Individual Soul and Communal Soul
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My very dear child, President Muḥammad cAbdu'l-cAzīz and dear daughter, Yasmin may the merciful Lord grant you well-being in both worlds.
May my prayer of Yā `Alī Madad filled with sincerity, spiritual love and truthfulness reach you. I also remember all other cazīzān with such heartfelt prayers, such remembrance becomes the source of expressing gratitude. Praise be to Allāh for His favor.
The valuable services and unique sacrifices which you offer to preserve and spread true knowledge are delightful and exhilarating like evergreen gardens and flower beds. You are devoted students for the cause of knowledge and moths of the lamp of recognition (macrifat). You are very dear to me because you are parts of my soul. We are separate from one another in individual souls but one in the collective soul. Praise belongs to Allāh!
One person's soul is called the individual soul, that of the community (jamācat) is the collective soul. Every mu'min who sincerely renders beneficial services for the jamācat can be revived in the jamācatī soul. The soul expands as much as the service is great and far-reaching.
Each one of you has only one soul but its particles are as numerous as the people of the entire world, rather more. This law of soul is such that every individual who serves the jamācat may revive in the communal (jamācatī) soul, in the sense that a group of the particles of his soul represents the community (jamācat). That is, a particle represents an individual, or an individual transforms into a particle and begins to speak. Thus, the soul of the entire jamācat is merged in you.
Just as it is true that everything and every individual has a soul, it
is also true that every nation and every community has a national and a communal soul. As Almighty Allāh says in verse (16:120): "Verily! Abraham was a community (ummat) obedient to Allāh, monist (ḥanīf) and he was not of the idolaters." Among the ranks of Ḥaz̤rat-i Ibrāhīm mentioned in this holy Qur'ānic verse is the one in which he had become the pure soul of the entire community. That is, all the individuals of the community were revived in the particles of his soul. Thus, the soul of the community was hidden in his personality.
There is no doubt that there is a national and communal soul just as there is an individual and jamācatī soul. There is also a Universal Soul called a Single Soul (nafs-i wāḥidah) mentioned in both the Qur'ān (31:28) and ḥadīs̱ . The noble ḥadīs̱ is: "Indeed mu'mins are brothers [and sisters], and Prophets are like a Single Soul (i.e., Universal Soul)." The gist of these words is that every Nāṭiq and his Asās are the spiritual father and mother of their mu'mins, and at the rank of Universal Soul the Nāṭiq and Asās of our cycle, but also all the Nāṭiqs and Asāses are like a Single Soul and mu'mins of every ummat (community) are brothers [and sisters]. Here it is said that mu'mins following in the footsteps of their spiritual parents will eventually merge in the Single Soul (nafs-i wāḥidah) because the Single Soul is not related to a single individual only and eventually all of them one by one are going to merge in the Single Soul (nafs-i wāḥidah). It is mentioned in verse (31:28): "Your (spiritual) creation and resurrection (inᵐbiᶜās̱ ) are like a Single Soul." That is, one individual is spiritually created, then he through the particle of his soul represents the creation of all people, and when his resurrection (inᵐbiᶜās̱ ) takes place, the representation of all takes place in it too . It is in this sense that the spiritual creation and resurrection of all takes place like a Single Soul from time immemorial and every soul undergoes this event.
Sincerely cilmī servant of cazīzān, 22nd April, 1984
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