@Pastor:
When the Imam came he explained, not from the Koran but from someone who he called the eminent commentator on koran and hadith. I can't recall the name, it was a long arabic name. He said that Nafs is what drives the body, I asked,"do you mean the characteristics?" he inclined his head left and right in a comme ci comme ca way and said sort off. He then said Ruuh was the fuel of the body. Like a machine. You have a car, the body, the driver is the Nafs and the fuel inside is the Ruuh. I suggested Ruuh was breath and he responded that what did I mean by breath. I said breath. He said well people understand different things and have different connotations from breath so he needed to know what I meant. In other words that was left unanswered. Anyway he said that the engine can't run without fuel and so it is with the body without ruuh.
Not everything about Islam is in the AlQur'an, in full details. The explainer of this Noble Book, is the Prophet (AS). God sent the Book and sent the explainer with it. He was waiting already as a matured man for it. No one explains the AlQur'an unless their own fountain of explanation is the prophet, the source among mankind. And when you said to the Imam, nafs as the characteristics, a single word. He did not want to give you a yes, because it is more than characteristics, alone. And what you meant, anyhow by characteristics is only your own knowledge. He would give you a ton of information about nafs, if it was time permissible for both of you. But you could have said of Ruuh as breath or Spirit of life. He would have said yes, rather than when you said breath alone. And I will shock you here and now; when God said He breath His Spirit to Adam, it should not be considered as when a person breath into a person to ressucitate him. God is Holier than that. he has power of command. He says that he comands Adam to Be, so Adam was!
The reason that I even responded to this thread is when the people began to say that human is made of three elements; each separate. And in honesty, they did not say each is coequal. But they brought the three as separate making up the human a a means of fostering their agenda. It is then that I thought it is best that i let them know, by Allah's permission that Ruuh and Nafs are the same. And truly man is a mixture of its seen (physical form;body) and the Unseen (the unformed or without shape form; Nafs/Ruuh).
Another very interesting thing he said was that when the embryo is formed in the womb, after 4months God then sends the Ruuh into the body and that is when the foetus becomes a living soul. 4 months!, I thought, but I did not say anything.
Am sure you are familar with the term first trimester in pregnancy? 4 months is after that, whereby any one who performs an abortion of that feotus, the right to lifers always say that its like killing the person. Moreover its very complicated at this time than if the abortion is done much earlier, in the pregnancy. Disclaimer: I am not advocating any one performing abortion. I am just expalining the feotal condition, with before and when/after the Ruuh is brought into the womb.
To conclude he advised me that there are more central things to Isla.m than Nafs and Ruuh and told me about the 5 pillars. He said that the important thing was to be aware that God is One and to worship this One God. Nafs and Ruuh though important are incidental to the main point.
His advice is very sound. What is the benefit of all of the knowledge, if you reject the central theme that the whole knowledge is much much secondary to? Your superior knowledge can not mean anything in the day of Judgement, if the belief in One god is not sound and correct. Yet the least knowledgeable and weak person who belief in One god in a very sound and correct way, will receive mercy of god and be entered into His Garden.
I find that hard to accept because I cannot think of anything more important than understanding oneself and the motivations that drive one, especially if they are capable of driving you either to paradise or hell.
But if you have all the knowledge and do not fear the punishment of God which He will carry out by the fire of hell, and at the same time long and hope for His mercy and forgiveness by which He will show by ransoming one with a place in paradise, then will lack of understanding oneself and the motivations that drives one be an excuse with with God, if one is thrown in Fire and will it be also a reason to say one deserve the rewards in paradise if one ends up in it? Neither position can be attached to what you need to know first before Understanding God and the your obligations to Him. God says that He did not creat us except to worship Him. This is the purpose of life. It is the Core single purpose. The verse following this statement from God, is followed by His saying that all sustenance he has provided and it is up to him alone.
An unattractive personality does not translate to an 'unattractive body' in that sense because the attractiveness of the body is just a matter of taste. But whatever occurs in the anima will have a correspondence in the body, human aesthetic judgements like pretty or ugly are not the issue. Contained in the Anima is the entire process from birth to old age. Growing old is not a process divorced from the Anima. Growth and decay are expressions of Anima.
Am sure that you have heard that Prophet Joseph was very pretty. His physical beauty was what attracted the wife of his master to want to have sex with him. It was his pure Ruuh/Nafs that stopped him from going for it.
I pray that what we say to each other will benefit us. I pray that God forgives us our misdeeds and bad speech. I pray that God softens our hearts to receive guidance from Him. I pray that He has mercy on us and forgives us our sins.
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