Life after Death???

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Life after Death???
Anonymous
02/13/01 at 22:45:07
Assalamu alaikum

Can you give me logical assurance that there is a life after death. Are
there any good arguments, articles I can read?
I'm lacking faith right now(as evident) and sometimes find it bizzare
or just too hard to believe(maybe its too good to be true) and think
we're all here by coincidence.
Do jews and christians also believe in Heaven/hell as described by Quran?

jazzakallah khair
NS
Re: Life after Death???
se7en
02/13/01 at 23:01:04
wa alaykum as salaam wa rahmatAllah,

"Belief in life after death is not unreasonable.  The concept of hyperspace in science describes worlds beyond our limited comprehension, entire universes with higher dimensions, laws, and capabilities that we cannot grasp.  In the same way, what goes on after death is in a world that is not limited to the same laws or limits as the world we know. It exists, it is real, but it has characteristics and possibilities that are unknown to us.

The world around us is filled with signs that indicate to us life after death as well.  The entire universe is an ayah, a sign that with reflection and contemplation brings about an understanding of the barzakh.  

Every year the shifting seasons, from lifeless winter into vibrant spring, shows us that life can exist after death.  In the Qur’an it says:
'Then contemplate the memorials of Allah’s mercy!  How He gives life to the earth after its death: verily the same will give life to the men who are dead: for He has power over all things.' (30.50)

We see from this ayah that in the same way the earth is given life after its death, human beings will have a type of life after their death.

Another sign that helps us to understand the concept of the barzakh is in sleep.  Every day the cycle of sleeping and waking up shows us a process of consciousness after unconsciousness.  This makes it easier for us to grasp the concept of life after death, a type of consciousness after the end of our lives in this world.

In truth everything we perceive in the universe around us, if considered with deep contemplation, only serves to enhance our understanding of the barzakh.  Allah has honored us by making the universe full of signs for us to reflect upon to help us understand who our Creator is, to facilitate our struggle in attaining ubudiyyah, and to realize the nature of life and death..."


[url=http://www.jannah.org/articles/souljourn.html]This[/url] is a good paper I would suggest you read.

Re: Life after Death???
jannah
02/16/01 at 02:47:36
Great timing :) We just had to write some papers in our class on this very subject!! Some of the papers were amazing. I'm still trying to solicit them for the website ;)

Here's one I thought was extremely well written and interesting!


===============================================================

The  Barzakh

     Death has been described to us (Muslims) as the destroyer of all pleasures.  No matter what someone's life is like, with death everything ends.  Someone can be rich, young, famous, beautiful, powerful, respected, admired, and intelligent, but this will all fade with their last breath.  There are no events that are certain in life except for death.
 
This applies to all people, Muslim and non-Muslim, alike.  There is a saying that there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes.  After doing some traveling recently I discovered that not everyone in the world pays taxes, so that Western scholar's saying is not applicable to all people.  Death remains, however, the one and only absolute certainty in the events of everyone's life.  It was a certainty for the billions who have lived before us and will be a certainty for any human being to come.
   
 If we analyze the way we spend our time, most of us, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, spend the majority of our time preparing for things other than death.  Most of us work or study, and while these things are good, they are all in preparation for something other than death-something that is, therefore, uncertain.  These energies that we spend on these things that we are not certain we will ever be able to attain are energies not spent in preparation for the one thing that we know is certain.  It is not logical nor advocated by Islam that one puts aside all matters of the Dunya and work solely for the Hereafter because we live in the Dunya.  There needs to be a proper balance.  And that is the daily Jihad that every Muslim conscious of his/her Islam strives to bring about.  (A balance does not mean an equal amount of hours.  A proper balance may mean two thirds of one's time preparing for death and the other third tending to worldly affairs.)

Depending on the Niyya of the individual, however, work and studying may be a form of ibada.  We know that due to Allah's overwhelming mercy He rewards his servants generously, and that a man who works to support his family or a woman who works in her home to take care of her children are sometimes given great rewards for these seemingly mundane activities.  
   
 In the Quran Allah tells us that He has created Death and Life.  It is not merely coincidence that Death is placed first in the list, as we know the Quran is a miracle with a reason behind its chronology and everything else, even its phonetics.  We know and believe as Muslims that after our death we will be judged according to the manner in which we chose to conduct our lives, and so life is really a preparation for death.  We also know from the explicit aya in the Quran that mankind and jinn were created for the sole purpose of fulfilling ubudiyya.  When we live in accordance to the purpose for which we were created, we are also preparing for our death.  
   
 This life is finite and the next life is infinite, so even logical deduction leads us to understand that time spent on things for the next life are more worthwhile and valuable than things for this life.  Most people will never live to reach the age of 100, but let's even suppose that most do.  Even if people lived to be 200, or 500 years, when divided by infinity, we still get zero as a value.  So the time spent in this life, even mathematically, is Nothing, when considering that the "lifespan" of a person's soul is eternal.  This is something that Muslims fully accept, but it is easy to forget in the shuffle and business of this life, especially with the Shaitan and nafs-al-lawwama promoting this forgetfulness, or worse, a conscious disregard for this truth.  At the same time, however, there is the nafs-al-ammara that is inclined toward good things.  Most importantly, Allah, the King, the High, and the All-Powerful, is helpful towards His servants and aids them in their struggle to be obedient to Him.

     In the Quran, which Allah sent down as a guidance and mercy to all humanity, He tells us that every soul shall taste of death.  The word taste is very important to note here, as the connotation is that death is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end.  Death is our passageway (or "wormhole" as some prefer to call it) to the Hereafter.  With death, our consciousness of the reality of ourselves and the greater world with all of its dimensions becomes clear to us.  We no longer are limited to the vision of our four-dimensional universe eyes and the hearing of our four-dimensional universe ears, but are able to perceive things that were always there, but that before we accepted on belief alone.
 
   When someone breathes his or her last breath, the new awareness immediately starts to take effect, and the first thing that will happen is that the angels will come to remove the soul from the body.  Depending on the person, this may either be a very pleasant experience, or it may be a horrifying experience.  If the person conducted his/her life in a proper manner and Allah is pleased with this individual, the angels will be beautiful, pleasant-smelling, gentle creatures.  There is always some discomfort associated with the removal of the soul from the body, but it is not excruciating pain.  It is likened to water coming out of a narrow tube, there is some pressure but comfort after.  If the person conducted his/her life in an improper manner and Allah is not pleased with this individual, the angels will be terrible-looking, bad-smelling, harsh creatures.  The rest of the time spent in the grave and then on the day of Judgement and then in the final abode is similar in that it varies on the taqwa the person worked for in the dunya.  May Allah save us from the punishment of this life, the grave, and the Hereafter, Ameen.


Re: Life after Death???
Muhi03
02/22/01 at 10:58:49
Assalam
wow this posting stuff is pretty kewl... but to the topic.
you have to have assurance in life after death... that is what we totally live for.. thats what half of the Qur'an talks about.. jannah and hell!.
if u want reference about this look i the Quran...
Surah 55 and 56. Surah Rahman and Wa'qiah. it talks about the good and the bad. about the pleasures you will recieve, and the punishments, it all depends on this life.

PE@CE OUT to all
Re: Life after Death???
chachi
02/23/01 at 19:38:08

God is Beauty akhi
God is Truth
 In a world without god there would be no beauty
eg entropy and no truth either because everything would be in chaos ...order arises out of truth..therefore something must be maintaining order in the universe

in addition in a universe where material exists where do extraodinary people come from? where do they create ideas? the belief that knowledge progresses by the 'scientific method' is only part of the truth..how could a muslim scientist living in baghdad in the 1100's know that splitting the atom would cause a explosion severe enough to destroy the entire city? (see the crusades by bamber macgascoine)
ideas arise sometimes independent of their material therefore there must be something that we are not aware of that means humans know more than they should


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