The Light of Truth — Page 157
REFUTING OBJECTIONS 157 Muhammad the Chosen One, who is the Best of the Messengers and the Seal of the Prophets. It has been revealed upon my heart that the meaning of the word ar-Rūh in the verse, يَوْمَ يَقُومُ الرُّوحُ is the entire company of Messengers, Prophets, and Muhaddathin, upon whom the Spirit descends and who are thus Mukallamīn [i. e. those who hold converse with God]. As for their being referred to by the word ar-Rūh [in sin- gular] as opposed to the word al-Arwāḥ [the Spirits, in plural], know that Allah has used the singular form in the Holy Quran to refer to the plural form, and vice versa. This is a known prac- tice of the Clear Book. Moreover, Allah referred to them by the term ar-Rūh [the Holy Spirit]—which indicates separation from the body-in order to signal that, in their worldly lives, they occupied themselves with all their faculties in seeking the pleasure of Allah. They parted from their selves the way spirits part from bodies, and neither their self nor its desires remained. They did not speak of their own accord, but rather, according to the wahy [Divine revelation] that was bestowed upon them. Thus, it was as though they became Rūbul-Qudus [the Holy Spirit] entirely, as though they possessed no self of their own, not even a trace of it. Furthermore, know that the Prophets are like a single soul. It is not said that they are many souls, but rather, that they are one soul. This is due to the intensity of their spiritual unity and to their uniformity in the essence of faith. Then, since they obliterated their selves, their passions, their comforts, their desires, and their enticements, nothing remained in them besides Rūķul-Qudus; and they reached Allah, having broken ties to this world and living as ascetics. Allah thus desired to elucidate in this verse the status of 1. On the day when the Spirit will stand. . . (Surah an-Naba', 78:39) [Publisher]