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Does the soul depart from a person while they are asleep, and is the feeling of the soul departing and then returning before sleep a real departure of it?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Evidence from the Quran and Sunnah indicates that the soul is taken during sleep, and that sleep is a form of death. Among this evidence is the Almighty's saying: "Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term," and His saying: "And it is He who takes your souls by night." In addition, there are hadiths of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, that refer to the taking and returning of souls. However, the taking of the soul during sleep does not necessitate its complete separation from the body as occurs at death; rather, it maintains a connection with the body, but it is an incomplete connection compared to wakefulness.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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