Section Three: A supplement to this chapter from the aspect of the mode of the relation of the soul to the body and an exposition of natural death and unnatural (ikhtirāmī) death
Know that the soul is the bearer of the body, not that body is the bearer of the soul as most people think. This is because what strikes their ears is that the soul is the gist (zubdah) of the elements and the best part of the temperaments. They also think that the soul is obtained from the body and gets strength from strength of food, it also becomes weak due to the weakness of the food. Their conjecture is false because the soul is the obtainer of the body and its composer. The soul is what takes the body in various directions and with the body, its potentials and parts and remains and ordains it
حيث ما أرادت
Wherever it wills.[1]
And takes it wherever it wishes from descent towards the lowest place tor ascent to the top with the density of the body as well as its weight. When it wills to ascend it ascends and its weight changes to lightness. When it wills to descent its lightness changes to weight. As for rising towards the realm of the heaven and the paradise of the spirits and blissful people as well as the highest descending point with this dense corpus, then it is not a possibility for it. Rather, it is with a luminous body from the genus of that abode, when it is freed from this dark structure just as the rise to the paradise of the proximate ones and the region of the perfect ones from the immaterial forms and the luminous Platonic forms is not attainable except at the time of detachment from the trappings of dimensions and bodies and the soul getting disconnected from the representations and specters, and become transcendent from the two realms and denies the two worlds. To sum it up from this discourse is that the soul, for its climbing to these stairways, is more honorable and loftier than that it follows the body in its own existence. Rather, the body is from the things that follow the existence of the soul in some lower ranks. Based on this foundation the view of reincarnation becomes invalid as well as the view of the one who says that the origination point of the disconnection of the soul from this body is with natural death. It is the termination of the potential of the body, and the depletion of its instinctual warmth and weakening of its tools as well as the suspension of its system, the trembling of its pillars and the destruction of its store as most natural doctors think that the disconnection of the soul from the body is due to the disruption (ikhtilāl) of the structure and corruption of the temperament. Rather, the truth is that the soul detaches from the body due to its independence in existence in gradation and disconnects one thing after another from this natural origination point towards the second origination point as has already been discussed in the establishing of essential motion in existence and in material substances. So, in the soul’s own essence, it changes from one stage to another stage and intensifies in its own substantiality from weakness towards strength. When the soul becomes strong and its effusion of strength of the soul on the soul decreases due to its leaving the body to another direction, the body and the body’s potentials weaken and become deficient and the body becomes thin to a point where when the soul is at the peak of its substantiality and reaches the prime of its independence, the soul’s attachment to the body, its ordainment of the body and its effusion of the body are entirely cut off. So, death occurs. This is what they call natural death, not unnatural death which is due to coincidental cuttings. So, after the age of stopping, the wilting of the body starts to a point where he becomes of old age, after which death occurs. These are the changes of the soul according to the ranks of the souls and the proximity of the soul towards the second origination point which is the origination point of the unification of the soul and its individualization (infirād) from this natural body as well as its detachment from this abode and its independence in existence. These bodily states observed in the soul from the realm of childhood, youth and old age and growing old. All of them are subservient to the states of the soul in their death in potentiality and actualization as well as strength and weakness in reverse. So, when the soul gains power and obtaining, the body gains weakness and incapability to the point where the soul is established by its own self and the body perishes. So, the soul departure of the soul necessitates the ruining of its house (i.e., the body) and not that the ruining of the house is the departure of the soul. Thus, that is what a poet has said in poetry:
A poem
جان قصد رحيل كرد گفتم كه مرو گفتا چه كنم خانه فرو مىآيد
My beloved intended to depart, so I said, “don’t go.” He said, “what do I do, the home is coming down.”[2]
In unnatural death this is true and not in natural death. In short, most of the people were unable to grasp in the soul this backwards motion, which is the journey to Allāh, which we have established in most existents. So, they mentioned incorrect reasons for the wisdom behind death. In what we have explained it is apparent that the application of the word natural is for this very death and not for what they have mentioned. Moreover, it has previously been mentioned that what we have explained does not contradict the treachery that has been established for a batch of the souls and their punishment in the hereafter in the inferno and fires of hell and the anger of the Most Merciful and the rest of what will be done to them as a recompense for their deeds and the consequents of their actions as well as the results of their morals and bad aptitudes and destructive and corrupted creeds. When what we have mentioned about the natural death is realized and that its origination point is natural direction towards the hereafter and proximity to Allāh, the exalted, the invalidity of reincarnation becomes plain and evident with all its types and the impossibility of the attachment of the soul after death to its elemental body, be it a natural death or other than it with another natural body, and its transmigration from the body to another body. This is because if the soul transfers from the soul to another body, then it attaches, and surely its attachment to the other body was in the beginnings of the body’s generation until at the time of it being the sperm of an animal or an embryo in the mother’s womb as they have acknowledged. So, based on the foundation explained, a khulf[3] is entailed from the non-application of the reverse between the ranks of completions of the soul and body based on the reason that has been mentioned.
[1] Al-Asfār al-Arbaʿah, vol. 9, p. 47.
[2] Ibid, p. 52. Originally taken from the Quatrains (رباعيات) of ʿUmar Khayyām, no. 67 as follows:
بر پشت من از زمانه تو میآید وز من همه کار نانکو میآید
جان عزم رحیل کرد و گفتم بمرو گفتا چه کنم خانه فرومیآید
[3] A khulf occurs in an argument when you show that the conclusions of something you have presupposed lead to an impossibility. Now, since this has occurred, the premise becomes invalid too since the premise cannot be valid if it’s necessary conclusion is something impossible. This is called a reductio ad absurdum argument, also known as Burhān al-Khulf.
فصل سيم
در تتمه اين باب از جهت کيفيت نسبت النفس الى البدن و بيان موت طبيعي و موت اخترامي بدانکه نفس حامل بدن است نه اينکه بدن حامل آن است چنانچه اکثر خلق گمان نموده اند زيرا که قرع اسماع ايشان اين است که نفس زبده عناصر و صفوت طبايع است و نيز گمان نموده اند که نفس از جسم حاصل است و قوت ميگيرد و بقوت غذا و ضعيف مي شود بضعف غذا و توهم ايشان باطل است زيرا که نفس محصل جسم است و مکون آن است و همين است که بسوي جهات مختلفه بدن مي رود باجسم و قواي جسم و اعضاي جسم مي ماند و تدبير آن مي نمايد حيث ما ارادت و مي برد آن را حيث ما شاءَت از هبوط بسوي اسفل يا صعود بسوي فوق با کثافت بدن و ثقل آن و چون اراده صعود نمايد صاعد مي شود و ثقل او بخفت متبدل مي شود و چون اراده هبوط مي نمايد خفت او بثقل متبدل مي شود و امّا طلوع بسوي عالم سماء و جنت ارواح و سعداء و منزل اعلى باين جثه کثيفه براي او امکان ندارد بلکه ببدن نوري است از جنس اين دار که از اين بنيه مظلمه حاصل شود چنانکه طلوع بسوي جنت مقربي و صقع کاملين از صور مفارقه عقليه و مثل افلاطونيه نوريه مسيرش نمي شود مگر بوقت انفصال از علوق ابعاد و اجرام و انقطاع از امثال و اشباح و تجرد از کونين و رفض عالمين و غرض از اين کلام آن است که نفس به سبب ترقي آن بسوي اين معارج اجل و ارفع است که تابع بدن شود در وجود خود بلکه بدن از توابع وجود نفس است در بعض مراتب سفليه و بهمين اصل منفسخ مي شود مذهب تناسخ و مذهب آن کسيکه مي گويد که منشاء انقطاع نفس از اين بدن بموت طبيعي است و آن انتهاي قوت بدن است و نفاد حرارت غريزيه آن و کلال آلات آن و تعطل نظام آن و تزلزل ارکان آن و خرابدوکان آن است چنانکه جمهور از اطباء و طبيعين گمان نموده اند که انقطاع نفس از بدن به سبب اختلال بنيه و فساد مزاج است بلکه حق اين است که نفس از بدن منفصل مي شود به سبب استقلال آن در وجود على التدريج و شيئا فشيئا منقطع ميشود از اين نشاء طبيعيه بسوي نشاء ثانيه چنانچه گذشت از اثبات حرکت ذاتيه وجود در جواهر ماديه پس في ذاتها متحول مي شود از طوري بطوري و اشتداد مي نمايد در تجوهر خود از ضعف بسوي قوت و چون نفس قوي شود و افاضه قوت نفس بر بدن به سبب انصراف آن از بدن بجانب ديگر قليل شود بدن و قواي بدن ضعيف مي شوند و ناقص مي شود و لاغر مي گردد تا اينکه چون نفس در غايت تجوهر خود و مبلغ استقلال خود برسد تعلق نفس از بدن و تدبير آن از بدن و افاضه آن بر بدن بالکليه منقطع مي شود پس موت عارض مي شود و اين را موت طبيعي مي گويند نه موت اخترامي که به سبب قواطع اتفاقيه است پس بعد سن وقوف ذبول بدن ناشي مي شود تا اينکه کبير السن مي شود بعد از آن موت عارض مي شود و آن تحولات نفس است بحسب مراتب نفس و قرب نفس بسوي نشاء ثانيه که نشاء توحد نفس و انفراد نفس است از اين بدن طبيعي و انفصال آن از اين دار و استقلال آن در وجود و اين حالات بدنيه مشاهده از نفس از عالم طفوليت و شباب و شيب و هرم و موت تابع حالات نفس اند در قوت و فعليت و شدت و ضعف على التعاکس پس چون نفس را قوت و تحصل حاصل شود بدن را وهن و عجز حاصل شود و تا آنکه نفس بذاتها قائم مي شود و بدن بارتحال آن هلاک مي شود پس ارتحال نفس موجب خراب بيت آن است نه اينکه خراب بيت موجب ارتحال نفس است پس آنچه شاعري در نظم گفته است.
شعر
جان قصد رحيل کرد و گفتم که مرد گفتا چه کنم خانه فرو ميآيد
در موت اخترامي صادق مي آيد نه در موت طبيعي و بالجمله اکثر قوم چون در نفس باين حرکت رجوعيه که سفر الى الله عبارت از آن است و در اکثر موجودات ثابت است متفطن نشدند در حکمت موت وجوه غير سديده ذکر کرده اند و در آنچه ما بيان کرديم ظاهر مي شود مناسبت در اطلاق لفظ طبيعي بر همين موت نه بر آنکه ايشان ذکر کرده اند و نيز در ما سبق ذکر يافته که آنچه ما بيان کرديم منافات ندارد باشقاوت که ثابت است براي طائفه از نفوس و تعذب آنها در آخرت بجحيم و نيران و غضب رحمن و سائر ما سيجري عليهم از جزاي اعمال و تبعات اعمال و نتايج اخلاق ملکات سينه و اعتقادات رويه فاسده ايشان و چون متحقق شد آنچه ما ذکر کرديم در موت طبيعي و اينکه منشاء آن توجه جبلي است بسوي جانب آخرت و قرب من الله تعالى ظاهر و مبين شد بطلان تناسخ مطلقا بجميع اقسامه و استحاله تعلق نفس بعد موت بدن عنصري آن خواه بموت طبيعي باشد يا بغير آن ببدن طبيعي ديگر و انتقال آن از بدن بسوي بدن ديگر زيرا که نفس اگر از بدن منتقل شده ببدن ديگر متعلق شدي البته تعلق آن بدن ديگر در اوائل تکون بدن بودي حتى در وقت کون آن نطفه حيوان يا جنين در رحم مادر چنانکه اعتراف ايشان است پس بنابر اصل مقرر خلف لازم مي آيد از عدم تطابق تعاکسي ميان مراتب استکمالات نفس و بدن بر وجه مذکور.