Paradise until Allah returns it to its body on the day He resurrects it.” Thus nafs (soul), rūh (spirit), and nasama (living soul) are one and the same. By metaphorical extension, a human being may also be called a nasama.

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The evidence that the spirit and the soul are one and the same is that Allah, exalted is He, says:

“Allah takes souls at the time of their death, and those that have not died He takes during their sleep.” [al-Zumar: 42]

When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ slept through the prayer [in the valley until the sun rose], he said: “Allah took our spirits, and had He willed, He would have returned them to us at a time other than this.” Thus he ﷺ called “spirit” what Allah Most High called “soul” in His Book, and what he himself also called “soul” in the hadith, for he said in it: “The One who took my soul also took yours.” This is clear.

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We have said that it is that by which the body lives, rather than the life present in the body, because the life present in it is an attribute. Attributes do not subsist independently, nor can they undergo what Allah, exalted is He, describes souls and spirits as undergoing in His Book and through His Messenger ﷺ: being taken, brought out, returned, attaining tranquillity, ascending, receiving bliss, and suffering punishment. Thus, by “that by which the body lives,” we mean that Allah Most High has established the customary order whereby He gives the body life through its presence and causes it to die by removing it. For what makes the body alive by necessity, rather than according to the customary order, is life itself. Life can only be an attribute, since substances do not necessitate properties in bodies.

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Having stated that the soul and the spirit are one and the same, and that this is what Allah, mighty and majestic, tells us in His Book He takes at death and during sleep, some earlier scholars have said that its seizure during