Rūḥ

Rūḥ or The Spirit (Arabic: الروح, al-rūḥ) is mentioned twenty one times in the Quran, where it is described as issuing from command of God.

[2] In the Quran, the rūh is described as having the ability to infuse life into inanimate matter and perform other tasks beyond human comprehension.

Its abilities are depicted as crossing vast distances and time spans, as it ascends to the heavens in a day that is fifty thousand years long (70:4) and animates lifeless objects.

[2][3] The Quran portrays rūh in different ways: as a person who obeys God and brings revelation, or as a general concept, particularly as the inspiration for Muhammad's prophetic messages.

This led some Muslim thinkers to believe that the Spirit is the source of human knowledge, perception, and spiritual ability.

[15] The term Rūḥ al-Qudus is also an epithet referring to the Archangel Gabriel,[20] who is related as the Angel of revelation and was assigned by God to reveal the Qurʼan to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and who delivered the Annunciation to Mary.

[22] It appears to be indicated by the Quran in sura Maryam, ayat 17–21, that it was the angel Gabriel who gave to Mary the tidings that she was to have a son as a virgin: screening herself off from them.

Ibn Qayyim and Suyuti assert, when a soul desires to turn back to earth long enough, it is gradually released from restrictions of Barzakh and able to move freely.

[29] Sarra Tlili contends that the term "ruh" had a simple meaning of "blown breath" during the time of the Quran's revelation.

However, the Quran's use of the term introduces complexity as it attributes extraordinary agency and manifestations to it, which may have bewildered early Muslims.

[30] In order to reconcile their understanding with the Quranic depiction of ruh, they relied on the principles of God's creativity and omnipotence.

Consequently, the concept of ruh evolved into a metaphysical entity with immense dimensions and extraordinary features that expressed God's majesty and the limits of human comprehension.

Tlili believes that the attempt to define the Quranic ruh in early exegetical traditions as a specific entity already reveals an inclination "to reduce the unknowable to something imaginable", indicating a shift towards a more anthropocentric mode of thought.

[32] In Islam, death is not considered to be the final end of life, but rather the termination of the appointed period during which humans are tested on Earth.

As such, death is viewed as a "merely transitional phase during which the rūh, the principle of life, provisionally remains separated from the disintegrating body".

[32] Sufism teaches that, to attain Tajalli ar-rūḥ, (the ultimate manifestation of divine truth in the human soul) the Salik (Sufi aspirant), must cultivate the following 13 spiritual qualities or virtuous practices, thus facilitating the gradual awakening in order of the various centres or subtle plexuses of his/her jism latif (subtle body).