Al-Mufid opposes As-Saduq and attacks him

Muhammad ibn Ali As-Saduq writes:

اعتقادنا في النفوس أنها هي الأرواح التي بها الحياة وأنها الخلق الأول لقول النبي صلى الله عليه وآله: إن أول ما أبدع الله سبحانه وتعالى هي النفوس المقدسة المطهرة فأنطقها بتوحيده ثم خلق بعد ذلك سائر خلقه واعتقادنا فيها أنها خلقت للبقاء ولم تخلق للفناء لقول النبي صلى الله عليه وآله: ما خلقتم للفناء بل خلقتم للبقاء وإنما تنقلون من دار إلى دار وأنها في الأرض غريبة وفي الأبدان مسجونة واعتقدنا فيها أنها إذا فارقت الأبدان فهي باقية منها منعمة ومنها معذبة إلى أن يردها الله تعالى بقدرته إلى أبدانها وقال عيسى بن مريم للحواريين: بحق أقول لكم أنه لا يصعد إلى السماء إلا ما نزل منها

,,Our belief about the souls is that, they are the spirits, through which life exists and that they are the first creation. Based on the saying of the Prophet (s.): ﴾The first thing that God brought forth was the holy pure souls. Thus, He made them manifest His oneness. After this, He then created the rest of His creatures.﴿ And our belief about them is that they were created to last and they were not created to perish. Based on the saying of the Prophet (s.): ﴾You were not created to perish, but you were created to last and you merely change from one place to another place.﴿ And that they are remote on the earth and held in the bodies and we believe that when they depart from the bodies, they are everlasting.Of them there are those, who prosper and those, who are punished, until God returns them to their bodies by His power and Jesus, the son of Mary (a.), said: ﴾Nothing ascends to heaven, except that, which came down from it.﴿” [Al-I’tiqadat, page 47]

Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Al-Mufid writes:

والذي صرح به أبو جعفر رحمه الله في معنى الروح والنفس هو قول التناسخية بعينه من غير أن يعلم أنه قولهم فالجناية بذلك على نفسه وعلى غيره عظيمة فأما ما ذكره من أن الأنفس باقية فعبارة مذمومة ولفظ يضاد ألفاظ القرآن قال الله تعالى: كل من عليها فان ويبقى وجه ربك ذو الجلال والاكرام والذي حكاه من ذلك وتوهمه هو مذهب كثير من الفلاسفة الملحدين الذين زعموا أن الأنفس لا يلحقها الكون والفساد وأنها باقية وإنما تفنى وتفسد الأجسام المركبة وإلى هذا ذهب بعض أصحاب التناسخ وزعموا أن الأنفس لم تزل تتكرر في الصور والهياكل لم تحدث ولم تفن ولن تعدم وأنها باقية غير فانية، وهذا من أخبث قول وأبعده من الصواب وبما دونه في الشناعة والفساد شنع به الناصبة على الشيعة ونسبوهم إلى الزندقة ولو عرف مثبته ما فيه لما تعرض له لكن أصحابنا المتعلقين بالأخبار أصحاب سلامة وبعد ذهن وقلة فطنة يمرون على وجوههم فيما سمعوه من الأحاديث ولا ينظرون في سندها ولا يفرقون بين حقها وباطلها ولا يفهمون ما يدخل عليهم في إثباتها ولا يحصلون معاني ما يطلقونه منها

,,That, what Abu Ja’far (As-Saduq), may God have mercy on him, stated about the meaning of spirit and soul, is exactly the teaching of the supporters of reincarnation (Tanasukh), without realizing that it is their teaching. So the offense against himself and against others is monstrous. As for what he mentioned, namely that souls are everlasting, this is a reprehensible way of speaking and a wording that contradicts the wording of the Qur’an. God said: ﴾Everyone, who is on it, is perishable and the face of your Lord lasts forever. The holder of majesty and honor.﴿ (55:26-27) And that, which he narrated and imagined, is the doctrine of numerous heretical philosophers, who claimed, that the souls do not possess existence and decomposition and that they are everlasting and only the composite bodies perish and decompose and in this some proponents of transmigration believed and they claimed, that the souls are repeated unceasingly in the forms and shells. They were not produced, did not perish and will not disappear and that they are everlasting.and are immortal and that is an evil doctrine and even more remote from the correctness and with that, which is under it in abomination and depravity, the enemies (Nasib) reviled the Shiites and attributed it to the heretics and would the one affirming of it realize, what is contained in it, then he would not turn to it, but our companions, who are attached to the traditions, are companions of gullibility, mindless and low in reasoning. They pass on their faces, in what they heard from the sayings and they do not pay attention to their backing and they do not distinguish between their right and wrong and they do not comprehend, what is coming to them in their statement and they do not arrive at the meanings of that, which they are detaching from them.” [Tas’hih-ul-I’tiqadat, page 87 – 88]