The soul in the thought of the Ikhwan Safâ

This study analyzes Ikhwan al-Sâfâ's understanding of the soul. The Ikhwan were a community that lived in Basra in the IV/Xth century. They distanced themselves from the politicial and social turmoil of their time they engaged in philosophy in secrecy and with a communal mentality. Their treatises, which made a name for themselves in the east and West of the İslamic World, reflect the ıntellectual level of the period the Ikhwan, pioneered the recognition of the greek philosophers and philosophical movements it was inspired by, especially pythagoreanism and neoplatonism, after themselves and in the period in which they lived. The value that the Ikhwan placed on knowledge and the fact that they mentioned it in their treatises without excluding anyone from whatever community they came from. Led them to be known as the first islâmic humanists understanding the ıkhwan understanding of the nafs means to understand the community's thoughts in the fields of ethics, cosmology epistemology and metaphysics with a total of 52 treatises. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the theory of the nafs, especially the human nafs and its relation to knowledge, by being faithful to the treatises themselves and then consulting secondary sources. In the second part of our study, we examined the existence of the soul, its nature, its relationship with the body, its creation before the body, and its state after death. This section, in which we have defined the nafs, will help us to name the triad of nafs, intellect and knowledge. In the last chapter, the epistemological dimension of the soul, both the biological development pf the plant, animal and human souls, which we call the types of the soul, and their processes at the point of cognition were discussed. The epistemological dimension of the soul, which is the main distinguishing aspect of our study, examines the position of the soul in the face of knowledge. Which of reason, sense or revelation is the source of human knowledge and how the soul plays a role in these causes is our aim in the last chapter. Although it is beyond the scope of this study to encompass all the subtleties of such a broad and abstract subject as the soul, we have tried to reveal the Ikhwan's line on the human soul and its relation ship with knowledge.