"The souls are assembled hosts, those that recognize each other find harmony..."

This is from Imam Zaid's Treatise for the Seekers of Guidance:

"Various narrations have been related that give us insight into the heart. Among them is the saying of the Messenger of God, peace upon him, "Verily, amongst the believers are individuals my heart softens towards." [footnote 252: Ahmad, Musnad, no. 22299)

Our hearts respond differently to different people. There are people that we instinctively find repulsive and there are others we have a great receptivity towards. One reason for this is the nature of the interaction of our souls with other souls in the pre-temporal realm before entering this world. This process is described by the Messenger of God, peace upon him, in the following hadith, "The souls are assembled hosts, those that recognize each other find harmony, while those that are unfamiliar with each other find dissonance." [footnote 253: Bukhari, no. 3336]

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani mentions in Fath al-Bari that Imam al-Khattabi understood this to mean two things: People's souls are naturally disposed towards good or evil and when they meet those souls that are similarly inclined they gravitate towards each other, the good souls toward the good, the evil souls toward the evil. Another meaning he suggests is that it refers to the creation of the souls in the unseen world before they were united with their bodies in the visible world. Some souls met and found a harmonious attraction towards each other in the unseen world, while others found dissonance, while yet others never have met. Once they enter into respective bodies and then meet in this world they respond to each other based on their prior responses in the unseen realm. [footnote 254: Imam Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani, Fath al-Bari (Damascus: Dar al-Fayha`. 1418/1997), 6:446.)

This is the reason some of us can meet a person for the first time and sense we have known them all of our lives. Unbeknowst to most of us, we actually have."

pg. 166-167

E-baad-e News