What you are about to read might sound unusual but it could be very
enlightened.

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Life After Death

The question of whether or not there is life after death does not fall
under the field of science, because science is only concerned with the
classification and analysis of recorded data. Moreover, man has been busy
with scientific enquiries and research, in the modern sense of the term,
only for the last few centuries, while he has been familiar with the idea
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 so confidently and 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, that is, 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 that opposition, the prophets won many sincere
followers. The question arises, what made those followers forsake the
established beliefs, traditions and customs of their forefathers,
regardless of the risk of being totally alienated from their own community?
The simple answer is that they made use of their faculties of mind and
heart and realized the truth.

Did they realize the truth through experiencing it? Not so, as the
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 the life hereafter, appealed to the
aesthetic, moral and rational sides of man. For example, when the idolaters
of Makkah denied even the possibility of life after death, the Qur'an
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 the 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 it 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.
óQuran 36-78

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

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 father, 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 good and evil deeds.

The explanation that the Qur'an 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 only to be unconcerned 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,
and so forth. Man, having a very short span of life in this world, and this
physical world, also, not being eternal, punishments or rewards equal to
the evil or noble deeds of persons are not possible here. The Qur'an 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 works. 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 Qur'an 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 Qur'an 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, and make fun of virtuous and God-conscious persons.
Such persons realize their folly only at the time of their death and wish
in vain to be given a further chance in the world. 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 Qur'an.

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 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 a life
hereafter. 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 Qur'an 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 shall 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
that 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 what 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 known my reckoning! Would 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.

First, 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 spit of the repeated warning of the
Prophet, the group as a whole has been punished by God, even in this world.

Fourthly, moral, aesthetic and rational facilities of man endorse the
possibility of life after death.

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


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