This is what is said about the soul in one of my favourite websites:
What is soul?
What is soul? Is soul the same as life? What's soul like?
Answer:
“Soul is a law proceeding from the divine command. But it is a living law clothed in external existence and possessing external existence.”
How did soul come into existence?
The essence of soul, which mankind has been given really little information about, depends on the laws in the universe. Soul was one of the laws in the universe like gravitation, buoyancy of water etc. Allah (swt) chose this law, gave life and external existence. And as a third feature, He gave it “consciousness”.
That’s to say, soul has three main features: First is its having “external existence” second is its having “life” and the other is its having “consciousness”. After these three features’ being given to the soul, soul distinguished from the other laws and that we call “soul” came into existence. This is shortly the initial period of it.
In other words, if Allah (swt) takes life out of soul that we own now and takes the consciousness away and removes it from external existence; it will go on its existence as one of the laws in the universe, like gravitation, buoyancy of water etc.
Or if Allah (swt) gave external existence, life and consciousness to any of the laws, that law would also convert into a “soul”.
Law + External Existence + Life + Consciousness =SOUL
SOUL - External Existence - Life – Consciousness = Law
Is soul the same as life?
As mentioned before, soul has “life”, however soul and life do not come to the same meaning. For example, plants have “lives” while they don’t have “souls”.
Soul has three kinds of bodies
After this initial explanation, we could say that “soul” has three kinds of bodies:
First, its original body and shape that we could never see and probably will never see or will see in the afterlife.
The second is our body that is the dwelling and “home of our soul”.
The third is the body which soul will wear after death. At the time of death, the soul is not completely naked, it leaves its home dressed in its body-like sheath. What clothes the soul is a subtle, fine sheath, something which may be likened to a body, which is to some extent constant, and is ethereal and appropriate for the soul.
Soul wears this body-like sheat in the realm of barzakh (grave).
What is soul like?
We can say that soul is like expanding matters. In Islamic books that the issue of soul is held, it is mentioned that soul expands. Let’s think about a good-smelling rose. Its odour spreads out and fills the room. Think about the air we breathe; it fills the volume of the place it enters. So does the steam. Light also enlightens the whole place it is situated. Similar to these samples, even soul expands and fills the body it is situated to its furthest point. Therefore, soul is in any point of body. If human body were so larger or so smaller than it is today, it would make no difference; soul would even expand or contract and fill the volume of that body also.
How do we see different realms in our dreams?
Due to its feature of expanding, without leaving the body, soul can go to and return from the past, the future, the material and the spiritual realms, grave, paradise and hell. But it can do it with just one condition which is that it can’t leave the body. Because, its leaving the body just happens at the time of death. When the soul leaves the body entirely, body loses all its living properties and it dies. Except the death time; soul goes to aforesaid realms, sees, speaks, feels there and comes back by expanding.
That’s how we see different realms in our dreams.
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