Motion is a spiritual form (surah ruhaniyyah) that the Soul projects into physical bodies, whereby those bodies become mobile. This is exactly how geometric shapes, inscriptions, forms, and colors are cast into physical elements, rendering those bodies figured, inscribed, shaped, and dynamic. Thus, it is the souls that move the bodies, while the bodies are the objects being moved or brought to rest through the souls' activation or stabilization of them; the act of moving (al-tahrik) is purely the functional deed of the Soul.

Verily, the crafts of artisans, their manufactured goods, their tools, their instruments, and their very physical frames are all bodies. A body, purely from the standpoint of its corporeality (al-jismiyyah), is completely inert and incapable of self-motion, yet actions cannot manifest except through motion. Therefore, the actual mover of bodies must be a fundamentally different substance, which is what we term "Soul" (Nafs).

Souls, from the standpoint of their essential soul-nature, constitute a single unified substance, just as all bodies, from the standpoint of their corporeality, constitute a single unified substance.