Jamal Badawi – Muslim Beliefs 8 – After Death

			In the name of God the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, I greet you with the greetings of all
the prophets from Adam, the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon them Assalamu alaikum
which means peace be upon you.
		

			Today we have our eighth program in the series on Muslim beliefs. In today's program, we will
complete our discussion on the soul. And in the latter part of our program, we'll begin our
examination of the belief of life after death, and the Day of Judgment. I'm your host, Ahmed Rashid.
My guest today is Dr. Jamal Badawi of St. Mary's University. Welcome to Islamic focus, brother
Jamal.
		

			Last week, we entered the beginning of the program on our discussion of the soul we talked about the
question of suicide, euthanasia, mercy killing, care for the dying soul, what happens to the soul
and the grave and so on? Could you perhaps just go back and highlight some of the major points that
we touched upon in our discussion last week? Certainly, on the question of suicide, we indicated
that this is a sin according to Islam. The reason being is that life is given to us as a trust from
God, we are not supposed to dispose of it according to our whims. We have to respect that trust and
fulfill our mission on earth using that life.
		

			The question of euthanasia we said this is regarded as one form of killing, there is no mercy and
killing. If the person is desperately ill, all he has to do is really pray for God's relief, he
should be also aided by any medication, but to inject the person
		

			with something fatal or give him an overdose just to destroy his life or her life is not
permissible.
		

			We talked also about the the care for the terminally ill and the dying. And again, we indicated that
one of the crucial thing is to remind the person also his destiny to make peace with God to repent,
before it's too late. And we described also the various processes of speedy burial after the actual
death,
		

			and the funeral prayer and so on. Then we touched briefly on what happens to the person in the
graves and we described again, that according to various
		

			saying of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and according to the Quran, particularly the crucial
verse we cited was in chapter 14, verse 46, that describes the punishment day or night of the
pharaohs, or the people of the Pharaoh, who persecuted Moses and his followers, even before the day
of judgment has come. So the punishment and reward is there. And I tried to explain it by making
some maybe a remote analogy with
		

			nightmares, that nightmares a person feel enjoyment or
		

			suffering without the body actually being affected. So that could happen also after death. It does
happen, in fact.
		

			And finally, I think the last point was the fact that
		

			the soul, even after it departs from the body, can still be aware of some of the things that goes on
our physical world. This is just in capsule form. What
		

			I like to pick up on that last point in terms of the soul being aware of what's going on in the
physical world. I think many of our viewers will be familiar with the seances we see on TV and so on
and people indeed people actually do some people believe that, you know, you go and they have this,
I think they call it seance and you can get in touch with the with the souls of dead people parents
can speak to speak to parents and so on.
		

			Given the fact that we said in the program last week at the there is this awareness
		

			is it possible for souls and the to actually get in touch with the, you know, the souls of the dead
to actually contact the souls of the living?
		

			The possibility is there but not through science. This is an area where I'm quite skeptical about
because it gives you the impression that somebody has this sword under his or her disposal. You can
just evoke or bring the soul of X or Y. Many times it's its participation.
		

			Just partly exploitation of other people. I don't think really, that this kind of claim the way most
people understand it is true. And there have been so many people who have been involved in these
types of experiences who reported that there was some kind of fraud or the other. Some people even
acknowledge that they used to push baskets, sometimes the people would hold the basket with a pen.
And that the soul supposedly would be writing responses to certain questions. And in some cases,
people admitted that they were actually pushing the basket in one direction or the other. However,
the whole notion of a possibility of contact between the soul of the dead and the living, it could
		

			happen.
		

			There is one difference in the Quran to that so I have to take it carefully. And perhaps I should
mention, or quote the area from the Quran on this.
		

			It says a la jolla tawassul emphasis in America when Latina Tamati, Miami for him sequatchie acaba,
Allah Hello, while you're still
		

			in a few velyka, la comida Corona, this is a very interesting, I am in a sense of defining the
nature of that contract without going into all kinds of gimmicks that people usually do. The rough
translation of the meaning goes like this, that God, or Allah, God takes the souls of persons who
died, that we know that the soul is taken.
		

			Also, that is also God takes the souls of those who did not die in their sleep, which would have to
meaning that people who did not die while sleeping, or that during our sleep, our souls also is
taken not really taking totally from the body or as the body would die, but that the soul would be
connected with the body during sleep in a different way than during the waking hours. And also in a
different way from taking the soul totally at the time of actual death, to continue then with the
transmission,
		

			and also the souls of those who did not die during sleep, as to those on whom he has passed the
decree of death. Those who have died before that he will that they will die, he keeps back from
returning to life.
		

			But the rest that the rest of the salts he sends to their bodies, for an appointed term, verily in
this are Signs for those who reflect the clear indication from this
		

			verse, as many interpreters
		

			explained, is that during the sleep, for example, when you have a dream, and you see somebody who
died sometime back, it is actually a process of meeting between the source of the living and the
dead, for the period of the dream.
		

			Before you wake up, the souls of those who died before is kept away from returning to life. Your
soul now comes in the fullest sense to you, when you wake up in the morning. In a way, this reminds
me with one aspect that most people do not really pay so much attention to
		

			every day, we seem to have a rehearsal of coming to life, dying and resurrecting.
		

			When you wake up in the morning, after sleep, it's almost like a rehearsal of resurrection and the
Day of Judgment, when you wake up from the bigger sleep.
		

			When you go to bed at night.
		

			It is almost like a minor death. Actually could say that sleeping like when somebody's sleeping is
the twin brothers of death.
		

			So every night we keep or every day we keep repeating this process that actually eventually will
happen to us coming to life, dying, resurrecting the following day. So in that sense, yeah. Could
you accept that not in the other commercialized? What about the situation of
		

			the souls of the dead contact among themselves? Is that possible?
		

			There is an indication of that, actually, in the Quran, very clear indication. And that has also
been confirmed and explained in more detail in some of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him.
		

			For example, in the Quran, in chapter three, verse 170, there is talk there about the souls of the
martyrs
		

			and it uses the term ysf Sharona bill Levine, Allah jaccob him the word in Arabic actually means
that those are the souls of those martyrs who died for the cause of God.
		

			Carry to each other's, the good news of other pious people who are left behind them, which means
then that this
		

			solds communicate among themselves, about what's going on in the physical world that they have left
before. There's also an evidence that could be regarded as more indirect type of evidence, but still
on the same line, in the Quran in chapter four, in verse 69,
		

			it describes those are the rewards of those who are obedient to God and His messengers. And the
transition has meaning it says, All those who obey Allah, or God and His Messenger, are in the
company of those on whom is the grace of God, of the prophets, the sincere lovers of truth, the
martyrs and the righteous, Ah, what a beautiful company, or fellowship. So here it talks about
people who are obedient, being in the company, of prophets, martyrs, and lovers of truth, and this
could apply both to company in the interim period between death and resurrection, and also company
ultimately, in the in the Day of Judgment. So in that sense, he has the, there could be this
		

			contact. And there are like I said before also various saying of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him,
which also gives the impression that there's this kind of contact.
		

			We've just made reference to the interim period between the time of death and the time of
resurrection. Is there this raises another question, in my mind, is there a particular place where
the soul resides between the time of death and the time of resurrection?
		

			Well, before answering that question, it seems that we have to be clear in mind first, that the
biggest problem, when people try to conceive something about the soul
		

			is to try to materialize it, even though it's something beyond material. It's something above our
normal understanding of physical world. And that's why in my previous program, I recall, we
indicated that a Muslim, for example, does not believe that the soul resides in any part of the
body, like the heart or brain, or blood. Because if the soul resides in the blood, and you get
somebody's leg amputated, for example, where does that part of the sword go? In case a person
bleeds, and you have to give him a blood transfusion? Does that mean that some of his soul has gone
out and he's getting the salts of many people who donated that blood. So this is the problem of
		

			wrong analogy, by imagining the soul in a very limited physical sense. However, we find indications
in the saying of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is that, for example, in narration, in our
collection of Hadees by Ahmed,
		

			it is indicated there that the soul is returned, immediately after this to face the accountability
or the initial questioning in the grave. This is one of the sayings of the Prophet that we discussed
in a previous program, what happens exactly immediately after barrier.
		

			In that sense, then you could say that the soul may unite in some way that you don't understand with
the body immediately after barriers.
		

			On the other hand, we find others nourishing other hobbies, like in Muslim, for example,
		

			that the souls of believers will be in paradise. Actually, some of the description indicates that
this will be in the bellies of birds, or green birds in paradise again, let's not put it in a
physical sense. But that could also give us an allegory that this source would be as free as the
birds would be in paradise. The exact nature we don't know exactly is that again, the first to
paradise. This is one thing
		

			that are mentioned also of the souls of wicked people are unbelievers being in some saying of the
Prophet that they are in Hellfire suffering, and others say that some of them would be imprisoned in
the lowest of Earth. Again, exactly physically how we can really understand it, but it shows at
least the notion of, of suffering or, or punishment. On the other hand, in the previous program, we
also indicated that when the person passes by graveyard and greet, the people who are dead This is
that God causes the believers among them to respond to that call, we said that this applies, does
that mean that the souls are only on earth?
		

			See, if you look at it in a very literal sense, it would appear that there's some confusion there.
What are the souls?
		

			Are they on the earth so that when you pass by the rivers, they reply to you? Are the souls of
wicked people down the earth in Hellfire, the souls of martyrs and good people deserts in paradise?
Does that show any inconsistency that says that? No, they are not contradictory. If we approach the
soul as a different thing altogether from material objects that you think of one of the great
scholars of Islam, his name is ignored. He explained it in a very nice way said there is no content
		

			In between all of this, it just like the sun, and its rays, physically, the sun may be located, and
heavens to us are up there.
		

			Meanwhile, you can also talk about the rays of the sun on earth here as sun rests on the sunshine,
right? There's no contradiction. In the same way the soul could also be in heaven, or in paradise.
But it still in some kind of contact, like raise also with the burial place and still can meet with
people in dreams without necessarily contradicting let alone the fact that the soul also does not
need any jet airplanes to travel by, it could sell within seconds, splits of seconds, between Earth
and Heavens. So in that sense, then we can conclude by saying that the main notion that's given in
this totality of saying of the Prophet peace be upon him is that the souls of believers would be
		

			enjoying itself would be in paradise in some form or the other the souls of those who are wicked or
unbelievers would be suffering.
		

			But no specific housing, right talk that you can just talk about,
		

			or just before we conclude our discussion on on the soul and move into our examination of life after
death when they have judgment. But a couple more questions.
		

			As we've been discussing the thought of reading carnation,
		

			across my mind
		

			is the Muslims believe in the reincarnation of soul. No, my understanding that the reincarnation is
part of the Hindu faith, it has nothing to do with Islam. I cannot pretend to have any authority on
that. But my understanding from reading on that is that basically, the Hindus believe that the soul
reincarnate in cycles, so when you die, your soul come and appear in another body. And that body
could be a body of a human or an animal.
		

			If your life here was good, your soul would be reincarnated. They claim into a better life. So a
good human beings and not suffering person. If the person is a wicked person that is solely being
committed, in another human being who suffers or even in a lower animal, I would like to indicate
again and emphasize that this has nothing to do whatsoever with the belief of the Muslim person does
not believe in the any reincarnation with a reincarnation of God in some form or reincarnation of
the soul after this in any shape, or form. Actually, sometimes the question arise in the mind that
if the souls are just reincarnating, it might give them permission that the number of salts have
		

			been constant throughout history where as we know that the population is increasing where this new
salts came from. The Muslim belief is quite different. The Muslim belief is that the number of salts
actually increase rather than keep coming in seconds is,
		

			as we indicated in the first program that we talked about the soul, that according to the saying of
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, which is based on revelation also, that the soul starts coming
into being
		

			while the fetus is beginning, its fifth month of pregnancy. And that's an interesting point, I said,
it hasn't been researched. Some people would say this is probably about the same time that the brain
start developing. We don't know it's a mystery. Why the hobbyist 1400 years ago, mentioned
specifically, the beginning of the assessment. And then as we indicated before, that the soul is
indestructible after that, it lives with the body.
		

			It departs the body but still lives after death, and then it unites with the body again. So the
notion of reincarnation is totally
		

			alien to Islamic thinking.
		

			Now,
		

			some Muslim writers and indeed some Muslims have heard refer to the three states of the soul. Can
you perhaps clarify for us? What is meant by this expression, three states of the soul, okay, the
understanding actually two three terms used in the Quran to describe the soul. And Nuff said, Amara,
when NASA when NASA was not in the three words meaning the the soul that prompt us to do evil
America, and secondly, the soul that is self reproaching that is aware of its sin and regret. And
thirdly, an absolute nightmare, the sword which is at perfect peace and tranquility.
		

			Actually, this is based on the Quran each of this term has been used in the Quran to describe one
state of our existence of our souls. For example, in in the chapter in the Quran dealing with the
story of Prophet Joseph, this be upon him. That's in chapter 12 and verse 53.
		

			It says that the human soul is certainly prone to evil unless my lord
		

			Do bestow His mercy
		

			on that on that salt. Now, that shows then that one state of the sword is a Mara a sword that push
us to do evil. That is, in other words, the
		

			the bad parts of our existence are the physical part that pushes us, or pull us to Earth away from
the path of God, which is part of our creation that you have to resist. The second term is used in
the Quran in chapter 75. In verse two, it's called the neffs. And lo wema, the self reproaching
soul, it has to meaning actually, it could mean the soul of both believers and unbelievers, because
the word lawanna could also mean a soul that does not stay in one state, that we are always changing
		

			the the moods and the attitudes, the goodness or even us seem to rotate. So it could apply to both.
But some interpreters also understand lawanna or self reproaching, as a soul, which is more aware of
its mistakes of its sin and try to correct itself like some psychologists talk for example, about
the super ego, what what is it and what is appropriate to do?
		

			The third, and the ultimate stage of the soul, the perfect stage where the soul should really strive
at is enough. So what are the peace, the peaceful
		

			soul, this has mentioned also in the Quran in chapter 89.
		

			In verses 27, to
		

			30, this was an interesting one, because maybe I should go to directly.
		

			It says,
		

			to the righteous soul, a peaceful soul, will be said, all you saw in complete trust and
satisfaction, come back you to your Lord, well pleased thyself that is you are pleased as a soul,
and well pleasing unto him unto God, enter you, then among my devotees, he enter you, my paradise.
So this is the ultimate and most perfect state of the three states of
		

			that. Yes, thank you very much. I'd like to move now into our examination of the Day of Judgment.
And first of all, I wonder if perhaps you might,
		

			for the purposes of clarity in our discussion, which follows give us some explanation of the meaning
of a day of judgment and some indication of its place in Muslim beliefs. Well, according to Muslim
belief, this the world, the physical world as we know it,
		

			today, will come to an end sometimes that this life on earth will not just continue perpetually,
endlessly, that someday there will be upheavals, in nature. And we come to discuss that later if you
want to raise questions on that. And the whole world as we know it today will destroy that all those
who are remaining living the time will eventually die. And then after that, all those who died from
the beginning of creation until the day of judgment, or until the end of the life on earth will
resurrect again.
		

			They will face the accountability before God and then they will be rewarded with paradise or
Hellfire depending on their belief and righteous
		

			God but of course, the grace of God is given to those who are strong in terms of their belief and
good deeds to earn it.
		

			The importance of the second part of the question, how important it is, it is very important in
fact, any person who claim to be a Muslim, would deny or reject the notion of life after this and
here after he cannot be regarded as a Muslim, it is one of the fundamentals or pillars of faith.
		

			The reason behind that are one of the possible human reasons that we can understand is related to
the role of the human on Earth, that we are created here on Earth as responsible being. And the
Quran makes it clear that you are not created here for no purpose or just as a sport that
		

			has no aim in this life. More particularly in the Quran in chapter 23, verses one 16th through 116.
It says,
		

			Did you think that we that God had created you in jest, or in vain, or with no purpose for no
serious purpose, and that you would not be brought back to us, therefore exalted to be God, the
king, the reality? There is no god but He Lord of the Throne of honor
		

			So that the whole notion even of our mission on earth hinges on this whole notion of punishment and
reward, in fact, the Quran just to get you to complete the answer in a way of indicating what does
the Muslim understand by the day of judgment as a term, there are alternative terms, in fact that
appear in the Quran for the judgment. And perhaps if I go through a few of them, you can get the
feeling a little better. It's also called the Day of Resurrection. That's in chapter 30, verse 56,
it's called the hour, the hour, important, our lesson chapter 21, verse one, Chapter 22, verse one,
it's called also the hereafter.
		

			In chapter 87, it's called the day of reckoning.
		

			And in chapter
		

			it is called the day of accountability. And as in chapter 14, verse 27, the day of meeting Tilak,
and chapter 14, verse 15, it's called the Day of Gathering. That's where all the people who lived on
earth will be gathered again, and 64. Nine, it's called the day of heroes are coming out in 5042.
The overwhelming, that's in chapter 79, versus
		

			5034, and 35. That is, because it overwhelms everybody, because of the horror and the fear and the,
		

			you know, the difficulty faced by many people, it's called also the death knell and chapter 80.
Because of the template, or the blowing in the template, it's called also the revealer. Because all
the truth would be revealed on that day. And also in chapter 15, verse 34, it's called also the day
of eternity Yama, they have eternity, something that would be the Harbinger or just the beginning
		

			of life that is constant eternity. For the humans.
		

			We only have about two minutes left on today's program. So we're not going to be able to finish our
examination of this left, come back next week and finish it off. But before we close up today's
program, like to talk a bit about the question of resurrection,
		

			with the resurrection, the resurrection of the just the soul, or the resurrection of the body, or a
combination, and if it is the resurrection of the physical flesh body as we know it, how then can we
cannot be accounted for when you know, we, we know that the body when when when we die, it ceases to
exist, we could probably have time for the first question on the Okay, that is the weather that is
actually the resurrection is by body and soul or both. According to the Quran, it is both body and
soul. This has been emphasized a great deal. And in fact, the net confusion that arise in the minds
of many people is that
		

			when the Quran talks about his reduction in soul and body, they presume that it must be exactly the
same body that we had here on Earth. In fact, we find evidence in the Quran that this may not
necessarily be the case it is physical existence, but it might be a different type of physical
existence, for example, and this short citation, it says
		

			that's particularly in chapter 56 and verse 60. On
		

			we have decreed death, to be your common law. And we are not to be frustrated from changing your
forms and creating you again, in forms that, you know not. In other words, God is able to create us
recreate us in different physical form that then that we had here on Earth, but it is both physical
and spiritual.
		

			This is raising many many interesting questions. We want to get into those questions. But
unfortunately, we don't have time in today's program to be able to do that. So we'll have to come
back next week and develop the topic further. For those viewers of the black horizon program, who is
Islam and focus program who might want to follow us as we go through these series of programs and
don't have copies of the Quran, copies can be obtained from Islamic Association in the maritime
provinces. Brother Jamal, we want to thank you for appearing on our program today. Thank you for
watching. Please join us next week. Assalamu alaikum Peace be upon you.