An Analysis and Evaluation of the Use of the Soul in the Qur'an

The word soul (Nafs) has various lexical meanings such as spirit, blood, body, eyes, corpse, near, the truth of something, the unseen, and so on. There are different views on the root of the word soul. According to the research conducted in this paper, the main root of the word soul is the essence and truth of every object, some other meanings of the soul are virtual and some can be interpreted in this sense. The word soul with its derivatives has been used many times in the Qur'an and explaining its place has a fundamental effect on the understanding of Qur'anic verses. In interpretive sources, the meanings of the soul are the essence of the object, the spirit, blood, injury or damage caused by an evil eye, greatness and forgiveness. It has been said that one of the uses of the soul in the Qur'an is the spirit, and they have relied on verses from the Qur'an to prove this claim. In this paper, while referring to the mentioned verses, the views of the interpreters have been criticized and examined in three areas. The first area, which is one of the important topics of this study, is the disagreement on the meaning of the soul over the spirit. According to this view, it seems that in the Qur'an, the word soul, with all its many uses about human beings, has not been used to mean the spirit in any of the cases, and soul has been used in the Qur'an to mean human nature with different conditions and attributes. The second area refers to the various meanings of the soul meaning essence, and the third area is the source of confusion of the concept of soul with the spirit.