Acknowledgements
I am borrowing the concept of “Con-Text” from S. Ahmed’s What is Islam? A full bibliography is given at the end of the post.
Introduction
Now for the million dollar question we will venture into one of the great mysteries viz. the topic of love. I anticipate that one blog post will not be enough to end all intercourse on love so d.v. more posts will follow in time.
Love and Soul Mates
In the symposion of Plato one of the men who are invited to give a speech on the topic of Love details a myth in which humankind originally did not consist of merely two sexes but of three. In this world there was a third sex which was a monstrous human-hybrid made of both the female sex and the male sex. This creature symbolizes the concept of the soulmate.
The idea that two souls are bound together in heaven and then by the grace of God may d.v. reunite on earth is attested to in the Quran. Multiple ayas (viz. “verses”) of the Quran describe souls as being paired. It is on this topic that philosophy and theology reunite in theoria. We can for example consider Quran 81:7 (Surah At-Takwir) “and when the souls are paired” but also Quran 4:1 (Surah An-Nisa) states: “O humanity! Be mindful of your Lord Who created you from a single soul, and from it He created its mate.”
I have seen the idea of soulmates also expressed in internetfora discussing Jewish theology although M. Goodman’s A History of Judaism (Penguin Books, 2019) does not make explicit reference to it. Goodman was a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford. As far as my knowledge goes no references to soulmades are also made in the Bible. So if the idea of soulmates is present in Jewish thought it would arise from the Con-Text.
Bibliography
Ahmed, Shahab. What is Islam?. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Goodman, Martin. A History of Judaism. Penguin Books, 2019.