Comparison of the concept of soul in Quran and psyche in psychology

In psychological sources with an Islamic approach, the word soul (nafs) is often considered equivalent to the concept of psyche, and attempt to prepare a history for religious psychology. This article seeks to show the degree of conceptual similarity of these two words and whether these two can be equated. The method of this research is text analysis. In this study, the original interpretive and vocabulary sources have been analyzed and by comparing it with the psyche and defining it in psychological reference books, the relationship between the soul and the psyche has been analyzed. The results of this study show that the word soul in the Holy Qur'an has been used to mean the identity of man and can include various aspects of his existence. the main point of difference between soul and psyche is the trans-physical dimension of soul. The psyche has a materialistic meaning in psychology in different schools. But in the soul that the Qur'an introduces, the metamaterial and trans-physical dimension is very prominent. In short, the psyche is a subset of the soul. Because the soul represents all the existence of human; But the psyche refers to limited dimensions of human existence. With this description, the existing conceptual correspondence, which considers the soul as equivalent to the psyche, often leads to a reduction of the concept of the soul and its results are not sufficiently included.