When Socrates was asked how he should be buried...

When Socrates was asked how he should be buried, he replied: “As you please, provided I remain still with you, and do not make my escape elsewhere… as soon as the poison has operated I shall remain no longer here, but be transported to the mansions of the blest…”[^4] This perspective does not regard corporeal existence to have a share in human immortality. Advocates of this theory explain parapsychological phenomena in diverse manners.

A noteworthy point is that Plato’s theory regarding the existence of the human soul before creation of the material body is accepted among many Moslem mystics and philosophers; even so, the theory that the incorporeal soul is eternally severed from a material body is unacceptable to them.

Regarding severance from the divine plane, Jalāl ad-Dīn Mawlavī declares: بشنو از نى چون حكايت مي‌كند از جدايي‌ها شكايت مي‌كند كـز نيسـتان تا مـرا بُبريده‌اند در نفيرم مرد و زن ناليده‌اند Listen to the reed pipe (humanity) as it tells a story; It complains of separations. That as I was severed from my true abode; Men and women wailed of my sorrow.

[^5] In his renowned elegy, Ibn al-Sīnā (Avicenna) states: “A mighty and self-disciplined dove (the human soul) descended towards you (the natural world) from its lofty heights… I guess it has forgotten the covenants it had pledged in its homeland and the habitats that it was unwilling to leave…” Of course, these two words can be interpreted differently, so that this passage does not signify the existence of a soul before its body but merely that the soul is a supernatural entity.

As we shall explain in the Qur’anic section, return of the soul without any material body at the Resurrection is not accepted by the Noble Qur’an. Therefore, even though various Muslim philosophers such as Ibn al-Sīnā (Avicenna) reached an impasse in attempting to prove the reattachment of the soul to a corporeal body, they would accept spiritual-material resurrection because of their faith in divine revelation.

This acceptance signifies the clarity of the Qur’an in depicting the presence of a body in the afterworld, such that Muslim philosophers, who prefer divine revelation and utilize reason to explicate religious statements, regarded material presence in the afterlife a certainty. Humanity does not have a short-term relationship with the body; rather, the body is an integral part of the reality of humankind.