¶ Door Number Nineteen
¶ Death
¶ “Sleep is the brother of death.”
In ancient Greek religions, which were built by Prophets sent to Greece still upon the Noahic Covenant, Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death) were brothers. Once again proving that all religions stem from the same source, we present to you this narration where Prophet Mohammed (PBUH & His Family) said:
“Sleep is the brother of death.”
Death is painful for it means separation from loved ones. Death is a permanent sleep from which one does not wake up again in the same body. Death is also frightening, for in this world people do not have memories of where they came from and so they do not know what to expect when they go. In 2017, I had spoken with Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace) about a woman who is very special to me, Lady Layla (PBUH) who was told that she had a life-threatening disease and could possibly die.
I said, “Waqar’s mother has cancer. This matter has caused me to weep so much, for this woman is the purest that can be, and she is pitiful.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “There is no God except for God. Have they given her a dose of chemotherapy?”
I said, “No, they are saying that she has to undergo an operation in order to remove the cancer, then they shall see if it has spread or not.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Where was the disease found?”
I said, “In her kidney, it is four centimeters. She is saying she does not want to die before she sees you, but she submits to the will of God.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “There is no power nor might except by God. That is the will of God.”
I said, “Yes.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Let her depend on God, the Exalted, and undergo the operation and we shall see afterwards how far the disease spread.”
I said, “Would the protein cure that you gave me work on her?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “No, but she must refrain from eating meat for the rest of her life. When is the appointment for the operation?”
I said, “In three weeks.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “God-willing. My son, place your hand on the location of the disease and pray for her that God cures her by the Glory of Mohammed (PBUH & His Family) with his Lord, and by the Glory of Mary (PBUH) with her Lord. Pray for her humbly before your Lord.”
I did exactly as the Imam (From Him is Peace) had requested from me to do and indeed the operation was successful, and it is 2022 and Lady Layla (PBUH) is as healthy as ever, and the cancer did not return. Even though death was ordained for this woman, and it was the initial plan of God that she passes away of cancer, her faith in us, love for us and desire to see the Imam (From Him is Peace) caused death to be pushed away from her and her life to be prolonged. History is filled with examples of lives being prolonged or changes happening in terms of appointed times of death. In the narrations, Adam (PBUH) had given David (PBUH) from the years of his life and Jesus (PBUH) had brought back Lazarus from the dead and the Prophets and Messengers and Imams (PBUT) cured a great many people from terminal illnesses.
¶ “Death Is to Awaken From a Dream”
Traditionally, the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam especially, have taught that death is a very frightening event. There exist many traditions in Islam which describe the journey of the soul from the moment of death until the moment the body is buried. They describe a soul which is terrified and frantically watching as family and friends place the body into the ground. Once in the ground, the soul goes through questioning by terrible angels of the grave, and it undergoes all kinds of terror if it is a sinner. The grave would literally become a minor hell for sinners and a minor paradise for the believers and the souls remain there in the grave until the Day of Judgment, accompanying their bodies. A good book to read about this topic in order to understand Sunni Muslim views on life after death would be The Spectacle of Death by Khwaja Muhammad Islam, and for a Shiite Muslim view on life after death one can read Journey to the Unseen World by Najafi Quchani. Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace) has said that most of that is all false and that these are lies attributed to Prophet Mohammed and his Family (From Them is Peace). He describes the process of death and rebirth as simply falling asleep and waking up.
Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace) said, “The closest description of this world is a dream. Death is to awaken a person from this dream. ‘And your sight today is iron!’ ”
I said, “Then, at the time of death, we will awaken as we awaken from sleep?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Exactly. It is as if you are changing your clothes.”
I said, “And we shall find ourselves in another body?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Exactly.”
I said, “Is it a physical body, a human body?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “As for the type of body, it all depends on the person.”
I said, “So all these matters, of traveling after death towards a light, or the punishment of the grave, or the angels of torment, Munkar and Nakeer, etc. do not exist?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) replied, “There is no such thing as the torment of the grave.”
So I said, “Then it is just basically waking up.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) replied, “When this body expires, just like any other product that exists, or any electronic piece of machinery that no longer works [a person dies].”
I said, “And then suddenly you are in a new world depending on where you go.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, good job, it is as I have previously explained to you.”
¶ What Death Feels Like
One day, in Germany, I had to go in for a small operation to remove an abscess. In order to do the operation, they were to put me under general anesthesia. The nurse approached me and injected me with a substance, and she looked at me and said: “Goodbye.” Everything instantly started to black out and within a few seconds I was unconscious. I woke up as if no time had passed, being pushed out of the operating room.
Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace) said to me, “How are you now? Are you in good health?”
I said, “All thanks due to God. I am good now and it was a strange experience. It was my first time under general anesthesia, but all thanks due to God, I am good.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, it was a strange feeling, wasn’t it? It was a feeling similar to death.”
I said, “Yes, exactly.”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “As such is death.”
I said, “Glory be to God.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “But it is accompanied by great pain.”
I said, “Is the pain physical or psychological?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “It is a pain that you see and do not feel, a feeling unlike anything that a human being has witnessed before in his life, only to be experienced in that moment of death.”
I said, “How long does it last, this pain?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “In this physical world it lasts only a few seconds.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) had previously explained to us that the more a person is attached to this world, the more painful death is, because of these attachments. That is the cause of the pain. The less a person is attached to this world, the less pain he or she shall feel at the time of death because there are fewer ropes that are tying him or her to this world. One of the reasons that the believer goes through many trials and tribulations in life is in order that he may become detached from this world. Prophet Mohammed (PBUH & His Family) said it best when he said:
“Die before your death,”
which means to train yourself to become detached from this world before you are forcefully detached from it.
¶ Waiting Stations of the Soul
I asked Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace), “Where are the souls located?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “In the bodies.”
I said, “Therefore the souls are a part of the physical world?”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “Souls are not matter, you can consider souls to be light.”
I said, “So Iblis created matter.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes.”
I said, “And God created lights and souls?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, but God can create matter as well.”
I said, “My Father, can I ask you a question?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Go ahead, my son.”
I said, “You told me that death was like being under anesthetics that make you black out and fall asleep. When we wake up after death, do we open our eyes to find ourselves suddenly in a new incarnation as children? Or is there a type of purgatory, transitionary place that we go to in between incarnations?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, there is, it is like a waiting station, for example, like a train station. But there is nothing in that world that you recognize from here. There is no time nor space nor anything that you would know.”
I said, “Is it just empty space?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Not even that, nothing that you would know or be able to compare to or even feel.”
I said, “And does one appear there as an adult in the world they go to, meaning, here we find ourselves as children, in order that we adjust to this world. There, do we appear of age and fully conscious and aware suddenly?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “There is no such thing as age. Do not compare here to there, concepts are different between the two, there is no time nor space nor matter there.”
¶ The World of Samarat
I asked Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace), “And what is there? The world of souls or light or what?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “You are present and yet not.”
I said, “Present and yet not?”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “The world of Samarat.”
I said, “The world of Samarat exists under the Throne, correct?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes. It is a part of it. I shall give you a description that will make you understand. You are in a city, this city has areas or corners, consider the world of Samarat to be like a city, and it has an area or corner to it that you are going to.”
I said, “So when a person dies and his soul comes out of him, in what form does the soul see itself?”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “It doesn’t see itself. It is only a feeling. It feels itself and almost sees itself but does not actually see itself.”
I said, “And what about seeing other souls?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “It would be as if it almost saw them. It would feel them and know they are present and know their movements and everything, but it would see them like you see right now. My son, I would like to teach you something, do not compare what you feel here, and what your senses are like here, with other worlds because they are different, and the scales are different in them. Only when you are in that condition will you feel it and understand it, the scales of that world.”
So in summary, if there is time in between incarnations, then the person would go to a waiting place, Barzakh or purgatory which is called the world of Samarat and it is a part of the Throne. In that world nothing exists which resembles this physical world. There are not even senses like here. Samarat is an “in-between” space where a soul reviews one’s life, the memories are cleared, and it prepares for its next incarnation. If a person was finished with his incarnations, then he would experience the major death or Mawt and move on to final judgment where he is judged over the totality of all the incarnations he had, and then he moves forward to heaven or hell. This judgment is a self-judgment. The minor death or Wafat occurs in between incarnations. Deeds in each incarnation can affect the conditions and body in which a person incarnates into next. For example, a person who mistreats a disabled person might reincarnate as a disabled person in the next incarnation. The case of Roshan below is an example.
¶ Bodily Choices
I asked Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace), “At the time of death, what is the thing which lives on and/or is punished? Is it the personality of the individual that lives on or what exactly? For example, when I die, in the afterlife, if all my memories are erased, what shall remain of my personality? Would anything even remain from it?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Do you mean in the very end, or in the phase of incarnations?”
I said, “This and that.”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “In the phase of incarnations the punishment is Maskh.”
I said, “Yes.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “The next example is Roshan (Roshan is a mentally challenged child in our community), does he know who he was?”
I said, “Yes, or else how could he be in a state of punishment.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, good job.”
I said, “So the punisher is the person himself through his thoughts?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Thoughts and feelings, no one can feel the pain except for the one going through it. No matter how hard someone else tries to feel it, they won’t be able to.”
Roshan had a previous incarnation as a Prophet whose name was Roshan. His people were going through a great drought and famine and the people went to Roshan in order that he divide the food amongst them all. Roshan saw that the people were many and the food was little, so he decided to exclude from the division of food a mentally challenged person who lived in his city. He thought to himself that the person is mentally challenged anyway and will most likely die, and in fact, the person did die from starvation when Roshan left him nothing to eat. For this God erased Roshan from the Book of Prophets. God made Roshan incarnate today in the same condition as the person whom he had left to die. This is Roshan’s last incarnation in this state. Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace) clarified that in his next incarnation, Roshan will be born completely healthy.
I said to the Imam (From Him is Peace), “You told me before that every soul chooses the body which they incarnate into, so does this mean that Roshan chose the body he is in because he realized his mistake and wanted to punish himself?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) replied, “The choice is there, but how does the system work? It works as follows, the person can choose between several different options, the best of them is still bad. This is for criminals, as for the pure people or good people, the ones whose sins are less than their good deeds, they get to choose the bodies which they incarnate into. And they choose the one closest to them.”
I said, “Do you mean the closest to them in appearance?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “No, son, the closest to the soul.”
I asked, “Close from which aspect?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “The self (nafs).”
I said, “When a human dies, what remains? Does the human himself remain? Or does he just dissolve into one light?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “The human, as you know, is divided into three parts: a body, a soul, and a self (nafs). What is it that dies?”
I said, “The body.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “The body stops functioning and becomes junk and the self passes away, and the soul remains. When those two parts of the human die, the human aspect becomes something of the past, and the soul is what is present.”
¶ Awaiting Opportunities to Incarnate
As we demonstrated earlier, souls existing outside of the physical bodies are for the most part deprived of sensory experience. They almost see, hear, feel, taste, or touch but they do not actually have an ability to see, hear, taste or touch. Therefore, one of the reasons souls seek to incarnate is to enjoy the senses. Hence, you find them all lining up at every opportunity to enter this physical world.
One day I asked Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace), “Will you grant me permission to ask a question?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, go ahead son.”
I said, “You said to me previously that one can summon the souls of the dead through intercourse, is this through opening a portal or through the spirit possessing the summoner? Is it a sudden appearance in the room or in what way does the soul appear, or does it only manifest as a voice? How does it work?”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “It is a method by which souls can be summoned, I shall simplify things for you. When you place a fish or piece of meat on the ground, you see many cats swarm around it and when you place something sweet on the ground you shall see many insects like ants and flies gathering around it.”
I said, “Yes.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Sex brings forth souls because they find an opportunity to return to the physical material world.”
I said, “Glory be to God, the Most High, the Most Great.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “That is how it is, son.”
I said, “So then they have the choice of returning and they want to return?”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “Not all of them do, some of them do, however, all souls think that they can return, they have a belief and conviction that they can do so.”
I said, “Glory be to God! They have a belief that they can. God is Great.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Just in the same way that some humans believe they can do some things even though they do not have the ability to reach those things.”
I said, “Thank you my Father, that is a great matter.”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “All thanks is due to God, my son.”
¶ Multiplicity
I asked Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan (From Him is Peace), “Can a single soul exist in more than one body at the same time?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes.”
I asked the Imam (From Him is Peace), “My Father, when a person dies but his soul exists in more than one body at the same time, and he dies in one of the bodies, does he die in the other?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “No, son. The body that dies, dies alone.”
I said, “What about the maharem? Are both bodies which are occupied by the same soul mehram to their family in each body?”
He (From Him is Peace) said, “Yes, son.”
I said, “Glory be to God, this is a great matter! And the two bodies could meet in this world and speak to one another, and they are, in fact, one soul split into two bodies?”
The Imam (From Him is Peace) said, “My son, I have not yet revealed the truth and if I did speak and if I did find people able to handle it, we would have advanced by now a great amount.”
¶ Sources
- Mizan Al-Hikmah (Scale of Wisdom), Mohammed Al-Reyshahri, Vol. 4, p. 3404
- The hadith states: “When Allah created Adam, He wiped his back, until all the souls who were due to be born in his progeny until the Day of Resurrection came out of his back. He presented his offspring to him, so he saw amongst them a man whose light amazed him. So he asked: “Lord, who is this?” The Lord said: “This is your son David.” He said: “How long did You make his lifespan?” The Lord said: “Sixty years.” So he said: “Lord, increase him in age.” So the Lord said: “Only if I increase him from your lifespan.” Adam was a thousand years old at that time so God increased David forty years.” - Al Bidayah wa al-Nihayah, Ibn Kathir, Vol. 1, p. 99
- The following hadith is quoted in Sunni books, whereby Abu Sa’eed narrated that the Messenger of Allah said: “There is no day that comes upon the grave except that it speaks, saying: ‘I am the house of the estranged, I am the house of solitude, I am the house of dust, and I am the house of the worms.’ When the believing servant is buried, the grave says to him: ‘Welcome, make yourself comfortable. Indeed, to me, you are the most beloved of those who walked upon me. Since you have been entrusted to me and delivered to me today, you shall see what I have arranged for you.’ It will then widen for him so that his sight extends, and the door to paradise is opened for him. And when the wicked servant or the disbeliever is buried, the grave says to him: ‘You are not welcome, do not get comfortable. Indeed, to me, you are the most hated of those who walked upon me. Since you have been entrusted to me and delivered to me today, you shall see what I have arranged for you.’ He said: ‘It will begin closing in on him (squeezing him) until his ribs are crushing each other.’ ” He said: “The Messenger of Allah clasped some of his fingers between each other and said: ‘Seventy giant dragons will constrict him, if even one of them was to blow on the earth, nothing upon it would grow as long as it remained. They will chew on him and bite him until he is brought to the Reckoning.’ ” He said: “The Messenger of Allah said: ‘The grave is but a garden from the gardens of paradise, or a pit from the pits of the Fire.’ ” - Jami`at-Tirmidhi, Book 37, Hadith No. 46
- The following hadith is quoted in Sunni books: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: “Indeed the grave is the first stage among the stages of the hereafter. So if one is saved from it, then what comes after it is easier than it. And if one is not saved from it, then what comes after it is worse than it.” And the Messenger of Allah said: “I have not seen any sight except that the grave is more terrible than it.” - Jami`at-Tirmidhi, Book 36, Hadith No. 5
- The Holy Qur’an, Chapter 50 (Qaf), Verse 22
- Mustadrak Safinat Al-Bihar, Shaikh Ali Al-Namazi Al-Shahroodi, Vol. 8, p. 630
- The word Samarat is close to the idea of liminality used in various fields like psychology, anthropology, religion, and even biology to describe states that are hard to categorize. It is a state of transition between one stage and the next, especially between major stages in one’s life or during a rite of passage. Liminality is an in-between period, typically marked by uncertainty.
- Maharem (plural of mehram) refers to a member of one’s family with whom marriage would be considered haram (impermissible).