An instance of this is found in S 32...

An instance of this is found in S 32:9:ِ ``He fashioned Man in due proportion and breathed into him of His Spirit.'' 3ِ We now come to know what the word, ``ROOH'' that is translated to, ``SPIRIT'' may mean in the verse under our discussion. (NO.85) In other word, find the answer that what sort of a ROOH was the object of their question from our prophet?

All evidences prove that the questioners wanted to know what sort of a creature is the SPIRIT, or the SOUL of Man, which distinguishes him from other animals. What is the intelligent power which is the main source and the foundation of all our faculties, such as the wisdom, memory, knowledge, seeing, hearing, decision, love, faith, and etc.?

The Spirit has a structure which is different from that of our material body, and the laws and regulations that govern the Spirit are not similar to the laws that govern the body, and what we know about our soul is indeed very little, to compare it to what we must come to know.

Therefore our prophet is instructed to answer:ِ ``The Spirit is of the order of my Lord, and you are not given of knowledge, but a little.'' So the Spirit is one of the high mysteries which cannot be explained in our physical and material terms. Imam Sadiq (AS) has said:ِ ``Rooh is a creature created by God, which has power and can see. It belongs to the kingdom of heavens.'' Although our Spirit is nearer to us than everything else, we know [ 590 ] very little about it.

Our knowledge of past and present have not given us enough information about our ownself and soul. We cannot yet answer even to some of the fundamental question about our Spirit like;ِ Of what sort of material is it made of. Or how is its structural form? Inspite of all the mysteries of the Spirit, and so many unanswered questions about it, we are not very stranger with the matter, that no one denies that a fact or an entity which is named Spirit exists in us, or we exist in it.

***** OUR SOUL, THE IMMATERIAL ENTITY HAZRAT AYATULLAH-AL-OZMA" MAKA"REM has a long discussion about Man's Soul in his great Example Commentary, a summary of which I have quoted and translated in the above passage. The whole commentary needs a great amount of knowledge to understand, and a high skill to translate.

On the other hand, my style in this translation and all the books that I have written and published, has been to write the most complex matters that I may understand, in the simplest possible language.