yet we are absolutely certain that the soul resides within the body, that it departs from it and ascends to the heaven, and that at the moment of death it is gently drawn out of the body, exactly as the sound texts affirm. We do not, however, push abstraction to the extremes of the philosophers and those who follow them, who deny the soul any rising or descending, any attachment to the body or separation from it. Their confusion arose only because they saw that the soul is of a different order from the body and its qualities. But the fact that it is unlike the body does not mean that it lacks attributes appropriate to its own reality—unless they were to reinterpret their statements in a way that accords with the revealed texts, in which case their mistake would be merely one of wording. And how likely is even that?*
(*) The compiler of the book for al-Shamilah said: A paragraph was omitted [after this passage] in that edition. It may be found in al-Hamawiyyah, in Majmu' al-Fatawa, 5:115-16, Dar al-Qasim edition. It is the statement of Shaykh al-Islam, may Allah Most High have mercy on him:
“We do not say that it [the soul] is merely one part of the body, such as blood or vapor, or one of the body’s attributes, such as life; nor that it is a body distinct from other bodies while being equal to all bodies in definition and reality, as certain groups among the theologians maintain. Rather, we are certain that the soul is an existent entity distinct from the body and unlike it. It possesses the attributes of which the texts speak, literally and not metaphorically. If our position concerning the reality and attributes of the soul lies between that of the negators of the divine attributes (mu'attilah) and the likeners (mumaththilah), then what should be assumed regarding the attributes of the Lord of the worlds?”
[Adapted from a post on the Alukah website.]