Nafs in Hidayat al-Hikma and its commentaries

Abhari's Hidayat al-Hikma is an important handbook of philosophy that was taught in madrasas for a centuries. The work deals with philosophical topics in an encyclopedic style and presents them succinctly. In this study, we look at the section of this book which is devoted to the issue of the soul and analyze and compare discussion of this topic in its commentaries including Mubarakshah Bukhari, Mevlanazade, Ibn Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani, and Qadi Mir Maybudi. We can see that treatment of this topic is in line with the Arsitotelian view which was adopted by Ibn Sina and his followers such as Abhari. They define soul as the first perfection of the natural and organic body. According to them, there are three kinds of souls: vegetative soul, animal soul, and human soul. In our study, we analyzed how this classical theory of the soul and its situation in afterlife was handled in the commentaries of the Hidayat al-Hikma.