The Architecture of the Human Soul: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Commentary on Quran 91:7-10

Presented by Zia H Shah MD

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Abstract

This research report provides a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary examination of the human conscience as articulated in Quran 91:7-10. Positioned within the celestial and terrestrial oaths that open Surah Ash-Shams (The Sun) and the historical cautionary tale that concludes it, these verses represent a pivotal ontological statement on human nature. The report integrates classical Islamic exegesis (Tafsir) with contemporary theological, psychological, and biological perspectives. It contrasts the theistic view of a “divinely proportioned” soul with the “purposeless and indifferent” universe of physicalism. By exploring the concept of Taswiya (proportioning) through the lens of modern neurobiology and Ilham (inspiration) through the moral philosophies of John Henry Newman and Thomas Aquinas, the analysis establishes the conscience as a “celestial reflector” of divine truth. Furthermore, the work draws parallels between the prophetic tradition of Muhammad and the moral leadership of Abraham Lincoln, framing the “Steep Path” of virtue as a universal architectural requirement for human flourishing. The report concludes that just as cosmic beauty serves as an objective pointer toward a Creator, the human conscience, at its peak, functions as the most intimate sign of the Divine presence.

The Celestial Overture: Contextualizing the Oaths (91:1-6)

The seventh to tenth verses of Surah Ash-Shams do not emerge in a vacuum; they are preceded by a series of seven sweeping cosmic oaths that serve as “evidence exhibits” in support of the profound spiritual truth about human nature that follows. In classical Arabic rhetoric, such oaths grab the listener’s attention and underscore the gravity and truth of the message. These oaths—by the sun, the moon, the day, the night, the sky, and the earth—provide a macrocosmic framework for the microcosmic reality of the human soul.   

The surah begins with the sun (Ash-Shams) and its radiant brightness (Duha). The term Duha encompasses both the light and the heat emitted by the sun, which are the fundamental drivers of biological life and planetary energy. Philosophically, the sun serves as a metaphor for divine guidance and absolute truth; just as physical light reveals the reality of the material world, divine truth reveals moral reality. The scientific precision of the sun’s nuclear fusion and its “Goldilocks” distance from the earth points toward a finely tuned universe, suggesting that human life is the result of intentional design rather than a cosmic accident.   

Verse	Subject of Oath	Scientific/Philosophical Significance
91:1	The Sun & Brightness	Nuclear fusion as a life-source; light as an epistemological symbol.
91:2	The Moon	Stabilization of Earth’s axial tilt; a reflector of borrowed light (Revelation).
91:3	The Day	Clarity and productivity; the manifestation of objective reality.
91:4	The Night	Circadian rhythms; rest, limits, and the enshrouding of truth for introspection.
91:5	The Sky & Its Builder	The architecture of the cosmos; expansion and structural integrity.
91:6	The Earth & Its Spreader	Global dust transport and hydrological cycles sustaining life.

Following the sun is the moon, described as “following” the sun. This subservience highlights the moon’s role as a “celestial reflector,” receiving light from the primary source and providing gentle guidance in times of darkness. This serves as a metaphor for the human heart or conscience, which does not generate its own light but is designed to reflect the light of the Divine Law. The moon’s physical impact on the earth’s seasons and tides further illustrates the interconnectedness of creation, reinforcing the claim that the human soul is part of a deliberate and harmonious plan.   

The duality of day and night, and the architectural construction of the heaven and earth, set the stage for the transition to the soul. The day “displays” the sun’s glory, while the night “covers” it, representing the cyclical nature of clarity and obscurity in human experience. When the surah swears by the sky “and Him Who built it,” it invites the observer to contemplate the immense power and wisdom required to establish such a vast and orderly canopy. This macrocosmic “proportioning” of the universe is the necessary precursor to the “proportioning” of the soul.   

The Ontological Architecture of the Soul: Taswiya (91:7)

Verse seven, “And by the soul and Him Who proportioned it,” introduces the concept of Taswiya. Derived from the Arabic root s-w-y, Taswiya implies perfecting, balancing, and making something complete or harmonious. This verse posits that the human Nafs (soul/self) is not a random evolutionary byproduct but a “carefully engineered system” endowed with specific faculties.   

The Biological Scaffolding of Morality

From a scientific and medical perspective, Taswiya refers to the sophisticated biological and neurological equipment with which humans are born. Classical commentators like Maududi note that this proportioning includes a body with an erect stature, versatile hands, and a brain capable of complex functions. This physical “perfection” is what allows humans to function as moral agents in the world. Modern neuroscience identifies the prefrontal cortex as the primary locus of executive function, judgment, and the regulation of impulses, providing a biological substrate for what the Quran describes as the proportioned soul.   

Unlike the “blank slate” theories of John Locke or the Freudian view of babies as “little sociopaths” driven solely by selfish instincts, contemporary research in developmental psychology suggests an innate moral “proportioning”. Paul Bloom’s research at Yale University, detailed in Just Babies, demonstrates that infants as young as three to six months already possess a rudimentary moral sense. They show a preference for “helpful” individuals over “hindering” ones and exhibit signs of empathy and a basic understanding of justice. This “moral toolkit” suggests that the foundations of conscience are hardwired into our biological evolution, aligning with the Quranic concept of Fitra—the primordial nature upon which all humans are created.   

The Philosophical Necessity of Balance

Philosophically, Taswiya suggests that the soul exists in a state of delicate equilibrium between opposing forces. Just as the sun and moon must stay within their prescribed orbits to prevent chaos on earth, the human soul must maintain a balance between its different inclinations. Allah has “balanced and perfected and gave limits” to every human attribute.   

Maimonides, in the Guide for the Perplexed, explores this balance through the story of Adam in the Garden of Eden. He argues that before the “Fall,” Adam possessed the most perfect metaphysical knowledge, identifying “True and False” through pure reason. The “proportioning” of the soul, in this sense, is the alignment of the human intellect with objective, timeless truths. When this balance is disturbed by the “animal nature” or the “lower self” (Yetzer Hara), the soul shifts from intellectual truth to moral conventions of “Good and Evil,” which Maimonides interprets as a decline from objective reality into subjective aesthetic awareness. Thus, Taswiya is the ontological state of “sound nature” from which human progress—and the restoration of the state Adam once held—is measured.   

The Divine Whisper: The Mechanism of Ilham (91:8)

Verse eight states, “And inspired it [with discernment of] its wickedness and its righteousness.” The term Ilham (inspiration) refers to a “natural inspiration” or “divine intuition” that Allah has placed directly into the human heart or unconscious. This is the mechanism by which the soul becomes aware of moral reality.   

The Dual Faculty of Discretion

Ilham endows the soul with the faculty to distinguish between Fujur (wickedness/impiety) and Taqwa (righteousness/piety). This is not merely a cognitive awareness but a “perception of the heart”. The Quranic perspective suggests that the knowledge of right and wrong is an “innate, instinctive understanding” given by God so that every human soul knows what is spiritually harmful or beneficial.   

Classical commentators emphasize that this verse proposes the idea of “rational goodness and rational badness”. This means that morality is not arbitrary or solely dependent on external revelation; rather, the human soul has the “innate ability to recognize the inherent value or harm in actions” through wisdom and primordial nature. This internal guidance serves as a “Divine Corrective” against the focus on mere ritual formalism, redirecting the believer toward a holistic blend of ethical commitment and social responsibility.   

The “Aboriginal Vicar”: Newman’s Theology of Conscience

The Christian theologian John Henry Newman provides a striking parallel to the concept of Ilham. He described conscience as the “voice of God in the nature and heart of man,” an “echo of a person speaking to me”. For Newman, conscience is not “long-sighted selfishness” or a desire for consistency; it is a “messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil”.   

Newman’s “Doctor of Conscience” title reflects his belief that the internal witness of the law of God is the “supreme authority” in the mind and heart. He argued that the feelings of “pride or guilt” that follow our moral choices imply the existence of a Higher Being to whom we are accountable. This aligns with the Quranic view that the conscience is a “celestial reflector”—it does not invent its own principles but “receives and recognizes them” as a pulse of the divine law beating within the person.   

Conceptual Model	Source of Moral Knowledge	Primary Function
Freudian Superego	Internalized parental/social standards.	Inducing guilt to maintain social order.
Newmanian Conscience	“Echo” of the Divine voice; Divine Reason.	Mediating a sovereign, absolute moral authority.
Aquinas’s Synderesis	Innate, habitual light of first principles.	Infallible root of moral judgment (Do good, avoid evil).
Quranic Ilham	Divine inspiration into the Nafs.	Discernment of Fujur and Taqwa as a destiny-shaping factor.

The Choice of Destiny: Tazkiyah vs. Dassaha (91:9-10)

The culmination of the proportioning and inspiration of the soul is the moral imperative presented in verses nine and ten: “He has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who instills it [with corruption].” Success (Falah) and failure (Xaba) are explicitly linked to the state of the soul’s purity.   

The Science of Soul Purification (Tazkiyah)

The term Zakkaha (from Tazkiyah) means “to grow” or “to purify”. In the context of the soul, success is dependent on “preserving the soul in its original purity” against the “carnal desires” that seek to soil it. This is a dynamic process of active cultivation. As one leads a life of compassion, justice, and righteousness, the “id”—representing primitive instincts—diminishes, and the “superego” or higher conscience grows stronger.   

This purification is not merely an individual psychological endeavor; it has a profound socio-ethical dimension. In Ayat al-Birr (Quran 2:177), the “Architecture of Righteousness” integrates metaphysical belief with economic sacrifice (Infaq) and moral resilience (Sabr). Righteousness is defined as giving wealth to relatives, orphans, and the needy “in spite of love for it”. This “economic theology” serves as the external proof of the internal state of Tazkiyah. The soul that is purified becomes a “fortress”—a stable construction that protects the individual from the volatility of social norms and political pressures.   

The Mechanics of Corruption (Dassaha)

Conversely, failure is the result of Dassaha—the act of foisting sin or vice into the soul, or concealing it within. The term implies “suppressing” or “stunting” the soul’s innate potential. When a person ignores the divine Ilham and allows their “lower self” to dominate, they are described as being in a “hopeless or deprived state”.   

This corruption is often the result of “long-sighted selfishness” or what the Quran calls “following one’s own lust” (Hawa). When the soul is ignored, it strays toward animalistic behavior. This is the “fatal end” that awaits those who prefer iniquity to purity, as they effectively “drown” the divine light within them under the weight of habitual sin. The failure mentioned in verse ten is not just a worldly setback but an ontological “unmaking” of the human being’s true potential.   

The Critique of Physicalism: A Purposeless Universe

The Quranic narrative of a “proportioned” and “inspired” soul stands in stark opposition to the world-view of physicalism. A physicalist’s universe is characterized as not only “bland” but also “purposeless and indifferent.” In such a framework, the human conscience is reduced to a mere “useful adaptation” that increases the “fitness of its holders” for reproductive success.   

The Indifference of Matter

In a physicalist universe, there is no inherent reason why the laws of physics should permit life, and yet they do. The “extraordinary precision” of cosmic constants—such as the gravitational force or the proton-to-electron mass ratio—is seen as a random accident. If morality is solely a product of “biological and psychological altruism” selected to foster group cohesion, then compassion loses its objective “motivating force”.   

The physicalist argument often commits the “genetic fallacy” by assuming that because morality has an evolutionary origin, its goals must be limited to species propagation. However, this view fails to account for the “sovereign, absolute authority” that conscience exerts over the individual, often demanding sacrifices that go against biological self-interest. If an act is “morally upstanding” for reasons like the prevention of harm or respecting autonomy, its value remains even if it contradicts the “expansion and propagation of the genetic lineage”.   

The Fine-Tuning of the Soul

The theistic argument for the existence of God, as presented in Surah Ash-Shams, relies on the “fine-tuning” of both the universe and the soul. Just as the “built” sky testifies to a “Supreme Designer,” the human moral compass—which judges actions as good or bad even before the development of language—points to a “purposeful Mind” behind it.   

Concept	Physicalist Perspective	Theistic Perspective (Quran 91)
Cosmic Order	Blind necessity or random chance.	Divine Taswiya (Proportioning/Design).
Morality	Socialized strategy for survival.	Divine Ilham (Inspiration/Revelation).
The Self	Emergent property of matter.	Nafs (Soul) as a celestial reflector.
Purpose	Non-existent; indifference.	Purification (Tazkiyah) and Return.

As physicist Paul Davies suggests, while science may explain the “processes” of evolution, there is still room for a “God who underwrites the whole enterprise”. The universe is not a “closed material system” but a “morally active cosmos” where even the unseen witnesses (Angels) and the Day of Accountability serve as psychological drivers for virtue.   

Aesthetics and Ethics: Beauty as a Pathway to God

A central theme of the Quranic commentary is that beauty leads to God, and human conscience at its best does the same. This connection between aesthetics and ethics is deeply rooted in both classical and contemporary thought.

The Radiance of the Good

Aquinas famously recognized that “those things are beautiful which are pleasing when seen”. He argued that for beauty to be “true,” it must possess honestas (virtue) and claritas (radiance of reason). “Spiritual beauty” consists of conduct regulated by reason; it is the “interdependence between aspects of spiritual beauty” that allows for right ethical choices.   

This “moral-beauty view” posits that moral virtues like honesty and kindness are “beautiful traits” in a person. Conversely, immoral behavior can make a physically beautiful person appear “ugly”. As Aristotle claimed, virtues help us perform our “function” as human beings. If function is connected with “form,” and form is connected with beauty, then “human beauty” is derived from the virtues that allow us to live in harmony with our proportioned nature.   

Aesthetic Experience and Divine Freedom

The philosopher Schelling argued that aesthetic experience is capable of unveiling the “free and contingent act of the divine” in creation. Beauty brings matter before our eyes in its “divine and primordial state,” reminding us of the “original unity of the bond of nature and of the soul”. When the “spirit of nature” commingles with the soul through a “voluntary coincidence,” it creates a “miracle” that enchants the observer.   

In this light, the human conscience is the highest form of “internal beauty.” When the soul subordinates its “self-will” (Yetzer Hara) to the “universal will” (Divine Law), it achieves a “proper, virtuous hierarchy” that mirrors the beauty of the cosmos. The “joyful amazement” we feel at consummate beauty is, at its root, a recognition of the “original unity” between our created nature and the Creator.   

The Comparative Theology of Conscience: Muhammad and Lincoln

The “Architecture of Universal Virtue” finds its most potent historical expression in the parallel lives of the Prophet Muhammad and Abraham Lincoln. Both figures represent the “liberation of the enslaved” and the “primacy of conscience” over dogma.   

The “Steep Path” of Virtue

The Quranic concept of Al-Aqabah (The Steep Path), mentioned in Surah Al-Balad (90:11-13), involves “freeing a slave” or “feeding on a day of hunger”. This “Steep Path” represents a universal ethical imperative: the alignment of the human will with a Divine absolute that demands the dismantling of oppression.   

Lincoln’s struggle for the Union and the dismantling of the institution of slavery is framed as a parallel manifestation of this “Steep Path”. Lincoln’s “political religion” was rooted in a faith that “right makes might,” and he urged his fellow citizens to “dare to do our duty as we understand it”. His reliance on his internal moral compass—”When I do good, I feel good… that is my religion”—is a verbatim echo of the Prophetic standard to “seek the guidance of thy soul”.   

The Architecture of Righteousness

The analysis of Ayat al-Birr (Quran 2:177) reveals that righteousness is not a “random list of virtues” but a “carefully engineered system” intended to be a “fortress” for the soul. This architecture integrates metaphysical belief (belief in Allah, the Last Day, Angels) with socio-economic action (giving wealth, honoring contracts).   

Belief in the “Last Day” serves as the “psychological driver of accountability,” transforming moral choices from short-term transactions into “long-term investments”. This “moral responsibility through the realization of judgment” ensures that the righteous person acts justly even when the “cost of virtue is high and the chance of detection is low”. Both the Prophetic and Lincolnian traditions share this vision of a “pluralistic humanity” where diversity is a “race to do good” rather than a cause for conflict.   

The Historical Mirror: The Lessons of Thamud (91:11-15)

The surah concludes by shifting from the ontological to the historical, presenting the story of the tribe of Thamud as a “clear example” of those who ignore their internal inspiration and “pollute their soul”.   

The Rejection of the “She-Camel”

The Thamud were a disobedient people who flourished in the “wadi-ul-Qura” and challenged the Prophet Salih to produce a miracle. Allah sent the “she-camel of Allah” as a “trial” and a “sign” of His mercy. The “Covenant of Water” required the people to share the town’s water with the camel on alternating days—a test of their willingness to subordinate their selfish desires to a divine command of justice.   

Despite Salih’s warning to “touch her not with harm,” the “most wretched man” among them, Qudar-ibn-Salif, hamstrung and killed the she-camel, supported by the “community’s collective sympathy”. This act was the ultimate expression of Dassaha—the “foisting” of sin into the soul and the rejection of the internal Fitra.   

The Consequence of Moral Corruption

Following this “rebellious impiety,” the Thamud were overtaken by a “promised penalty”—a terrible earthquake and a “shout” that utterly razed them to the ground. The Lord “obliterated their traces” for their crime, and the Quran notes that Allah has “no fear of its sequel”.   

This historical retribution serves as a warning to the Quraish and to all humanity: success and failure are not determined by material wealth or political power but by the state of the soul’s purification. The Thamud’s destruction was the “fruit of neglecting the purification of the carnal soul”. Just as the sun and moon must follow their laws to avoid physical chaos, humans must follow the “divine law written in the heart” to avoid spiritual and social annihilation.   

Thematic Epilogue: Conscience as the Ultimate Sign

In the final synthesis, Quran 91:7-10 presents the human conscience as the most intimate and profound “sign” (Ayah) of the Divine in the universe. It is the “aboriginal Vicar” that mediates the light of the Creator to the individual, even in the absence of external revelation.   

The “Architecture of Universal Virtue” demonstrates that the human being is “proportioned” for a purpose. We are not “passive beings absorbing information” but active agents “engaged in moral reasoning from a very young age”. The “fine-tuning” of our biological scaffolding—from mirror neurons to the prefrontal cortex—is the physical signature of the Divine Taswiya.   

The physicalist universe, with its “indifferent matter” and “purposeless evolution,” fails to explain why we possess an “unquestionable authority” within us that demands we choose the “Steep Path” of righteousness over the easy path of self-interest. As beauty in the cosmos—from the radiant sun to the “built” sky—points toward a “Wise Creator,” the beauty of a “purified soul” (Tazkiyah) points toward the same Reality.   

The lives of Muhammad and Lincoln remind us that the “sovereignty of conscience” is the shared heritage of the truthful across history. Success is not a destination but a process of “active self-reflection” and the “constant cultivation” of our inspired righteousness. Conversely, failure is the “hopeless state” of one who “conceals” or “suppresses” the divine light within.   

Ultimately, Surah Ash-Shams invites us to rediscover the “harmony between the physical and metaphysical realms”. It calls us to align our “spiritual aspirations with our worldly responsibilities,” creating a life that honors both the Creator and His creation. In a world that often equates success with wealth and power, the Quranic standard remains: success is the “purification of the soul,” for it is only through this purification that the human being can truly reflect the “Divine Brightness” of the Eternal Sun.