Life after Death (Part 1)

Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad (aba)
Review of Religions, July 1996

[ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ]

It is customary for the Head of the Ahmadiyya Community, Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, to hold sessions in which he responds to questions addressed to him. Presented below is the answer to a question which was raised at a session in London on 18 November 1995. Transcribed and edited by Samia Ahmad, UK.

Questioner: People are going to be judged according to their faith on the day after ‘Youm-ul-Qayyama’ (The Day of Judgment). If I die now, am I going to dwell in the grave until the Day of Judgment, or will I be taken to heaven or will I live in paradise? I want to know what will happen from the day of death to the Day of Judgment.

Mirza Tahir Ahmad: I have spoken on this subject at length so many times, that a book can be prepared on this one subject, incorporating all the answers, with additions from different angles. Briefly, I will try to present you with the salient features of this phenomenon of people dying and then coming to a form of life again. I will give you a summary of our beliefs as there is not the time for me to advance all the arguments on which those beliefs are based.

When we die, we will not lose consciousness in the sense of a soul which separates from the body. The soul, which is an enigma for scientists, is of such a nature that when it parts from the body, the body chemistry immediately begins to decay and returns to its constituent substances with no more sense left in the body at all. Is the soul also destroyed? Is it so dependent on the body that it must live in a constant bond with the body?

According to Islam, it is true that in the case of other animals when the body dies, life ends. In the case of humans, when life ends the body dies, not the soul. The soul is only mentioned in connection with human beings not in relation to animals. The body dying or life ending is one and the same thing. In case of human beings the word soul (rooh) is used and this has developed to a degree that it has the capability of becoming independent entity in itself, a spiritual form which can live after the separation. What is the nature of that form? We don’t know much about it, but this much, at least, the scientists have discovered is that energy bundles can survive as energy bundles. Previously, they used to rubbish the belief in souls, but they now admit that what they have discovered leads us to the possibility of some sort of human energy living in an organised form as separated from the physical existence of man. That is what will happen in the first instance. The soul will have a consciousness of some sort.

In the first appearance before God, it will be adjudged briefly, and it will know from then on in which direction it is going to develop. Further development of the soul will require aeons of time, in which it will develop in such way that a body will be created from within that soul and that body will give birth to a soul. That is to say a separation will be made in that existence so that a centre of thinking, a centre of entity, will be created around that part of the soul, which in comparison will appear to be material, but it will not be material. So it is only a matter of degrees.

God is the ultimate of spiritual refinement. So all those who happen to be at subsequent smaller level or a cruder level, cannot conceive exactly the spiritual nature of God which defies form. But it does exist and that existence is proved through the works of God, beyond that we cannot reach. But we have some experience about the soul, here (in this world), which can lead us to believe in a phenomenon which may occur after our death. This is experienced in two ways. One way is through the dreams. In dreams, things happen which appear to be real, but they defy the natural laws of our daily experience. We can walk through walls; we can see things of the past; we ca experience being in countries which we have never visited and yet feel, during the dream, as if every thing is real. We can meet our dear ones who have died and enjoy meeting them and talking to them. As one is dreaming, one really believes that things are exactly as they are happening in any physical form, yet nothing is created. Something like that will happen to the soul but this event will have a quality, not exactly the same, but similar to that of our new identity within our dreams.

The founder of the Ahmadiyya Community, Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the Promised Messiah (as), builds this subject further in his great historic book, The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam by reminding us that it will not just be a dream existence. A new creation will be formed out of the essence of man’s personality which becomes separated (from his body) at the time of his death. That essence will be composed of his views, his thoughts, his attitude, his goodness, his evil, his acts of defiance of the Word of God or his obedience to the Will of God. All these according to the Promised Messiah, continuously make a personality within us. So an entity is born within us which we ourselves create. We create our hell or heaven without realising. But he said, one day some evil person may suddenly be awakened and he would be absolutely exasperated to realise that he has destroyed himself. What he is, is a rotten thing. The good people gradually gain the realisation of their nobility to such a degree that their realisation becomes the very reward of their nobility itself. So, once awakened, the human conscience creates hell for the evil people and heaven for the good people.

In short, the Promised Messiah pointed out that this is not in vain, this is not accidental.

This does not happen in case of animals. There is no such sense of nobility or evil actions and their consequences among the animal kingdom. God has specifically evolved man to such a degree that his acts would create a soul in him and his heaven and his hell would be born out his own actions. They will be given a form by the Act of God. This form will be a new creation and it will be a long time in the making. So when the last call is made, before resurrection, all human souls would have acquired a new form, a new body, a new spirit within the spiritual body, and then they would acquire the faculty of suffering, not the suffering of a physical fire, (it is a different form of suffering). It is a different type of ‘fire’ which we sometimes experience through extreme repentance, sense of shame or sense of exposure of our crimes.

In short this is what is going to happen to us after our death. While we live we should try to create a healthier soul within ourselves, a healthier soul which can only be created if we become true within.

In the end let me quote the words of an earlier questioner, ‘. …. if we achieve a pure heart, such a pure heart will be saved from the hell’, and in the words of the Promised Messiah:

`Fire it is no doubt, but all such people will be saved from fire who have true love of God in their hearts’.

So, the final analysis, purity of heart or love of God is one and the same thing. God bless you.

Life after Death (Part 2)

Dr. Ijaz Rauf – Canada
Review of Religions, July 1996

[ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ]Human mind and intelligence is always curious and looks for evidence for every belief or understanding. Interest in the near-death experience is a living proof of the fact that humans want to know for sure if there is going to be a life after death. What happens to a person when she or he dies? Is that the end of it? Or is there going to be something after this life? Every major religion of the world promotes belief in the life after death.

All religious teachings give hope of life after death. However, one question which remains unanswered is, if we are going to live after our death what kind of life are we going to take? What will be the form of of the life after death? Or how our souls are going to be or which state they will be in when they leave their material capsule (physical body) behind in this world?

Islam has given a beautiful answer in a manner which human intelligence can comprehend. In the Qur’an, we read:

And among His Signs is your sleep by night, and by day, your seeking of His bounty. In that, surely, are Signs for a people who hear. (Ch. 30, v. 24)

One of the Signs of Allah in our sleep, as He has mentioned in the above verse, is a limited experience of the life after death. This theory is further supported by the following verse of the Holy Qur’an, where Allah says,

Allah takes away the souls of human beings at the time of their death; and during their sleep of those also that are not yet dead sleep. Then He retains those against which He has decreed death, and sends back the others till an appointed term. In that, surely, are Signs for a people who reflect. (Ch. 39, v. 43)

Now reading this verse, there remains no doubt in one’s mind where the soul after death goes; it returns to its Lord, and Allah saying that `and of those who are not yet dead, during their sleep’ very strongly suggests that while we sleep for a limited time our souls do return to their Lord just as the souls return to their Lord after the death of the physical body.

Also the fact that Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught us to pray in the following words before going to sleep: O Lord, in Thy Name do I die and in Thy name do I rise. He also taught us to pray: All praise belongs to Allah, who has brought us back to life after causing us to die and to Him shall we return. This signifies that what we experience in our sleeps is a temporary death. Having said that, then what we see in our dreams is a limited vision (experience) of the life after death.

Major religions describe the life after death to be in a form where the soul is free from the constraints of the time and space as we know in this world. The same is true for dreams. In our dreams we can experience things which are free from the time and space constraints. One moment we would be in part of the world and in a blink of a second we could be in another part. We can see things in our dreams which are physically impossible. Similarly we can see the souls which have gone to hereafter before us, like our dead relatives and loved ones. Many people will tell you that one of their dead relatives gave them some happy news or warned against something. Since in that experience of life after death (i.e. dreams) we are free from time constraints, we can see the events which have not as yet happened, but will happen some time in the future. Sometimes people even see the reality of an incident which occurred in the past, either near past or distant past, with full details.

Since our souls are still attached to our physical bodies, the reality of the experience of the hereafter in our dream can also be supported by the fact that our dreams leave a considerable impact on us. Sometimes the effect is for only a couple of days while at other times it is life long and people cannot forget the experience of a particular dream. Whenever they think about it they feel the reality of the dream. The effect of our dreams (i.e. what our soul experiences) on our physical bodies is due to their mutual intimate connection. If our physical body is sick it also disturbs our soul, similarly, if we cry in our dreams our physical body also sheds tears.

Having hopefully built a convincing argument about the experience of life after death in our sleep, I would like to move on to the rewards in the hereafter. There are many places in the Qur’an where these rewards are mentioned, such as:

Verily, the righteous will be (placed) amid gardens and fountains. `Enter therein with peace, in safety.’ And We shall remove whatever of rancour may be in their breasts (so that they will be as) brothers (seated) on thrones, facing one another. Fatigue shall not touch them there, nor shall they (ever) be ejected therefrom. (Ch. 15, vs. 46-49)

As well as:

Verily the inmates of Heaven will, on that day, be happy in (their) occupation. They and their spouses will be in pleasant shades, reclining on raised couches. They will have fruits therein, and they will have whatever they call for. `Peace on you’ – a word (of greeting) from the Merciful Lord. (Ch. 36, vs. 56-59)

It should be noted that just as the dreams (i.e. vision of the hereafter) are subject to interpretation, similarly, what we are told about hereafter needs to be interpreted and cannot be taken in literal terms. The hereafter is described in our terminology so that we may reflect upon what we will receive there as a reward. The explanation of these rewards is given in words with which we communicate and can understand while reflecting the actual description of the reward. But they are not the exact rewards we shall get in the hereafter. To explain this point I draw the attention of the readers to the Hadith of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), where he explains the characteristics of the donkey of Dajjal. He said that Dajjal would make an appearance on a white donkey whose two ears would be 30 yards apart and between whose legs there was to be a distance of a day and a night’s journey. He was to travel on water as well as land was to eat fire and leave clouds of smoke in front of it as well as behind it when it travelled in the land or sea. (Kanz ul Ummal). Today after seeing the trains and aeroplanes and other means of transport we know what Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was referring to. However, at that time when he explained to his companions about the means of transportation that the Dajjal would have, he had to use the vocabulary that people of that time could understand. Similarly when in the Qur’an, Allah talks about the rewards in the hereafter, He uses words and examples which we can appreciate. Thus when Allah talks about gardens, the gardens are spiritual gardens and the reward of the soul will be eternal peace and pleasure and love of the Almighty.

There will be glorification of Allah Almighty in Paradise by the faithful (10:11). There will be stages in the Paradise and it appears that after entering Paradise, the believers will seek Maghfirah i.e. suppression of defects (66:9). They will be continually praying to God for the attainment of perfection and complete immersion in Divine Light and will be continually travelling upwards, regarding each state as defective in comparison with the higher one to which they will aspire, and will therefore pray to God to suppress the defective state that they may be able to get to the higher one. This is the true significance of Istighfar of which the literal meaning is, `asking forgiveness for one’s lapses’.

Thus the never-ceasing desire for perfection on the part of believers in Paradise is expressed in verse: `Our Lord perfect our light for us’ (66:9). This shows that life in Paradise will not be one of inaction. On the contrary, spiritual advance in Paradise will know no end, for as the believer attains excellence characteristics of a certain stage, they will not stop at that, but seeing before him a higher stage of excellence and finding that the stage at which they previously arrived was not the highest stage will proceed further, and so on without end. In spite of all this, however, believers will feel none of the fatigue which is the inevitable result of hard work and there will also be no waste or decay which are the results of fatigue (15:49).

I pray to Allah Almighty that this short article provides some arguments to the satisfaction of the searching souls and serves the purpose it was written for.

SOURCE:   https://www.alislam.org/library/links/00000147.html