Harun Yahya's "RUH"

Harun Yahya's "RUH"

11 Aralık 2011, 09:40

Harun Yahya at www.harunyahya.org says: "Self is the unifying element of mental life, and this self is RUH according to the Qur'an" (my translation of "'ben' RUH'dur" from turkish to english) Which reminded me the following:

According to William James psychology is the science of mental life.
And the mental life includes such things as feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, decisions and the like. William James distinguishes two possible ways of unifying the mental life.

1. Spiritualistic approach
2. Associationistic approach

the spiritualistic approach affiliate the divers mental modes upon a simple entity, the personal soul. Associationistic approach on the other hand looks for common elements in the divers mental facts rather than a common element behind them namely the soul.

This personal soul concept is nothing new, one can trace down it's history down to Ancient Greek philosophers, perhaps even further. But this concept as it has been exposed by William James and Harun Yahya has nothing common with the concept of RUH in the Qur'an. Harun Yahya's statement "'ben' RUH'tur" sounds more like William James' conception of "personal soul" rather than Muslim conception of "RUH". There is no justification to say "self is RUH" according to the Qur'an. Besides the Qur'an has another concept for "self" which is "NAFS".