Createdness of the Soul
Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah (4/216) said: “The human soul is an originated entity, a point on which the early generations of the ummah, their leading scholars, and all adherents of the Sunnah unanimously agree. More than one of the Muslim Imams has transmitted the consensus that it is created.”
His student, the eminent Ibn al-Qayyim, remarked: “Several lines of evidence prove that the soul is created”—and he listed twelve proofs:
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Allah the Exalted says, “Allah is the Creator of all things” ⦗1⦘. The wording is wholly general and admits no exception. His attributes are excluded, for they are inherent to the very meaning of His Name. Thus, Allah—exalted is He—together with His Essence and attributes, is the Creator, and everything apart from Him is created.
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He also says, “I created you before, when you were nothing” ⦗2⦘. This address is directed to both the soul and the body, not to the body alone, for the body by itself neither understands nor is addressed; the entity that understands and is addressed is the soul.
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Likewise, He says, “We created you, then We fashioned you; then We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate yourselves before Adam’” ⦗3⦘. This report either covers both our souls and our bodies, as the majority maintain, or refers to the souls prior to the creation of the bodies, as others claim. On either view it is explicit that souls are created.
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A number of texts declare that the human being is a servant in his totality; servitude is not confined to the body while excluding the soul. Rather, the primary servitude is that of the soul, and the body’s servitude follows it—just as legal rulings follow the soul’s direction. It is the soul that moves and employs the body, and the body follows it in servitude.
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He says, “Has there come upon man a span of time when he was nothing…”