Does the soul have a physical meaning in Islam?

[ravage]

Re: Does the soul have a physical meaning in Islam?

many of our actions netdevil can be mapped to specific parts of the brain. does the imply that the physical organ of the soul is the brain?

the reason this is important is the debate over cloning/stem cells. Christian dogma places the soul in physical terms rather than metaphorical for identity/personage (which is a less scientifically conflicting view). which is why you run into this puzzle:

You may have heard of advances in technology for stem cells where scientists were able to obtain stem cell like characteristics from skin cells by turning off certain genes, something that ostensibly settled the qualms of the religious lobby since no embryos were involved. However you have this problem then:

In other words, researchers may one day take human cells all the way back to the embryonic stage, at which point they could be implanted into a womb, where they could eventually develop into complete human beings. This is the direction in which iPS cell research is heading. So instead of switching off one gene to make sure that an entity is not worthy of their moral concern, pro-lifers may soon have to worry about the opposite, pushing an adult cell so far back in its developmental stage that switching on a single gene will turn it into an embryo.

Advances in stem cell research may be provoking a kind of “God of the Gaps” retreat on the moral status of embryos. People who subscribe to God of the Gaps thinking believe that the hand of God can be seen in those things which science cannot explain. In this case, the closing gaps in the details of molecular biology are forcing pro-lifers into an uncomfortable corner where they have to decide whether or not a cell can be imbued with a soul by turning a single gene on or off.

The Genetics of Ensoulment

So are these skin cells carrying souls then? or is the soul something that only manifests itself once you attain sentience?