Uwais al-Qarni lingered on in Yathrib (renamed Madina despite the fact that the Qur’an refers to it as Yathrib), even after his material body had left Yathrib on a sorrowful return to his native Yemen. He had travelled all the way from Yemen to Yathrib just to see the Prophet ṣallā -llāhu taʿālā ʿalayhī wa-sallam, but when he arrived in Yathrib he learnt to his sorrow that the Prophet had travelled out of the city. Since he could not stay in Yathrib long enough to await his return, he had to leave without seeing the Prophet. Shortly after Uwais’s departure the Prophet returned to Yathrib and experienced a heavenly fragrance. When he subsequently learnt about the visitor from Yemen, the Prophet identified that fragrance to belong to Uwais. The fragrance came from Uwais’s spiritual body, even though his material body had already departed.  

 

Visions also provide data which assist us to understand how the spiritual can be connected to the material. I once delivered a lecture many years ago on the subject of ‘Dreams and Visions in Islam’ at the Pertapis Hall in Singapore (prior to the Government of Singapore banning my entry into that country), and when the program was over, a young man approached me to confide in me the following vision which he had experienced.  He said that he was asleep in Yathrib, the city of the blessed Prophet ṣallā -llāhu taʿālā ʿalayhī wa-sallam when he saw the Prophet entering his room. There was a heavenly fragrance which enveloped the room while the Prophet remained in the room in which he was sleeping. The young man then confided in me that when he woke up from his sleep, that wonderful fragrance still lingered in the room for some time. 

 

We have provided sufficient evidence above to confirm both the creation of a spiritual human body prior to its emergence in material form in this world of space and time, and of the existence of a supra-rational connection between the spiritual human body and the material body.  

 

Having created man from spiritual clay, the Qur’an provided further information concerning the process through which he developed into a sentient and rational being. The Qur’an declared that Allah Most High then proceeded to fashion him and, astonishingly so, to breathe into him of His own Ruh or Divine spirit:

(Qur’an, al-Hijr, 15:28–29)

Allah Most High declared to the angels that He was about to create mortal man out of potter’s clay, out of dark mud molded into shape; Then, when Allah Most High formed him fully, He breathed into him of His Ruh, i.e., Divine Spirit .  .  . 

 

The Ruh, or Divine Spirit, is not a created thing. It is not a ‘thing’ that exists apart from Allah Most High, even though it belongs to Him and it proceeds from Him. While the Ruh can be breathed into a ‘thing’, but it is not a ‘thing’. Rather it is with Ruh that ‘life’ is activated, and when Ruh is withdrawn, death occurs. It is necessary for us to offer this explanation in order to prevent any pantheistic interpretation to be attributed to the breathing of the Divine Ruh into the human being. Allah Almighty says in the Qur’an that to Him belongs al-Khalq, i.e. the created world, and al-Amr, i.e., the world of command through which events occur:

(Qur’an, al-‘Araf, 7:54) 

 Verily, to Allah belongs all creation, i.e., the world of creation, and all command, i.e., a world of command which does not belong to the created world. Hallowed is Allah, the Lord-God of all the worlds! 

 

And He then went on to explain that the Ruh belongs to the world of Amr (and hence, does not belong to the world of Khalq):

(Qur’an, al-Isra’, 17:85)

When the Jews question you Oh Muhammad, about the Ruh. Say to them that the Ruh is from Allah’s Command; 

 

Unlike the Nafs, i.e., the human ‘self’, and the physical human body, which both belong to the world of Khalq or creation, the Ruh does not belong to that world of ‘creation’, rather it belongs to the world of Amr or command. 

 

The world of created things emerges through a divine command— ‘Be!’: 

(Qur’an, Yasin, 36:82)

Allah’s Command is such that when He wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, Be! —and it is. 

 

(Qur’an, al-Baqarah, 2:117)

He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth: and when He Wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, Be! —and it is. 

 

Similarly the Ruh manifests itself in a human being through the Divine command: The Ruh is from Allah’s Command (see 17:85 above). 

 

The human Ruh proceeds therefore from the Divine Amr through which creation takes place. Hence the human Ruh partakes in the Divine capacity to create, and this explains why the Qur’an recognizes Allah Most High as the best of those who create:

(Qur’an, al-Mu’minun, 23:14)

Hallowed, therefore, is Allah, the best of those who create!  

 

Since the Divine Ruh was breathed into man, the implication is that he now possessed creative capacity in a creative faculty of rational thought potentially enriched (because of the Ruh) by intuitive internal spiritual insight:

(Qur’an, al-Sajda, 32:9) 

And then Allah formed him in accordance with what he is meant to be, and breathed into him of His Divine spirit: and thus, O men, did He endow you with hearing, and sight, and hearts as well as minds through which you can acquire knowledge, yet how seldom are you grateful! 

 

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