Imamiyyah on the Essence of Human Soul: from Baghdad Theological School to Allameh Tabatabai

The essence of human soul, soul and body and their relationship has been regarded as an issue with profound effects on the teaching of resurrection and human final fate. Some theologians have considered the reality of human soul as being an abstract substance belonging to body. Others believe that it is the same concrete and tangible human body which has been infused by soul. Still other scholars deem the reality of human soul to be the main stable and unchangeable part of human body. Sheikh Mufid accepts the first view and notes that the reality of human is a self-subsistent, pure, and immaterial substance. However, his pupil Seyyed Morteza admits the second approach – i.e. the unity of soul and body – and suggests that alive, responsible human is the whole outward manifestation of a person – i.e. the observable body – with soul – or in his words, the delicate air –current in its holes. In the contemporary era, Allameh Tabatabai has supported the first approach and has verified Sheikh Mufid’s viewpoint through his exquisite exegetic method.