Ask A Question About Islam And Muslims

45 Questions

Jaami' al-Sa'adaat by Shaikh al-Naraaqi.

Salamoanlaykum

May Allah bless you and your family. 

Scholars of different disciplines use these terms in different ways. In a loose sense, they refer to the same reality – the source of life which is inanimate and eternal. The exact sense will depend on in which context it the term is used.

Muhaqqiq Narāqī in his famous book of ethics, Jamiʿ al-Saʿādāt states, “The soul (nafs) is that heavenly essence which employs the body and uses its various organs to attain its goals and purposes. The soul has also other names as spirit (ruh), intelligence (`aql), and heart (qalb) although these terms have other usages as well.”

Shahīd Muṭahharī indicates that these terms are used distinctly in ʿIrfān based on the qualities of the soul: “The 'urafa' have different words for the human soul; sometimes they call it nafs (self), sometimes qalb (heart), sometimes ruh (spirit) and sometimes sirr (mystery). When the human soul is dominated and ruled by desires and passions they call it nafs. When it reaches the stage of bearing Divine knowledge, it is called qalb. When the light of Divine love dawns within it, they call it ruh.”

In the Qurʾān the terms Qalb and Nafs are used much more often than the term Rūḥ; Rūḥ is also sometimes used to refer to the Holy Spirit or to ʿIsā (ʿa)

as salam alaikum

"They ask you about the Ruh. Say:- The Ruh is from the command of my Lord-. Little is the knowledge that you have been given" (17:85).

The term is often used in Arabic language to indicate what makes bodies alive and therefore we may talk about specific mineral's ruh, vegetal's ruh, animal ruh, human's ruh, etc..

From the Qur'an we understand it is a creation that Allah attributes directly to Himself. For example it is said: "I am to create a man from clay. And when I have fashioned him and I have blown in him My spirit, then fall in prostration" (38:71-72). Here, the creation of the physical man (bashar) has been linked to clay but it was only after the blowing of the Ruh from the Almighty that the angels fell into prostration: "So the angels prostrated one and all" (38:73).

Some exegetes have also linked the Ruh to angelic forces or angels themselves.

With prayers for your success.

A person is allowed to change their name even if there is nothing inherently wrong with their birth name.

Whether there is a relationship between one's birth name and one's soul is a more difficult question. I am not aware of anything in our religious sources that discusses this apart from that on the Day of Judgment it is said that people will be addressed by their names and their mothers' names (apart from Shi'i texts which say that the Prophet's descendants will be addressed by their names and fathers' names), but it is hard to say without being there whether that will be a recognizably verbal utterance of a name or just some means of identifying us that we will understand. Also, there are situations where the Imams (A) informed people of their birth names (as part of demonstrating their comprehensive knowledge) and perhaps there is a hint of some significance there. But in those cases it seems that the birth names were changed due to circumstances and not because the person actually wanted to be identified by a different name.

So, I think the best answer to the first question is that maybe there is a relationship, but if there is, it isn't something that is focused on in the Twelver Shi'i tradition.

Certainly the Prophet (S) did not see a problem in encouraging people to change their names where necessary. 

As a side note, although I've never seen this discussed, I would imagine that some of the mothers of the Imams (A) were not born with the names they were born with because their names are usually given as Arabic/Persianate whereas some of them were said to come from far-off regions, so perhaps some of them acquired these names during their life journey.