Does a soul have a gender?

Question

Question: Does a soul have a gender in Islam? As in, is there such a thing as a "female soul" and a "male soul"?

I'm tempted to think souls should have genders, because how otherwise would we have husbands and wives in paradise?

Searching the web, I found only one possibly reliable resource:

3- Souls do not have gender. Human beings gain their personalities both from their spirits and bodies. A soul entering a body tries to adapt to the physical characteristics of the body which determine the gender. -- Questions On Islam

But there's no references given above.

There's also a post by someone named Joseph A. Islam (Qur'an's Message) but, while formally written, this post seems to be virtually a Quranist piece (there's other questionable things on that site, so I deem it untrustworthy). However, it does point to the following ayah, which might mean the answer is "we don't know":

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." -- Qur'an 17:85

Searching for site:islamweb.net soul gender, site:islamqa.org soul gender, site:islamqa.info soul gender, and site:seekershub.org soul gender doesn't help much.

Answer 1

Allah said in Quran that the knowledge of soul is with himself he hasnt given it to even our dear Prophet so it is upto Allah swt

today i was thinking the same thing as an answer,do we have any third gender or can men has brain power to produce third gender,answer is no.

in other places in Quran,Allah swt has said i have made each pairs of animals of birds of humans etc.

Answer 2

1. We have some words meaning close to each other, while they are really different, like: Soul(الروح) and Self (النفس). There are also other words but anyway.

2. Each word in Arabic is eithe feminine or masculine, and this is not a mere accident that in Arabic Soul can be either masculine or feminine but Self is only feminine.

   يَوْمَ يَقُومُ الرُّوحُ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ ... [An-Naba,38]

   تَنَزَّلُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ وَالرُّوحُ ... [Al-Qadr,4]

3. According to a Shitte Hadeeth, Soul is that remains with body when we fall asleep, while, Self is the one that is taken by Allah when He says:

   اللَّـهُ يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَالَّتِي لَمْ تَمُتْ فِي مَنَامِهَا ... [Az-Zumar,42]

   So that what travels around and sees what she sees and hears what she hears is Self (Nafs). And Soul (روح) is what the body takes rest (راحة) in its presence and in absent of the Self.

4. Soul is not the only representative of a humanbeing in the Hereafter, as for example Allah says:

   وَاتَّقُوا يَوْمًا تُرْجَعُونَ فِيهِ إِلَى اللَّـهِ ۖ ثُمَّ تُوَفَّىٰ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ [Al-Baqarah,281]

   and beside that, there are several verses which mention the re-creation of our material bodies as well.

5. According to a Hadeeth from Imam Ali peae be upon him, if I have understood it correctly, being feminine or masculine is not a matter of having a specific genitalia in the body, but the sexual organ is a mere (usually) good sign of belonging to a specific gender. Thare are also other signs for belonging to a specific gender in different levels of our existence. For examples, according to some scholars (and maybe Ahadeeth), being feminie is like being a light, which is invisible by itself but makes other things becoming visible ...

6. and last, but by no means least, human-being has not only one soul according to some Shitte Ahadeeth that say the saint people have 5, the believers have 4 and the non-believers have 3 souls. The Soul that is breathed into an embryo after 4 months have passed since fertilization is usually one of these souls, maybe creation of Adam peace be upon him is an exception to this though. Having all these comments in mind altogether, it's not difficult to think why "Soul", as an Arabic word, may at the same time be a feminine or masculine.

Be warned, these remarks are mere scholarly ideas, and may need further modifications, so mayserve as a good starting point to think about, not an ending point to accept and assume it as correct.

Answer 3

I too had this question. I saw some one's answer that I liked so I will paraphrase. You have a gender, yes? Does your hand? Does your blood? Does a mutilated corpse? The individual parts of the whole may not but the whole may. You are not just a soul. Our understanding of being only a spirit in the after life may be a wee oversimplified. Furthermore, even if "just" a soul, your soul was...shaped by your vessel. So while the soul itself has? had? no gender, it was shaped into having one by the vessel.