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      In   the   name  of   ALLAH,   the    Beneficent,   the    Merciful



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             I N F O R M A T I O N    &   N E W S    N E T W O R K

                        MUSLIMS @ ASUACAD.BITnet
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                             IINN ARCHIVE

 File Name: 04.life.death
 Lasted Updated: Sept 10, 1994
 Archive Location: ftp.cco.caltech.edu, login:anonymous, dir: /pub/calmsa
______________________________________________________________________________

Date: Sat, 6 Aug 1994 15:53:53 -0600
From: mahmed@xnet.com (M. Ahmed)
Subject: 4. Life After Death

III&E Brochure Series; No. 4
(published by The Institute of Islamic Information and Education (III&E)
and reproduced with permission)

Bismillahi ar-rahmani ar-raheem
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LIFE AFTER DEATH
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The question whether there is a life after death does not fall under the
jurisdiction of science, as science is concerned only with classification
and analysis of data.  Moreover, man has been busy with scientific
inquiries and research, in the modern sense of the term, only for the last
few centuries, while he has been familiar with the concept of life after
death since times immemorial.  All the prophets of God called their people
to worship God and to believe in life after death.  They laid so much
emphasis on the belief in life after death that even a slight doubt in it
meant denying God and made all other beliefs meaningless.  The very fact
that all the prophets of God have dealt with this metaphysical question of
life after death so confidently and so uniformly - the gap between their
ages being thousands of years - goes to prove that the source of their
knowledge of life after death as proclaimed by them all, was the same,
i.e., Divine revelation.  We also know that these prophets of God were
greatly opposed by their people, mainly on the issue of life after death,
as their people thought it impossible.  But in spite of opposition, the
prophets won many sincere followers.

The question arises: what made those followers forsake the established
beliefs, traditions and customs of their forefathers, notwithstanding the
risk of being totally alienated from their own community?  The simple
answer is: they made use of their faculties of mind and heart and realized
the truth.  Did they realize the truth through perceptual consciousness?
Not so, as perceptual experience of life after death is impossible.

Actually, God has given man, besides perceptual consciousness, rational,
aesthetic and moral consciousness too.  It is this consciousness that
guides man regarding realities that cannot be verified through sensory
data.  That is why all the prophets of God while calling people to believe
in God and life after death, appeal to the aesthetic, moral and rational
consciousness of man.  For example, when the idolaters of Makkah denied
even the possibility of life after death, the Quran exposed the weakness of
their stand by advancing very logical and rational arguments in support of
it:

"And he has coined for us a similitude, and has forgotten the fact of his
creation, saying: who will revive these bones when they have rotted away?
Say: He will revive them Who produced them at first, for He is the Knower
of every creation, Who has appointed for you fire from the green tree, and
behold! you kindle from it.  Is not He Who created the heavens and the
earth, able to create the like of them?  Yes, and He is indeed the Supreme
Creator, the All-Knowing."  (36:78-81)

At another occasion, the Quran very clearly says that the disbelievers have
no sound basis for their denial of life after death.  It is based on pure
conjecture:

"They say, 'There is nothing but our present life; we die, and we live, and
nothing but Time destroys us.'  Of that they have no knowledge; they merely
conjecture.  And when our revelations are recited to them, their only
argument is that they say, 'Bring us our fathers, if you speak truly.'
(45:24-25)

Surely God will raise all the dead.  But God has His own plan of things.  A
day will come when the whole universe will be destroyed and then again the
dead will be resurrected to stand before God.  That day will be the
beginning of the life that will never end, and that Day every person will
be rewarded by God according to his or her good or evil deed.

The explanation that the Quran gives about the necessity of life after
death is what the moral consciousness of man demands.  Actually, if there
is no life after death, the very belief in God becomes irrelevant, or even
if one believes in God, that would be an unjust and indifferent God: having
once created man and not concerned with his fate.  Surely, God is just.  He
will punish the tyrants whose crimes are beyond count: having killed
hundreds of innocent persons, created great corruptions in the society,
enslaved numerous persons to serve their whims, etc.  Man's having a very
short span of life in this world, and this physical world's too being not
eternal, punishments or rewards equal to the evil or noble deeds of persons
are not possible here.  The Quran very emphatically states that the Day of
Judgment must come and God will decide about the fate of each soul
according to his or her record of deeds:

"Those who disbelieve say: The Hour will never come unto us.  Say: Nay, by
my Lord, but it is coming unto you surely.  (He is) the Knower of the
Unseen.  Not an atom's weight, or less than that or greater, escapes Him in
the heavens or in the earth, but it is in a clear Record.  That He may
reward those who believe and do good words.  For them is pardon and a rich
provision.  But those who strive against our revelations, challenging (Us),
theirs will be a painful doom of wrath."  (34:3-5)

The Day of Resurrection will be the Day when God's attributes of Justice
and Mercy will be in full manifestation.  God will shower His Mercy on
those who suffered for His sake in the worldly life, believing that an
eternal bliss was awaiting them.  But those who abused the bounties of God,
caring nothing for the life to come, will be in the most miserable state.
Drawing a comparison between them, the Quran says:

"Is he, then, to whom We have promised a goodly promise the fulfillment of
which he will meet, like the one whom We have provided with the good things
of this life, and then on the Day of Resurrection he will be of those who
will be brought arraigned before God?"  (28:61)

The Quran also states that this worldly life is a preparation for the
eternal life after death.  But those who deny it become slaves of their
passions and desires, make fun of virtuous and God-conscious persons.  Such
persons realize their folly only at the time of their death and wish to be
given a further chance in the world but in vain.  Their miserable state at
the time of death, and the horror of the Day of Judgment, and the eternal
bliss guaranteed to the sincere believers are very beautifully mentioned in
the following verses of the Holy Quran:

"Until, when death comes unto one of them, he says, 'My Lord send me back,
that I may do right in that which I have left behind!  But nay!  It is but
a word that he speaks; and behind them is a barrier until the day when they
are raised.  And when the Trumpet is blown there will be no kinship among
them that day, nor will they ask of one another.  Then those whose scales
are heavy, they are successful.  And those whose scales are light are those
who lose their souls, in hell abiding, the fire burns their faces and they
are glum therein."  (23:99-104)

The belief in life after death not only guarantees success in the Hereafter
but also makes this world full of peace and happiness by making individuals
most responsible and dutiful in their activities.

Think of the people of Arabia.  Gambling, wine, tribal feuds, plundering
and murdering were their main traits when they had no belief in life after
death.  But as soon as they accepted the belief in One God and life after
death they became the most disciplined nation of the world.  They gave up
their vices, helped each other in hours of need, and settled all their
disputes on the basis of justice and equality.  Similarly the denial of
life after death has its consequences not only in the Hereafter but also in
this world.  When a nation as a whole denies it, all kinds of evils and
corruptions become rampant in that society and ultimately it is destroyed.
The Quran mentions the terrible end of 'Aad, Thamud and the Pharaoh in some
detail:

"(The tribes of) Thamud and 'Aad disbelieved in the judgment to come.  As
for Thamud, they were destroyed by the lightning, and as for 'Aad, they
were destroyed by a fierce roaring wind, which He imposed on them for seven
long nights and eight long days so that you might see the people laid
prostrate in it as if they were the stumps of fallen down palm trees.

"Now do you see remnant of them?  Pharaoh likewise and those before him and
the subverted cities.  They committed errors and those before him, and they
rebelled against the Messenger of their Lord, and He seized them with a
surpassing grip.  Lo, when the waters rose, We bore you in the running ship
that We might make it a reminder for you and for heeding ears to hold.  So
when the Trumpet is blown with a single blast and the earth and the
mountains are lifted up and crushed with a single blow, then on that day,
the Terror shall come to pass, and the heaven shall be split for upon that
day it will be very frail.  Then as for him who is given his book in his
right hand, he shall say, 'Here take and read my book!  Certainly I thought
I should encounter my reckoning.'  So he shall be in a pleasing life in a
lofty garden, its clusters nigh to gather.

"'Eat and drink with wholesome appetite for that you did long ago, in the
days gone by.'

"But as for him who is given his book in his left hand, he shall say:
'Would that I had not been given my book and not known my reckoning!  Would
that it had been the end!  My wealth has not availed me, my authority is
gone from me.'"  (69:4-29)

Thus, there are very convincing reasons to believe in life after death.

=46irst, all the prophets of God have called their people to believe in it.

Secondly, whenever a human society is built on the basis of this belief, it
has been the most ideal and peaceful society, free of social and moral
evils.

Thirdly, history bears witness that whenever this belief is rejected
collectively by a group of people in spite of the repeated warning of the
Prophet, the group as a whole has been punished by God even in this world.

=46ourthly, moral, aesthetic and rational faculties of man endorse the
possibility of life after death.

=46ifthly, God's attributes of Justice and Mercy have no meaning if there is
no life after death.


INTRODUCTION OF III&E
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the cause of Islam in North America through striving to elevate the image
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- Reprinted with the permission of World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY),
P.O. Box 10845, Riyadh 11443, Saudi Arabia