The life after death.
Belief in a future life, in one form or another, is also common to all religions of the world, and it is the third fundamental article of a Muslim’s faith. The mystery of the life after death has, however, nowhere been solved so clearly as in Islam. The idea of a life after death was so obscure, as late as the appearance of the Jewish religion, that, not only is there very little of it found in the Old Testament, but an important Jewish sect actually denied any such state of existence. This fact was, however, due to the lack of light thrown upon it in earlier revelations. The belief in transmigration was also due to the undeveloped mind of man mistaking spiritual realities for physical facts. In Islam the idea reached its perfection, as did other important fundamental principles of religion. This statement may appear an exaggeration to those who have been taught to look for nothing but sensuality in Islam; but the several points established by the Holy Qur-án with regard to a future life, while nothing is said about them in the sacred books of other religions, bear ample testimony to its truth. Belief in a future life implies the accountability of man in another life for actions done in this life. The belief, if properly understood, is no doubt a most valuable basis for the moral elevation of the world. The Holy Qur-án lays particular stress upon the following points:—
The life after death is only a continuation of this life.
(1) The gulf that is generally interposed between this life and the life after death is the great obstacle in the solution of the mystery of the hereafter. Islam makes that gulf disappear altogether: it makes the next life only a continuation of the present one. On this point the Holy Qur-án is explicit. It says: "And We have made every man’s actions to cling to his neck, and We will bring forth to him on the resurrection day a book which he will find wide open" (17:13). And again it says: "And whoever is blind in this, he shall also be blind in the hereafter (17:72). And elsewhere we have: "O soul that art at rest! return to your Lord, well pleased with Him, well pleasing Him; so enter among My servants and enter into My garden" (89:27-30). The first of these three verses makes it clear that the great facts which will be brought to light on the day of resurrection will not be anything new, but only a manifestation of what is here hidden from the physical eye. The life after death is, therefore, not a new life, but only a continuance of this life, bringing its hidden realities to light. The other two quotations show that a hellish and a heavenly life both begin in this world. The blindness of the next life is surely hell, but according to the verse quoted, only those who are blind here shall be blind hereafter, thus making it clear that the spiritual blindness of this life is the real hell, and from here it is taken to the next life. Similarly, it is the soul that has found perfect peace and rest that is made to enter into paradise at death, thus showing that the paradise of the next life is only a continuation of the peace and rest which a man enjoys spiritually in this life. Thus it is clear that, according to the Holy Qur-án, the next life is a continuation of this, and death is not an interruption but a connecting link, a door that opens upon the hidden realities of this life.
The state after death is an image of the spiritual state in this life.
(2) Nowhere but in Islam has the most significant truth with regard to the next life been brought to light. No attempt at all has been made in any religion but Islam to unveil the secrets of the hereafter. No doubt in the Christian teaching the corporeal and the spiritual are melted together—the
