From one world to another!

In the Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

“Why, but when the soul reaches the throat of the dying and at the moment you are watching –and We are nearer to him then you, but you do not see Us”

(Surah Al-Waqi’a 56:83-85, The Holy Qur’an)

When someone dies, the Angel of Death comes to take his soul, no matter where he is. The dying person sees him, hears him, and speaks to him, but not with his eyes, his ears, or his tongue. How then? I do not know exactly. All I do know is that when he begins to move to another world, he sees, hears, and speaks, by some means which we, the living, do not perceive. Many instances of this have been recorded:

            Ibn Abi'd-Dunya mentions that on the day 'Umar b. 'Abdu'l-'Aziz died, he said to those with him, 'Sit with me.' When they sat down next to him, he said, 'I am the one You commanded and I failed you. You forbade me and I rebelled.'He said this three times. Then he said, 'But there is no god but Allah.' Then he lifted his head and stared. They said, 'You are looking very intently, Amir al-Mu'minin,' He replied, 'I see a presence which is neither man nor jinn.' Then he died.

Fadala b.Dinar said, 'I was with Muhammad b.Wasi' when he was very near to death. He began to say, "Welcome to my Lord's angels! There is no strength or power except by Allah!" I smelled the sweetest fragrance that I had ever smelled. Then his eyes glazed over and he died;' Why do I need to look so far into the past, to the days of the first Muslims? I myself was present at the moment of someone's death in our own time. I was with my grand-mother when she was dying. It was at the time of the Dawn Prayer. She was in pain and gasping for breath, moaning from the intensity of the pain but in spite of that, she kept repeating with great joy, 'Allah! Death is sweet!' and saying the shahada over and over for several minutes. Then it was all over. This is where our job, those of us who are still alive, begins.

After the soul is taken, if it is a pure soul and has relatives in the Next World who are people of the Garden, they come to meet the soul with yearning and great joy. They ask it about the condition of those who are still alive in this world.

The angels then bear the soul from one heaven to the next until it comes into the presence of Allah, glory be to Him and may He be exalted! Then it returns and sees the washing of the body, its shrouding, and the funeral procession. It says either, 'Take me forward! Take me forward!' or 'Where are you taking me?' The people there cannot hear this.

When the corpse has been placed in the grave, the soul inserts itself between the body and the shroud so that the questioning can take place. Then the soul hears the receding footfall of the last of the people who followed the funeral and the earth is leveled over him. The earth, however, does not prevent the angels from reaching him.

Even if a stone had been hollowed out for him and he had been placed into it an the opening sealed over with lead, it still would not stop the angels from reaching him. These dense substances cannot prevent the passage of souls. They do not even stop the jinn. Allah - glory be to Him! - made stone and earth the same for the angels as air is for birds. The Grave expands and stretches for the soul, and as a result for the body as well. The body is in a grave of the narrowest dimensions and yet it expands, because of the soul, as far as the eye can see. We shall continue this journey in the next article “What happen when believer depart from this world” In-Sha-Allah.

Courtesy: An Abridgement of Ibn Al-Qayyim’s kitabur Ruh.