LIFE & DEATH
Life and death are intertwined in human experience. The life of any human being is delineated by two points of time: birth and death: a person comes to life at the moment of birth and leaves it at the moment of death. Visiting a graveyard, one can identify the buried by their names, and the dates of birth and death that are usually engraved on the headstones of their graves.
State of Being
The life of a person in its most simple manifestation is associated with the person’s physial presence, with his or her bodily motions: in the ability to move muscles, eat, drink, or breathe. When these basic functions stop, and the human body becomes irresponsive, the person is pronounced dead, and his body is disposed off, and the person disappears.
The human presence on earth is surrounded by two periods of absence: one precedes his or her birth and the other succeeds it. The Qur’an refers to the two time-spans that precede and succeed individual lives as “death.”
“How can you reject the faith in God? Seeing that you were without life, and he gave you life; then will he cause you to die, and will again bring you to life; and again to him will you return.” (Qur’an 2:28)
Death is presented here as a state and not as an event. It is associated with the absence of life and of consciousness. Human life succeeds a state of death and is in turn succeeded by a second state of death before the eternal life ensues when the human being returns to God. The notion that the human being emanates from God and then return to him is stated clearly in the Qur’an:
Those who [are patient] say, when afflicted with calamity: “To God we belong, and to him is our return” (2:156)
Death is the absence of consciousness and effectiveness, and it surrounds human life. Human beings come to life from a state in which they lack both consciousness and effectiveness and then return to it temporarily, before they are brought back to an eternal life. The Qur’anic notion of death becomes more interesting when we realize that death does not only preceeds and succeeds individual life, but premeated it as well. Indeed, the Qur’an refers to the absence of consciousness during sleep as a state of temporary death. For in both cases, God “recalls” the human being back into a state in which the human being is oblivious of the world:
“It is God that recalls the souls at death; and those that die not (he recalls) during their sleep: those on whom he has passed the decree of death, He keeps back (from returning to life), but the rest he sends (to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily in this are signs for those who reflect.” (39:42)
The mystery of life and death is approached metaphorically in the Qur’an. The notion of the returning vegetation to a dead earth, that is to the desert that has been striped out of all vegetation after a long dry summer is the metaphor that the Qur’an frequently uses to illustrate the succession of life and death:
“It is He who brings out the living from the dead, and brings out the dead from the living, and who gives life to the earth after it is dead: and thus shall you be brought out (from the dead).” (30:22)
“Then contemplate the memorials of God’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)
The return of vegetation to the desert during the brief rainy season is a resurrection of a sort. For here one can experience vividly how the green color of grass and small plants emerge from the golden sand shortly after heavy rain pour from the sky. The resurrection of human beings does not take place as a result of heavy rain, but has to await for a moment of time after all forms of life disappear from the face of the earth. At that moment every human soul who ever lived will return to life in preparation for the Day of Judgment.
“The trumpet shall be sounded, when behold! From the graves (people) will rush forth to their Lord!” (36:51)
Still, the mystery of life and death recounted in the state of those who dye upholding the commandments of God and his way, those who dye while defending the principles of right, goodness, justice, and truth. Their experience of death will be markedly different than the one experienced by others:
“And say not of those who are slain in the way of God: “They are dead.” Nay, they are living, though you perceive (it) not.” (2:154)
The death of the martyr is no more the absence of consciousness, but a life more pronounced than the life of the living. With the death of a martyr the concept of time breaks down. Death is no more a stage that succeeds the earthly life in preparation for return to life on the Day of Resurrection, but rather a continuation of life in a different form. This continued awareness and heightened state of consciousness of the martyr is illustrated in Surah Yasin. The Qur’an narrates the story of the man who challenged his people when they decided to kill the three messengers that were sent to them to convey the divine message. He was himself put to death along with them, and here is what the Qur’an relates as to his afterlife experience:
“It was said: “Enter you the Garden.” He said: “Ah me! Would that my People knew (what I know)! “For that my Lord has granted me forgiveness and has enrolled me among those held in honor!” (36:26-27)
The death of the righteous man in the above verse is presented as a step from an earthly life to the eternal life of bliss–a revolving door that instantaneously takes him from one state to another. On the level of human awareness and consciousness, death is the absence of consciousness, and hence no matter how long it is, an absence of consciousness, whether sleep or death, passes in no time. This is true for both the martyr and the wrong doer, as the Qur’an points out:
“The trumpet shall be sounded, when behold! From the graves people will rush forth to their Lord! They will say: “Ah! Woe unto us! Who has raised us up from our beds of repose?” (A voice will say) “This is what (God) most compassionate had promised, and true was the word of the messengers!” (36:51-52)
For an unconscious person it does not matter whether the time of death (or that of sleep for that matter) is an hour or a million year: the distance between the moments of death and resurrection appears so close that one would experience resurrection at the moment of death. In Surah 30, the Qur’an narrates the state of mind of those who rejected faith when they are brought back to life. Their time of death would feel like a brief moment:
“On the Day that the Hour (of reckoning) will be established, the transgressors will swear that they tarried not but an hour: thus were they used to being deluded! But those endued with knowledge and faith will say: “Indeed you did tarry, within God’s Decree, to the Day of Resurrection, and this is the Day of Resurrection: but you were not aware!” (30:55-56)
Timeless Life
In addition to the temporal definition of life and death, the Qur’an introduces different, and to a great extent counterintuitive, definition of life. In the Qur’anic conceptualization of life and death, time limitations and contemporaneous motions loose their significance, and human presence becomes paramount.
The most striking encounter with this timeless and counterintuitive meaning of life and death can be found in Surah Fatir, where the Qur’an asserts the inequality between the state of life and the state of death.
“Nor are they alike, those that are living and those that are dead. God can make any that He wills to hear; but you cannot make those to hear who are buried in graves.” (35:22
Giving the context of this statement, it is clear that the Qur’an gives preference to the living over the dead. On its face value, the assertion seems a sensible celebration of life, and recognition that a living person is more precious to another living being. After all, one cannot speak to the dead in their graves and expect them to hear and respond. On a second thought, the statement becomes troubling if taken literally. For this literal meaning would imply that all living persons are better than all dead persons. But this cannot be the intended meaning of the Qur’anic verse, since it would imply that a reckless person, a mass murderer, or a tyrant who live today are better than Prophets, great leaders, scientists, or innovators who lived in the past.
The only way for the above verse to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the Qur’anic outlook is to recognize that the living and the dead are not used here in any temporal sense. The Qur’an asserts in the verse that life and death transcend time and space. The Qur’an talks here about living people who are, for all practical purposes, dead, and dead people who are alive. A person who died long time ago, but his legacy continue to impact human life today is far more involved in nurturing human life than a living person whose life add nothing to the value and meaning of collective humanity, even worse if his or her life take away from the collective life and make a negative contribution to the totality.
This meaning becomes evident when we examine other verses that stress the importance of responding to the call on humanity to live up to the high moral values demanded by divine revelation. Responding positively to the divine call, the Qur’an asserts, does invigorate life and enrich it.
“O you who believe! Give your response to God and His messenger, when He calls you to that which will give you life; and know that God come in between man and his heart, and that it is He to whom you shall all be gathered.” (8:24)
Failing to respond to human needs, to rise above immediate self-gratification, and to live a moral life reveals a state of being in which the life of the individual is as good in the greater scheme of things as the absence of life.
“Those who listen (in truth), be sure, will respond. As to the dead, God will raise them up, then will they be turned unto him.” (6:36)
A person who fails to relate to the world in a responsible way, and to contribute positively for improving the world around himself or herself, add nothing with his presence to the life around them; so their presence and absence are of equal weight.
A person who, on the other hand, decides to engage the world in ways that will enhance life, by extending his or her personal skills and resources in the benefit of other human beings, transforms their lives profoundly, and makes his or her presence felt in positive and constructive ways beyond their immediate life.
.
“Can he who was dead, to whom We gave life, and a Light whereby he can walk amongst men, be like him who is in the depths of darkness, from which he can never come out? Thus to those without Faith their own deeds seem pleasing.” (6:122)
“Truly you cannot cause the dead to listen, nor can you cause the deaf to hear the call, (especially) when they turn back in retreat. Nor can you be a guide to the blind, (to prevent them) from straying; only those will listen who believe in Our Signs, and they will bow in Islam.” (27:80-81)
As the person who is physically irresponsive is declared dead, so should a person who is irresponsive morally or socially to individuals and events around himself or herself be considered lifeless.
Considering the new insights into death provided by the Qur’an, the event of death that marks the end of earthly life makes life more pointed and focused. The fear of death is no more fear of the conclusion of earthly life, but the fear of wasting life in ways that make the life and death, or presence or absence, of a person of the same order. Death should never be feared but anticipated so as to make people wanting to measure their lives by its depth rather than its length.
~ End ~
The life of a person in its most simple manifestation is associated with the person’s physial presence, with his or her bodily motions: in the ability to move muscles, eat, drink, or breathe. When these basic functions stop, and the human body becomes irresponsive, the person is pronounced dead, and his body is disposed off, and the person disappears.
The human presence on earth is surrounded by two periods of absence: one precedes his or her birth and the other succeeds it. The Qur’an refers to the two time-spans that precede and succeed individual lives as “death.”
“How can you reject the faith in God? Seeing that you were without life, and he gave you life; then will he cause you to die, and will again bring you to life; and again to him will you return.” (Qur’an 2:28)
Death is presented here as a state and not as an event. It is associated with the absence of life and of consciousness. Human life succeeds a state of death and is in turn succeeded by a second state of death before the eternal life ensues when the human being returns to God. The notion that the human being emanates from God and then return to him is stated clearly in the Qur’an:
Those who [are patient] say, when afflicted with calamity: “To God we belong, and to him is our return” (2:156)
Death is the absence of consciousness and effectiveness, and it surrounds human life. Human beings come to life from a state in which they lack both consciousness and effectiveness and then return to it temporarily, before they are brought back to an eternal life. The Qur’anic notion of death becomes more interesting when we realize that death does not only preceeds and succeeds individual life, but premeated it as well. Indeed, the Qur’an refers to the absence of consciousness during sleep as a state of temporary death. For in both cases, God “recalls” the human being back into a state in which the human being is oblivious of the world:
“It is God that recalls the souls at death; and those that die not (he recalls) during their sleep: those on whom he has passed the decree of death, He keeps back (from returning to life), but the rest he sends (to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily in this are signs for those who reflect.” (39:42)
The mystery of life and death is approached metaphorically in the Qur’an. The notion of the returning vegetation to a dead earth, that is to the desert that has been striped out of all vegetation after a long dry summer is the metaphor that the Qur’an frequently uses to illustrate the succession of life and death:
“It is He who brings out the living from the dead, and brings out the dead from the living, and who gives life to the earth after it is dead: and thus shall you be brought out (from the dead).” (30:22)
“Then contemplate the memorials of God’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)
The return of vegetation to the desert during the brief rainy season is a resurrection of a sort. For here one can experience vividly how the green color of grass and small plants emerge from the golden sand shortly after heavy rain pour from the sky. The resurrection of human beings does not take place as a result of heavy rain, but has to await for a moment of time after all forms of life disappear from the face of the earth. At that moment every human soul who ever lived will return to life in preparation for the Day of Judgment.
“The trumpet shall be sounded, when behold! From the graves (people) will rush forth to their Lord!” (36:51)
Still, the mystery of life and death recounted in the state of those who dye upholding the commandments of God and his way, those who dye while defending the principles of right, goodness, justice, and truth. Their experience of death will be markedly different than the one experienced by others:
“And say not of those who are slain in the way of God: “They are dead.” Nay, they are living, though you perceive (it) not.” (2:154)
The death of the martyr is no more the absence of consciousness, but a life more pronounced than the life of the living. With the death of a martyr the concept of time breaks down. Death is no more a stage that succeeds the earthly life in preparation for return to life on the Day of Resurrection, but rather a continuation of life in a different form. This continued awareness and heightened state of consciousness of the martyr is illustrated in Surah Yasin. The Qur’an narrates the story of the man who challenged his people when they decided to kill the three messengers that were sent to them to convey the divine message. He was himself put to death along with them, and here is what the Qur’an relates as to his afterlife experience:
“It was said: “Enter you the Garden.” He said: “Ah me! Would that my People knew (what I know)! “For that my Lord has granted me forgiveness and has enrolled me among those held in honor!” (36:26-27)
The death of the righteous man in the above verse is presented as a step from an earthly life to the eternal life of bliss–a revolving door that instantaneously takes him from one state to another. On the level of human awareness and consciousness, death is the absence of consciousness, and hence no matter how long it is, an absence of consciousness, whether sleep or death, passes in no time. This is true for both the martyr and the wrong doer, as the Qur’an points out:
“The trumpet shall be sounded, when behold! From the graves people will rush forth to their Lord! They will say: “Ah! Woe unto us! Who has raised us up from our beds of repose?” (A voice will say) “This is what (God) most compassionate had promised, and true was the word of the messengers!” (36:51-52)
For an unconscious person it does not matter whether the time of death (or that of sleep for that matter) is an hour or a million year: the distance between the moments of death and resurrection appears so close that one would experience resurrection at the moment of death. In Surah 30, the Qur’an narrates the state of mind of those who rejected faith when they are brought back to life. Their time of death would feel like a brief moment:
“On the Day that the Hour (of reckoning) will be established, the transgressors will swear that they tarried not but an hour: thus were they used to being deluded! But those endued with knowledge and faith will say: “Indeed you did tarry, within God’s Decree, to the Day of Resurrection, and this is the Day of Resurrection: but you were not aware!” (30:55-56)
Timeless Life
In addition to the temporal definition of life and death, the Qur’an introduces different, and to a great extent counterintuitive, definition of life. In the Qur’anic conceptualization of life and death, time limitations and contemporaneous motions loose their significance, and human presence becomes paramount.
The most striking encounter with this timeless and counterintuitive meaning of life and death can be found in Surah Fatir, where the Qur’an asserts the inequality between the state of life and the state of death.
“Nor are they alike, those that are living and those that are dead. God can make any that He wills to hear; but you cannot make those to hear who are buried in graves.” (35:22
Giving the context of this statement, it is clear that the Qur’an gives preference to the living over the dead. On its face value, the assertion seems a sensible celebration of life, and recognition that a living person is more precious to another living being. After all, one cannot speak to the dead in their graves and expect them to hear and respond. On a second thought, the statement becomes troubling if taken literally. For this literal meaning would imply that all living persons are better than all dead persons. But this cannot be the intended meaning of the Qur’anic verse, since it would imply that a reckless person, a mass murderer, or a tyrant who live today are better than Prophets, great leaders, scientists, or innovators who lived in the past.
The only way for the above verse to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the Qur’anic outlook is to recognize that the living and the dead are not used here in any temporal sense. The Qur’an asserts in the verse that life and death transcend time and space. The Qur’an talks here about living people who are, for all practical purposes, dead, and dead people who are alive. A person who died long time ago, but his legacy continue to impact human life today is far more involved in nurturing human life than a living person whose life add nothing to the value and meaning of collective humanity, even worse if his or her life take away from the collective life and make a negative contribution to the totality.
This meaning becomes evident when we examine other verses that stress the importance of responding to the call on humanity to live up to the high moral values demanded by divine revelation. Responding positively to the divine call, the Qur’an asserts, does invigorate life and enrich it.
“O you who believe! Give your response to God and His messenger, when He calls you to that which will give you life; and know that God come in between man and his heart, and that it is He to whom you shall all be gathered.” (8:24)
Failing to respond to human needs, to rise above immediate self-gratification, and to live a moral life reveals a state of being in which the life of the individual is as good in the greater scheme of things as the absence of life.
“Those who listen (in truth), be sure, will respond. As to the dead, God will raise them up, then will they be turned unto him.” (6:36)
A person who fails to relate to the world in a responsible way, and to contribute positively for improving the world around himself or herself, add nothing with his presence to the life around them; so their presence and absence are of equal weight.
A person who, on the other hand, decides to engage the world in ways that will enhance life, by extending his or her personal skills and resources in the benefit of other human beings, transforms their lives profoundly, and makes his or her presence felt in positive and constructive ways beyond their immediate life.
.
“Can he who was dead, to whom We gave life, and a Light whereby he can walk amongst men, be like him who is in the depths of darkness, from which he can never come out? Thus to those without Faith their own deeds seem pleasing.” (6:122)
“Truly you cannot cause the dead to listen, nor can you cause the deaf to hear the call, (especially) when they turn back in retreat. Nor can you be a guide to the blind, (to prevent them) from straying; only those will listen who believe in Our Signs, and they will bow in Islam.” (27:80-81)
As the person who is physically irresponsive is declared dead, so should a person who is irresponsive morally or socially to individuals and events around himself or herself be considered lifeless.
Considering the new insights into death provided by the Qur’an, the event of death that marks the end of earthly life makes life more pointed and focused. The fear of death is no more fear of the conclusion of earthly life, but the fear of wasting life in ways that make the life and death, or presence or absence, of a person of the same order. Death should never be feared but anticipated so as to make people wanting to measure their lives by its depth rather than its length.
~ End ~
Louay Safi has published extensively on such issues as socio-political development, modernization, democracy, human rights, and Islamic resurgence, including eight books and numerous academic papers.
Participated in numerous international forums and conferences, and contributed articles to various academic journals, including the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Islamic Studies, Intellectual Discourse, Middle East Affairs Journal, Journal of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Islamiyyat al-Macrifa, al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Minbar al-Hiwar, al-Insan, and al-Muslim al-Mucasir.
Appeared on numerous radio and TV programs, including CNN, BBC, Monte Carlo, Fox News, PBS, Middle East TV (MBC), Al-Jazeera TV, Voice of America, Malaysian Television, and others.
Served as an Associate Professor of Political Science (1994-99), Dean of Research (1998-99), and Senate Member at the International Islamic University, Malaysia (1995-99). Also served as Visiting Professor at George Washington University (2001).
{ Views expressed by writer are their own property }
Participated in numerous international forums and conferences, and contributed articles to various academic journals, including the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Islamic Studies, Intellectual Discourse, Middle East Affairs Journal, Journal of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Islamiyyat al-Macrifa, al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Minbar al-Hiwar, al-Insan, and al-Muslim al-Mucasir.
Appeared on numerous radio and TV programs, including CNN, BBC, Monte Carlo, Fox News, PBS, Middle East TV (MBC), Al-Jazeera TV, Voice of America, Malaysian Television, and others.
Served as an Associate Professor of Political Science (1994-99), Dean of Research (1998-99), and Senate Member at the International Islamic University, Malaysia (1995-99). Also served as Visiting Professor at George Washington University (2001).
{ Views expressed by writer are their own property }
Muhammed Shariq Khan Lucknow, INDIA
m.shariq_khan@yahoo.ca k.shariq@rediffmail.com k.shariq@hotmail.com
m.shariq_khan@yahoo.ca k.shariq@rediffmail.com k.shariq@hotmail.com
