Analyzing the Meaning of Return in the Resurrection based on Interpreting the Tran-substantial Motion of the Soul as Self-Revelation

The use of words such as "awd'' and "ma'ad'' (meaning return) about the afterlife of man indicates that the concept of "return" is fundamental in this Quranic and Islamic concept. Considering the same, Muslim theologians and thinkers have discussed the topics of eschatology as topics related to "ma'ad". The question here is: if the final point of the human journey is not exactly the same as its starting point, then what reasonable meaning can the interpretation of return have? And if the end of man's journey is exactly the same as its beginning, and the returned human is exactly the same as the original one, then what can be the purpose and benefit of this separation from the beginning and proceeding to the path of existence? The present research tries to show with the analytical-descriptive method and using library sources that the concept of return in human existential journey can enjoy a plausible explanation based on one of Mulla Sadra's anthropological foundations, namely the theory of the self-revelation of the human soul. According to this perspective, the trans-substantial changes of the soul do not mean the departure from the potentiality to actuality and the acquisition of perfections alien to the soul which are gradually added to the soul from the outside; rather, the soul, as a result of its trans-substantial motions, constantly reveals what it has in its inner reality and makes differentiated what is already undifferentiated in its inner reality. Accordingly, the returned soul is the same as the soul in the starting point in terms of the very truth of its existence, and is different from it in terms of having its existential perfections manifested and differentiated; this is the purpose of the creation of the human in this world.