The Spirit (Ruh)

[IjazAhmad]

As-salaamu 'alaikum brothers and sisters

The Quran refer many times to the Spirit (Ruh), what is the difference between Islam and Christianity about this? Is the Spirit a part of God? or is it a another creation which God has created and uses it to blow in his creation (Bashar/Ins)? e.g. Adam and Jesus?

I was having a discourse with a Christian and he cited 4:171 to prove that Jesus is the spirit of God, thus he is god or a part of god (trinity). I honestly didn't understand him 

Regards,
Your brother - Ijaz A.

[Duster]

Shalom / Peace bro ...maybe this article by bro joseph can help?? >>>>>What is the Quranic Ruh (Spirit)? >>>>>http://quransmessage.com/articles/ruh%20FM3.htm

[HOPE]

Peace brothers,

Here is Karen Armstong on the subject:

The Ruh/Rouh of Allah (SWT)
"This brings me to a difficult point. Because this God began as a specifically male deity, monotheists have usually referred to it as "he." In recent years, feminists have understandably objected to this. . . . Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the masculine tenor of God-talk is particularly problematic in English. In Hebrew, Arabic and French, however, grammatical gender gives theological discourse a sort of sexual counterpoint and dialectic, which provides a balance that is often lacking in English. Thus in Arabic al-Lah (the supreme name for God) is grammatically masculine, but the word for the divine and inscrutable essence of God—al-Dhat—is feminine." - Karen Armstrong, A History of God


Surah 17:85-86

They ask thee concerning the Spirit.
Say: "The Spirit (cometh) by command of my Lord:
Of knowledge it is only a little that is communicated to you."
If it were Our* Will, We* could take away that which We* have sent thee by inspiration:
Then wouldst thou find none to plead thy affair in that matter against Us.


[2.87] We* gave Moses the Book and followed him up with a succession of Messengers;
We* gave Jesus, the son of Mary, Clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the Holy Spirit.


[2.253] Those Messengers we endowed with gifts, some above others: 
To one of them Allah spoke; others He raised to degrees (of honor); 
To Jesus, the son of Mary, We* gave Clear (Signs), and strengthened him with the Holy Spirit.

[4.171] O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: nor say of Allah aught but the truth.
Christ Jesus the son of Mary was a Messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary,
And a Spirit proceeding from Him.
Al Nisa (The Women)


[5.110] Then will Allah say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favour to thee and to thy mother.
Behold! I strengthened thee with the Holy Spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity.

[15.29] When I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My spirit*, fall ye down in obeisance unto him. Al Hijr (The Rock)
[16.102] Say: The Holy Spirit has brought the revelation from thy Lord in Truth,
In order to strengthen those who believe and as a Guide and Glad Tidings to Muslims.

[26.192-96] Verily this is a Revelation from the Lord of the Worlds: With it came down the Spirit of Faith and truth — 
To thy heart and mind, that thou mayest admonish in the perspicuous Arabic tongue. 
Without doubt it is (announced) in the Revealed Books of the former peoples.

[32.9] But he fashioned him in due proportion, and breathed into him something of His spirit.
And He gave you (the facilities of) hearing and sight and feeling (and understanding): Little thanks do ye give!



[38.72] When I fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit*, fall ye down in obeisance unto him.



[66:12] And Mary, Imran's daughter, who guarded her virginity, so We* breathed into her of Our Spirit*, and she confirmed the Words of her Lord and His Books, and became one of the obedient.


[21:107] "And We* did not send you (O Muhammad) except as a mercy to the world."


15:85] "We* created not the heavens, the earth, and all between them, but for just ends. And the Hour is surely coming"


[2.2] This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those who fear Allah. Who believe in the Unseen, are steadfast in prayer, and spend out of what We* have provided for them;


[15:9] "We* have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We* will assuredly guard it (from corruption)."


[50.43] Verily it is We* who give life and death;
And to Us* is the Final Goal.


[37:171-177] "Already has Our* Word been passed before (this) to Our* Servants sent (by Us). That they would certainly be assisted. And that Our* forces, they surely must conquer. So turn thou away from them for a little while. And watch them (how they fare), and they soon shall see. Do they wish (indeed) to hurry on our Punishment? But when it descends into the open space before them, evil will be the morning for those who were warned (and heeded not).


* Allah and His Ruh (There are hundreds of such examples)


"God was not booming clear instructions from on high. The divine voice constantly changed the way it referred to itself—as "we," "he," "your lord," "Allah" or "I"—shifting its relationship to both the Prophet and his audience. Nor was God distinctively male. Each recitation began with the invocation: "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate ('al-Rahman') and the Merciful ('al-Rahim')." Allah was a masculine noun, but the divine names al-Rahman and al-Rahim are not only grammatically feminine but related etymologically to the word for womb."

Karen Armstrong, Muhammad (Prophet For Our Time)
Chapter 2, 'Jahiliyyah', p.60
Harper Perennial - London, New York, Toronto and Sydney
>


"Even though Jews and Muslims both find the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation almost blasphemous, they have produced their own versions of these controversial theologies. Each expression of these universal themes is slightly different, however, showing the ingenuity and inventiveness of the human imagination as it struggles to express its sense of "God."

Because this is such a big subject, I have deliberately confined myself to the One God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims, though I have occasionally considered pagan, Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of ultimate reality to make a monotheistic point clearer. It seems that the idea of God is remarkably close to the ideas in religions that developed quite independently. . . . Mystics have seen God incarnated in a woman, for example. Others reverently speak of God's sexuality and have introduced a female element into the divine.

This brings me to a difficult point. Because this God began as a specifically male deity, monotheists have usually referred to it as "he." In recent years, feminists have understandably objected to this. . . . Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the masculine tenor of God-talk is particularly problematic in English. In Hebrew, Arabic and French, however, grammatical gender gives theological discourse a sort of sexual counterpoint and dialectic, which provides a balance that is often lacking in English. Thus in Arabic al-Lah (the supreme name for God) is grammatically masculine, but the word for the divine and inscrutable essence of God—al-Dhat—is feminine."

Karen Armstrong, A History of God, Ballantine Books, 1993, p. xxi-xxiii.


"It is true that there is plenty of material in the Koran that is more egalitarian than the western Christian tradition, which was heavily influenced by the misogyny of Greek thought. Perhaps the most fundamental is that the Islamic God does not have a gender. Arabic may refer to him by use of the male pronoun, but he is never described as "father" or "lord" as he is in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, the Islamic God has characteristics that are expressly feminine; one of his most important "names" is al-Rahman (the All-Compassionate) from the Arabic rahma, which comes from the word rahim, meaning womb. In Islamic mysticism, the divinely beloved is female."

Saturday December 8, 2001
The Guardian

[Joseph Islam]

Dear IjazAhmad

Wa alaikum assalam

Please see the following article where I have discussed aspects of your question:

WHAT IS THE QURANIC RUH (SPIRIT)?
http://quransmessage.com/articles/ruh%20FM3.htm

I hope this helps, God willing.

Regards,
Joseph

[Ad Sep]

file:///home/adel/Documents/The%20Q-Chakras-2AE.pdf
/home/adel/Documents/The Q-Chakras-3A.pdf

[fireheart47]

Dear IjhazAhmad,

The article from Joseph Islam seems the most informative from Arabic perspective. I believe each word has a deeper meaning, which when studied linguistically can reveal the thought-form which ancient people tried to convey. Thus, it makes sense to find the various uses of Ruh in Arabic.

As for the Christian conflict, I believe there is some confusion. The trinity was created by monks to teach how the gospels portray Jesus, yet it has been a teaching which causes confusion and deviates from the wisdom of their predecessors, which the Qur'an preserves: oneness of Allah or tawhid.

In the gospels, Jesus is given power by a greater unseen force and is union with it. When confronted by authorities about calling himself a child of God, he points out how in the scriptures the term Elohim is employed to describe holiness within mortals, which does not apply just to himself, yet most Christian doctrine doesn't accept this as describing all humans, except Mormons (Psalms Chapter 82). And so this and many other occurrences cause people to wonder how can a human be connected to God, and the answer becomes the Holy Spirit, which I believe just means the unseen which gives rise to all life, not just Jesus. I believe it is Allah.

Many scholars debate about the meaning of this use of Allah in plural form used in Hebrew scriptures, אלהים. Although this has become the most popular way to say it in Judaism, it is not always written this way, sometimes it is אל, אלה, or אלוה. I believe it refers to indistinguishable forces of reality, which are immense and belong to a unified whole, like a water within the sea, which is also why water is pluralized yet also singular. Some say it means mighty ones in some contexts.

Here are more informed opinions about the idea of the Holy Spirit:

From my perspective, the idea behind spirit is a metaphysical observation and can be found in many cultures. Many priests in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt would make physical observations, which would then be represented by symbols and then worshipped. I believe Abraham logically concluded this type of worship is not accurate, because something created those celestial objects and something put into action those forces of nature, nor is an idol or limited object an accurate  representation of the unseen and the all-encompassing, this must be done through faith. Some cultures come to similar conclusions, yet very few practice tawhid, because they believe in a metaphysical all-encompassing concept, yet they also believe in lesser deities, prescribing them powers and giving them worship. It goes to show how special the religion of Islam has been in preserving this wisdom.

Metaphysics was also a concept popular with the Greeks. Some scholars cite people like Herodotus, who write that their knowledge came from ancient Egypt (astronomy, temples). The Hebrews of Moses, who became Israelites, also were deeply involved in Egypt. It is said Moses was a High Priest, and Joseph before him also worked for Pharoah. Some clues in the Bible (Deut 4:20, 1 Kings 8:51, Isaiah 48:10, Je 11:4) and in ancient Egypt could suggest the Hebrews were involved in metallurgy (Mines in Sinai, and trade with Hittite empire), and some scholar suggest they were under servitude by a Semitic people called Hyksos, who invaded Egypt, then assimilated to ancient Egyptian life and became rulers themselves. However, many Egyptologists like to say how there is little physical evidence of the Exodus in the temples.

Unlike the Greeks, the Israelites were humble and worshipped the unseen in tents, mostly telling stories which informed self-growth and established norms between people. Whereas the Greeks became entrenched in the flaws of the ancient Egyptian religions, which were a mix of sciences, some core nature archetypes which became worshipped in ways that deviated from their original place within the story (Osiris [plants, wisdom, ancestral father, constellation Orion], Isis[fertility, ancestral mother, the Nile, I think the Milky Way], Set[conflict, war, death, the Saharan desert], and the most important one for them, Horus [consciousness, the observer], Ra [light, the observable, the sun], Amen [unseen]), and other made-up concepts used to organize activity around a temple. Each picture they used for explaining a concept became another religion, and new pictures were created like Aten (solar power, sun rays) to explain new concepts and create new all-encompassing religions. For this reason, they excelled in physical sciences, yet the flaw was that no one could study water without involving the deity of water, nor ceramics without involving the deity of potterwheel creator. The Israelite worldview was in many ways simpler and achieved what perhaps the pre-dynastic ancient Egyptians attempted but failed to preserve.

The word spirit in English comes from Latin and was used by alchemists and religious people, who trace their origin back to these cultures, the Greco-Egyptian and Judeo-Christian. In the sciences, spirits were unseen gases. For example, CO2 was once called Spirit of Wood. For this reason, alcohol is called spirit, because of the vapors or spirits they emit. From a metaphysical perspective and religious perspective, the spirit could be described as the unseen thing which is within everything, and which gives it life, like the code of the universe. This reminds of phrase regarding Allah: يا الحى يا القيوم

An example of another culture which talks about this is the Ojibwe culture. They believe in a concept of Gichimanidoo, which is translated as Great Mystery. Often the Native Americans are quoted talking about a Great Spirit. I believe this is the same as the Holy Spirit.

Given everything, it is a blessing we have the simple wisdom of the Qur'an and of tawhid, which I believe preserves the wisdom of the oneness of the force which created the world. It is a holistic worldview, which I believe helped the sciences by changing the way we study and perceive everything as connected. This holistic worldview can also be seen in one of the core values of our religion س-ل-م (Surah ash-Shu'arah 26:89).