The Soul - Body Relation in İslamic Philosophy

The soul-body relationship is an issue that has been discussed since Ancient philosophers. Plato, Aristotle, and Neo - Platonic philosophers have left deep marks on the soul-body thoughts of the Islamic philosophers. While Islamic philosophers build their soul theories on the ideas of Antiquity and the New - Platonic philosophers, they introduced a new understanding of soul - body, based on the main sources of Islam. The soul theory, one of the most important issues of metaphysics, has been the subject of the independent works of Al-Kindî, Al-Fârâbîus, Avicenna and Averroes, one of the Islamic philosophers. Islamic philosophers tried to explain this subject by evaluating the concepts of intellect, soul, nafs and body. When it comes to the human body, the concept they generally prefer to use is the concept of nafs. In the philosophy of Islam, the relationship between the soul and body is shaped by the unification of the soul with the body, its effect on the body, soul's independence, the state of the body, the separation of the soul after the body's death, and is shaped by whether the soul preserves its individuality. The arguments of Islamic philosophers on the relationship between soul and body are generally similar. The fact that they were influenced by Ancient philosophers cannot be ignored. However, issues such as the life of the Hereafter, immortality of the soul, heaven and hell, which are the basic subjects of belief in Islam, are also related to this issue. For this reason, they gave information about these sensitive issues in their thoughts about the relationship between soul and body. In this article, we tried to enlighten the issue of spirit-body relationship in Islamic philosophy by revealing the thoughts of Al-Kindî, Al-Fârâbius, Avicenna, and Averroes on the spirit-body relationship.

Keywords

İslamic Philosophy, Soul, Body, İslâmic Philosophers, İntellect