What does "ar-ruh" mean in the Quran?
The word ruh in all twenty verses that carry it, the senses it takes, and the real disagreement - al-Muyassar refers its reality to God, while as-Safi and al-Mizan both argue it is a creation distinct from the angels.
Ruh turns a different face at nearly every occurrence. In one place an angel descends with it; in another it is breathed into clay; in another "the Ruh" stands in a row beside the angels on the Day of Judgement. And in one verse the Prophet is asked what it is, and the answer does not define it.
That verse is where the three commentaries part company — not on the word's lexical sense, which they share, but on what the Ruh asked about actually is.
This site serves three commentaries. The Sunni reading below is al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, from the King Fahd Complex. The Shia reading is Tafsir as-Safi by al-Fayd al-Kashani and Tafsir al-Mizan by al-Tabataba'i. All three are Arabic; the renderings into English are mine.
The word itself
Al-Mizan gives the lexical sense first: ruh, as the language knows it, is the principle of life by which an animal is capable of sensation and voluntary motion — the word takes both genders — and it is then used figuratively for whatever produces good and desirable effects, as knowledge is called life for souls.
That figurative extension is what licenses the Quran's widest use of the word. Revelation is called a ruh, al-Tabataba'i notes, because by it dead souls live, as by the ordinary ruh dead bodies live. The analogy is exact, and it is the hinge of the whole word.
He then makes an observation that organises the rest: the word recurs in many verses, Meccan and Medinan, and in none of them does it carry the meaning we find in animals.
"And they ask you about the Ruh"
And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the soul. Say, "The soul is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little."
Al-Muyassar reads the question as asked in obstinacy, and the answer as a refusal to specify: the reality of the Ruh and its states are among the things God kept to Himself, and what you and all people were given of knowledge is only a little.
As-Safi does not stop there. It reports from Imam as-Sadiq, in al-Kafi and al-Qummi, that the Ruh is a creation greater than Gabriel and Michael, which was with the Messenger and is with the Imams, and is of the Kingdom. From al-Ayyashi, from him: a great creation, greater than Gabriel and Michael, which was with none of those who came before except Muhammad, and is with the Imams, setting them right. And in another report: the Ruh is a creation of His, having sight and strength and support, which He places in the hearts of the believers and the messengers.
Then, immediately after those, al-Kashani records a report that goes the other way entirely — asked what the Ruh is, the answer was: the one in animals and in people; asked what that is: it is of the Kingdom, of the power.
And he reconciles them himself, in a sentence worth the whole section: what the reports mention is an account of what distinguishes it from other things, while what the verse left unspecified is its reality — so there is no contradiction between them.
Al-Mizan argues the same conclusion rather than reporting it, and states it flatly: there is no doubt that what is meant in this verse is neither the animal spirit nor the angels. His evidence is a report in which Ali argued from He sends down the angels with the Ruh of His command (An-Nahl 16:2) that the Ruh is other than the angels — the angels are sent down with it, so it is not them.
He adds that the Quran describes it once as holy and once as trustworthy, for its purity from treachery and from the other moral defilements and defects that human spirits are not free of. And he turns the hardest case into evidence: where one verse says the Trustworthy Ruh brought it down and another says the Holy Ruh brought it down, the Ruh — which is other than the angels — is put in the place of Gabriel, who is one of them. So Gabriel descends with the Ruh, and the Ruh carries this recited Quran.
On that reading the two Shia works converge from different directions, and both differ from al-Muyassar: the Ruh of this verse is a created thing of its own, neither the breath in a body nor an angel.
The second half of the same verse
And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little. This clause is usually read as a general remark. As-Safi gives it an occasion that makes it an argument.
Al-Qummi reports that the Jews asked the Prophet about the Ruh, and he answered with the verse. They said: we in particular? He said: people in general. They objected: how do these two go together — you claim you were given only a little knowledge, yet you were given the Quran and we were given the Torah, and you have recited whoever is given wisdom has been given much good?
And the answer came down in another surah: if all the trees on earth were pens and the sea were ink, with seven seas after it, the words of God would not be exhausted (Luqman 31:27). God's knowledge is more than that — what you were given is much among you, and little with God.
So the "little" is not a slight on revelation. It is a ratio.
As-Safi also carries a second reading, from Imam al-Baqir, that moves the word little: inwardly, it means that only a few people were given the knowledge — you have not been given of knowledge except a little of you. That reading attaches little to the recipients rather than to the knowledge.
Revelation
And thus We have revealed to you an inspiration of Our command. You did not know what is the Book or [what is] faith, but We have made it a light by which We guide whom We will of Our servants. And indeed, [O Muhammad], you guide to a straight path -
Al-Muyassar reads the ruh here as the Quran itself: as We revealed to the prophets before you, We revealed to you a Quran from Us. The same sense carries two more verses — He sends down the angels with the Ruh of His command (An-Nahl 16:2) and He places the Ruh of His command upon whom He wills of His servants (Ghafir 40:15).
This is where al-Mizan's analogy pays: revelation is named by the word for life because of what it does to hearts, exactly as the spirit is named for what it does to bodies.
Named with the angels
The Trustworthy Spirit has brought it down
The angels and the Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord for every matter.
The Day that the Spirit and the angels will stand in rows, they will not speak except for one whom the Most Merciful permits, and he will say what is correct.
Al-Muyassar names Gabriel in these — in 97:4 explicitly, "the angels and Gabriel descend in it in great number."
Al-Mizan reads the same verses the other way: the Ruh is other than the angels, though it accompanies them. On his reading 97:4 and 78:38 name two things, not one thing twice.
This is the clearest point of divergence in the whole word, and it is a divergence about what the verses are counting.
Breathed into Adam
And when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My [created] soul, then fall down to him in prostration."
Then He proportioned him and breathed into him from His [created] soul and made for you hearing and vision and hearts; little are you grateful.
Al-Muyassar is careful about the prostration in the first: a prostration of greeting and honour, not of worship. The attribution of My Ruh is an attribution of honour; it is a created spirit.
In the creation of Jesus, and Mary
O People of the Scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary and a soul [created at a command] from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, "Three"; desist - it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And sufficient is Allah as Disposer of affairs.
The word runs through this account in several forms: Jesus is a ruh from Him; God breathed into Mary of Our Ruh (Al-Anbiya 21:91, At-Tahrim 66:12); the angel sent to her is called Our Ruh (Maryam 19:17); and Jesus is three times said to have been supported with the Holy Ruh (Al-Baqarah 2:87 and 2:253, Al-Ma'idah 5:110) — the same phrase three times, of the same person.
Strengthening
You will not find a people who believe in Allah and the Last Day having affection for those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even if they were their fathers or their sons or their brothers or their kindred. Those - He has decreed within their hearts faith and supported them with spirit from Him. And We will admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow, wherein they abide eternally. Allah is pleased with them, and they are pleased with Him - those are the party of Allah. Unquestionably, the party of Allah - they are the successful.
Al-Muyassar: God settled faith in their hearts and strengthened them with help from Himself against their enemy. Set this beside as-Safi's report that the Ruh is placed in the hearts of the believers and the messengers and the two readings sit very close together — support given, not a substance described.
Ruh and rawh: one vowel apart
A different word is written with the same three letters and read rawh. It means relief, and it occurs three times in two verses — twice in one of them:
O my sons, go and find out about Joseph and his brother and despair not of relief from Allah. Indeed, no one despairs of relief from Allah except the disbelieving people."
(Yusuf 87)
Then [for him is] rest and bounty and a garden of pleasure.
One short vowel separates them and the senses do not overlap: this one is relief and ease, that one is spirit, revelation, or the Ruh itself.
Where the three agree
- The lexical root sense is life — the principle by which a living thing senses and moves.
- The word is used for revelation because of what revelation does to hearts.
- Of My Ruh in the creation of Adam is an attribution of honour, and what was breathed is created.
- The reality of the Ruh in 17:85 is not expounded by the verse. Even al-Mizan, who says a great deal about what it is not, takes the verse as withholding its reality.
- Rawh is a different word and means relief.
Where each goes its own way
- Al-Muyassar refers the Ruh's reality to God and leaves it there, and identifies the Ruh named beside the angels as Gabriel.
- As-Safi reports it as a creation greater than Gabriel and Michael, of the Kingdom, placed in the hearts of believers and messengers — while also carrying the report that reads it as the ordinary spirit, and reconciling the two by distinguishing what the reports describe from what the verse withheld. It also supplies the occasion that turns only a little knowledge into a ratio.
- Al-Mizan argues from the verses themselves that the Ruh is neither the animal spirit nor the angels, using Ali's argument from 16:2, the descriptions holy and trustworthy, and the substitution of the Ruh for Gabriel in 16:102.
Counted on the site's own text
- Ruh with a long u, in every form — ar-ruh, ruhan, bir-ruh, ruhi, ruhihi, ruhina — occurs twenty-one times in twenty verses: Al-Baqarah 87 and 253; An-Nisa 171; Al-Ma'idah 110; Al-Hijr 29; An-Nahl 2 and 102; Al-Isra 85 (twice — the only verse that carries it twice); Maryam 17; Al-Anbiya 91; Ash-Shu'ara 193; As-Sajdah 9; Sad 72; Ghafir 15; Ash-Shura 52; Al-Mujadilah 22; At-Tahrim 12; Al-Ma'arij 4; An-Naba 38; Al-Qadr 4.
- Rawh with a short a occurs three times in two verses — twice in Yusuf 87 and once in Al-Waqi'ah 89.
- The verse that asks what it is, 17:85, is also the only verse that uses the word twice: once in the question and once in the answer.
What the word claims, and what it does not
- It states a function wherever it appears: something is given life, or strengthened, or brought down.
- It does not define the Ruh. The one verse that asks is the one verse that declines, which is why the commentaries can differ this far.
- It does not settle whether the Ruh of 97:4 and 78:38 is Gabriel or something beside him. That is the live question, and the three readings divide on it.
- Of My Ruh is not a part of God. All three read the attribution as honour, and the thing breathed as created.
- The above are commentators' positions, presented as they stand rather than adjudicated. Their full texts are on each verse's own page.
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