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RECONCILIATION.
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idea of a beginning of the world-process ; hence it is bastardlising its concept to introduce the element of a first beginning into it. The objection is thus beneath the notice of both a serious philosopher and an earnest seeker after truth.
As pointed out in the chapter entitled the Siddhanta, an infinity of souls have always been found existing in the condition of impurity--in Nigoda, poetically described as the loins of Adam in the Holy Qur'an. Think of Adam's loins in the literal sense, and you will be searching from now till eternity for them in vain ; but take the expression as a symbolic representation of Nigoda, the lowest part of the man-shaped Lokaküsha and you not only avoid the error committed by the commentators, but also understand the true merit of the beautiful metaphor employed by the Prophet.
The above is in perfect agreement with the text which points out that all existent souls have been produced from one* Soul. The one Soul is the genus in which exist all other souls as individuals.
Islam does recognise that the power of perception and understanding is not in the organs of sensation or the material body, but in the soul, whose association with the organs of sensation is the cause of their functioning. It is said in 'Al Bayan,' at page 15 :
" Which of the senses in man can feel and what is it that it feels ? Is it the eye that sees? or something else that sees through the eye? Is it the ear that hears, or is it something else that hears, by means of the ear, through the hole of the ear? A shallowminded person, not looking into the truth, might unhesitatingly say that it is the eye itself that sees and the ear itself that hears,
*Al Qur'an, Chapter VI.
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