The Soul’s Journey After Death

The soul’s Journey after Death

Death is the ultimate reality of life and we have to accept the death of our loved ones with patience and courage. It doesn’t matter how much we love them, time heals us and we learn to live without them. It seems that we don’t owe any thing to our loved ones when they are dead, but in reality, they need us even more than when they were alive because they have to suffer the hardships of grave and pains of interspace, all alone. Death and the life after death are mystery, we only know what we are permitted to know. There are many Quranic Injunctions, Hadiths and examples that throw light on the phenomenon of death and soul.

There are many scholars who have strived to explain the event of death and soul through their writings and one of them is Ibn al-Qayyaim. His real name was Muhammad b. Abi Bakr b. Said b. Hariz az-Zari. His title was Shamsud-din and his Kunya was Abu Abdullah. He was born into a scholarly family of Damascus. Ibn al-Qayyaim became great scholar till his puberty and his teachers Ahmed b. Tamiyyha and Ibn ash-Shirazi amongst others played an important role in his righteous upbringing. According to Scholars this book of Ibn al-Qayyaim, “The soul’s Journey after Death” is one of the authentic texts pertaining to the soul as he consulted the Holy Quran, Hadiths and other Islamic text before writing this great book.

When someone is dying, the Angle of Death comes to take his soul and the dying person can see, hear and speak to the Angel of Death but nobody knows how this actually happens. Only the dying person is able to see, hear and speak to the angel of death and other angels who take his soul up. Just before his death Umar B. Abdul-Aziz saw a creature that was neither man nor jinn and then he died. After death, good and pure soul goes to meet the Allah and to its relatives in the Next World who are people of garden. Then it returns and see the washing of body, its shrouding and the funeral procession. When body is placed in the grave, the soul inserts itself between the body and shroud for the question answer session that will be held by Munkir and Nakir. Grave expands for the good soul. A believer answers all the questions correctly and then a man with beautiful garments and a fragrant scent comes to him and tells him to be happy as this is the day of ecstasy and eternal bliss which he was promised.

When a unbeliever is about to die, he is surrounded by the angels with black faces and the angel of Death drags his soul out  just like a skewer is pulled out of wet wool. His soul is then wrapped in stench rough-hair cloth and is taken up. The soul returns when the body is washed, shrouded and its funeral procession begins. In grave, the impure soul inserts itself between the body and shroud and answers all questions incorrect. The body is given hot blast of fire and the grave is made so narrow that his ribs are pressed together. Then the bad actions of non-believer impure soul come in the disguise of a man who has a gruesome face and stingy smell and inform the impure soul that it is going to suffer forever.

Death is not pure extermination rather it the movement from one world to another. The bliss and the punishment is not felt the same way as it is felt by an alive person. Even when the soul inserts itself in the body for the sake of questioning, it is not the same as in this world. Sleep is termed as “Lesser Death” as when a man sleeps, his soul comes through his nostrils and travels to heavens till it meets Allah. If the sleeper is in the state of purity, his soul prostrates before Allah the Almighty and when this soul returns, it conveys to his heart the truth of what Allah has let him see which is termed as “truthful dream”.

The soul of sleeper who is a liar and likes false things, also moves upwards and gains true knowledge and information of unseen world. But when it returns, it meets Shaytan who mixes the true with the false that the sleeper likes when he is awake. His dreams are “confused dreams” as he could not understand what Allah the Mighty and Majestic has let him see because he only reminisces what Shaytan showed him. The difference between the death and sleep lies in the fact that after death soul leaves the body completely but in the sleeping state, the soul remains inside the body just like a ray or thread whose end remains connected to the body. During sleep, soul moves freely because the ray of soul is stretched to the heavens.

After death, the soul resides in the interspace and the interspace is something that separates the heaven and Earth or this world and the next world. It could also be defined as the period between the death and resurrection. Moreover, the bliss and the punishment of interspace is not same as the bliss and punishment of this world and the next world. So, the soul of died man resides in interspace and soul of sleeper resides inside body. While sleeping, the soul could be in the heaven but it is also connected to the body.

It is a matter of fact that soul has the ability to diffuse in more than one place at the same time. The proof of diffusion of soul at more than one place is that the Holy Prophet, the peace and blessings upon him, saw that the Musa, peace and blessing upon him, on the night of the Night Journey, was standing in prayer in his grave and he also saw him in the sixth and seventh heavens. The dead person loses awareness but the bliss and punishment lingers even if the body of dead is burned to ashes or some parts of body are thrown in the sea and some are thrown on the land in order to avoid the punishment. If a pious man is buried in fire, his portion of bliss would still reach his soul and body.

The thought of grave brings fear and pain but it can also be a source of delight for the believers, righteous and pious people who obey the teachings of Allah the Mighty and the Majestic, whole-heartedly. When such person dies, Allah asks the angels to let him rest as he has just come from the sufferings and hardships of world. There are four domains of human existence, first is the mother’s womb, second is domain of this mortal world, third is the interspace and fourth is domain of Eternity, the Everlasting Domain. The domain of interspace is also called the first stage of next world and the souls are divided in to two groups, one group is being punished and the other group is in bliss. The bliss of interspace could be understood through example of martyrs.  The messenger of Allah described the interspace bliss of martyrs as they receive six good things from Allah. Their sins are forgiven, they are protected from the punishment of grave, they are given security from Greatest Terror, a crown of dignity is placed on their heads, they are married to seventy-two dark eyed houris and their seventy relatives are interceded by Allah the Mighty and Majestic. That is why, it is forbidden to reckon those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead as they are alive with their Lord and are provided with food and all the blessings.