An Analytical Study of Immateriality of Soul According to Three Great Muslim Philosophers (Ibn-Sina, Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra)

Knowing the nature of soul and understanding its unknown dimensions has always been one of the major concerns of Islamic philosophers. Simple and immaterial nature of soul are among the most important characteristics of it, because if the existence of soul as an immaterial substance, which survives after the death of body, cannot be proved, to speak of the life after death would be meaningless. This article deals with the ideas of three prominent Muslim philosophers (Ibn Sina, Shaikha-Ishraq and Mulla Sadra) on the immateriality (hence immortality) of soul. Ibn Sina subsumes discussion about soul under the Physics (natural scienee) of Shifa, because in his view soul is the first perfection of the natural body and is created devoid of matter. Of course, if we accept this view this question will be raised: How can we explain the relation between an immaterial entity like soul and a material entity like body? Then he proceeds to give a number of proofs for the immateriality of soal, the most important of which are introduced in the article. Unlike the peripatetics who have dealt with ilm al - nafs (psychology) in Physics, Shaikha-Ishraq has given a divine form to this problem. According to him, soul is a light of divine lights which has been trapped in the prison of body and people should try to free themselves from the imprisonment of body and the world of darkness. Some of Suhrawardi’s reasons for the immateriality of soul are derived from peripatetics, but others are characteristically his own.According to Mulla Sadra the definition of soul on the basis of first perfection for natural body is an indication of soul’s self - consciousness, not its belonging to any thing else except supervision and controlling the body.