From the perspective of what we have said, let’s see what death is. What is its nature, and what awaits us after it?
The Holy Quran says, “When death comes to one of them, he says: ‘My Lord, send me back! Perhaps I will begin to do righteous deeds that I have discarded’. But no! These are just the words that he says – and, behold, the Barzakh is behind them until the Day when they will be resurrected” (23: 99).
According to this verse, there are three worlds: Dunya, Barzakh, and Qiyama. Dunya is our earthly world, Qiyama is the world after the resurrection, and Barzakh is the intermediate world between these two.
Barzakh (barrier) is the afterlife, the world of the grave, where the souls of the dead are located before the Day of Judgment.
Now, what is death? We have said that our body and our brain are filters that limit our true consciousness. The center of consciousness is located in the “speaking intelligent soul.” The brain filters the contents of what this soul sees, feels, and thinks. It’s as if we are all wearing sort of a diving suit, through which we come into contact with the world around us. So, death is like taking off this suit, after which the world appears before us as it is. Death is a reset of filters.
Imagine a diver in the depths of the sea. He will come into contact with all the things in the sea, only through a diving suit, in which he is dressed from head to toe. He does not touch the reality of the sea as it is in itself. He does not feel the water surrounding him; he touches the plants or fish not with his real hands but with rubber hand replacements (gloves). He sees colors only through diving glasses, and therefore he does not see real colors.
Now let’s imagine that the suit was taken off. Now this person sees the real colors inside the sea with his real eyes, touches things with his real hands, feels how they really feel. Death is like throwing off a suit. The suit is our physical body, through which we come into contact with all the things of the world. This body has reduced and limited our access to them. But here we threw it off and plunged into the true reality, as it really is. This is death.
The Quran says, “You were certainly in mindlessness of this, and We have removed from you your cover, so your sight, this day, is sharp” (50: 22).
When a person dies, he does not go into some separate world that exists somewhere far from ours. He remains in the same world, but the real one, which is incomparably wider. He sees things as they are. He enters the world that stands “behindˮ the things, which we perceive through a diving suit of body.
Nafs dies, not the ruh. “Every nafs will taste death” (21: 35), says the Quran. Nafs is “I myself,” but not the higher sacred “I” as the basis of the personality, which comes from the spirit, but “I” as a collection of my thoughts, feelings, and acquired qualities. That is, it’s such a bag where is everything I have collected in my life. This is my self, this is my nafs.
What happens to the spirit after the death of a person? Nothing happens. The spirit was and continues to be. In none of the verses of the Holy Quran is the spirit mentioned in the context of death. Whenever death is spoken of, the Quran mentions the soul, nafs. The soul deals with death, not the spirit. Yes, some hadiths talk about the spirit in the context of death, for example, that the Angel of death yakbizu l-arwah – “takes the spirits,” but the word “spirits” is used here in the meaning of “life,” that is, he takes the lives of people.
Spirit is an absolutely timeless pillar that is not subject to any changes. If the center that forms our “I” was immersed in time, then we would not be able to feel the immutability, the unity of our “I.” After all, everything changes. At every moment, I have new thoughts, impressions, even a new body because the cells and processes in my body are also constantly changing. According to the data of modern biology, every cell of our body is renewed every five or six years. However, each of us knows that “Iˮ now is the same “Iˮ, that was in childhood. Yes, our body, our consciousness has changed, but the very pole on which all this is strung has not changed. We say, “Twenty years ago, I was this and that. ˮ What is meant here? That my “Iˮ, which is unchanging, twenty years ago, was such and such. It is like a permanent pole stuck in a stream of water. Or a rope on which new things are constantly hung. This is the ruh, as we said. After death, it remains the same; therefore, our “I” is preserved in the world of Barzakh. And in Akhirat, it will be the same. In the world of Akhirat, I will be aware of myself as the very person who is now sitting in the temporal world and writing a book. As the same “Iˮ…
Let’s go ahead and see now what happens when a person has already died. Where is he going? Let’s continue our analogy with a diver. So, he threw off his suit, and the suit is now separate from him, floated somewhere to the bottom, lies there and decomposes. Now, where is the diver himself going? He has to swim somewhere, doesn’t he? He can go up, or he can go down. So does the soul after death. After death, the individual soul remains in the sea of reality, in the midst of the ocean of the universal soul, which has its own directions and regions. And our soul begins to be attracted to that region, to that part, where its own properties are drawn, that is, those properties that it acquired during its earthly life. If it was bad, it floats to Hell; if it was good, then to Paradise. Up or down. This is similar to the skills that a diver uses to swim. If he has good swimming skills, he can swim to the surface, and if not, he will go down to the bottom.
Having died, we find ourselves in a world with entirely different laws, where consciousness merges with matter. Consciousness is matter, matter is consciousness. Such is the world. And therefore, a person can move instantly to any point once he’s there. As in a dream. In a dream, your soul can instantly move hundreds and thousands of kilometers. After all, sleep is essentially close to death; sleep is the “mini-deathˮ, which we experience every night. Quran says in surah “The Crowdsˮ, “Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die during their sleepˮ (39: 42). That is, sleep is close to death; this is the same reality. Saduq’s “Maani Akhbarˮ states that Imam Jawad (A) was asked about death. He said, “This is a sleep that comes to you every night, with the difference that its duration is long.ˮ And from Imam Sadiq (A) it is narrated: inna nnauma akhu l-maut – “sleep is the brother of death. ˮ
Saduq’s “Hisalˮ quotes that Imam Ali (A) said, “During sleep, the spirit of the believer is lifted by Allah, and He accepts and blesses it. If his time comes (that is, the time of his death), He leaves it (that is, the spirit) in the storehouses of His mercy. And if his deadline has not come, He tells the angels, and they return it to the body. ˮ
And in “Amaliˮ of Saduq, there is a hadith from Imam Bakir (A): “When the slaves fall asleep, their spirit goes out and ascends to heaven. ˮ
And in the same hadith, the Imam was asked: “Does the spirit of the believer ascend to heaven during sleep? ˮ He said, “Yes. ˮ He was asked: “So nothing of this spirit remains in his body? ˮ He said, “If the spirit did not remain in the body, it would die. ˮ He was asked: “Then how? ˮ He said, “Can’t you see the sun in its place in the sky, while its rays and its light are on earth? So is the spirit: its basis is in the body, but its movement is stretched. ˮ “Stretchedˮ, mamdud – that is, extended to other dimensions…
That is, what happens during sleep? Look, our soul, our nafs, in the waking state, is rigidly fixed between the spirit, on the one hand, and the body, on the other. And during sleep, this connection, these bonds are weakened. On the one hand, the brain shuts down, falls asleep, and many of its functions stop. That is, the monitor is off. On the other hand, the action of the laser beam of the spirit (ruh) also weakens because the spirit goes up towards the common Spirit. It persists but weakens. And in a hadith: when a believer sleeps, angels in the highest heavens look at his spirit, as we look at the moon. That is, from the bottom up… And then what happens to the soul? As if left to itself, it sets off on a voyage across the boundless ocean of the World Soul.
I mean the rational soul. And the vegetative and animal souls remain in the body because in a dream we grow, our body still works. There is just no thinking for which an intelligent soul is responsible.
The difference between death and sleep is that the spirit completely leaves the body in the event of death. While during sleep, its connection with the body weakens. Therefore, sleep is, as we said, a weakened form of death. Let me give you an example. Imagine a car and a driver in it. If the car is running, everything is functioning, and the driver sits on the seat, presses the pedal, turns the steering wheel, and drives, this will be an example of our waking or daytime state. Now let’s imagine that the driver got out of the car and went somewhere but left the car running. The car is running, the light is on, the engine is also idling, but there is no driver in it, he goes about his business somewhere. This will be an example of the state of sleep. Now imagine that the car is turned off, does not work, and has no driver in it either. This is death.
Those people who are afraid of death should know that they experience a semblance of death every night. And we also have the experience of heaven and hell in a dream in a weakened form. Probably, each of us once saw nightmares in a dream, from which, as they say, “the blood runs cold. ˮ In a dream, our soul can feel such fear that it never feels in life. Why? Because in life, as we have already said, barriers or brain filters work, which always keep us in a normal state. But in a dream these filters are disabled. And therefore, when a soul goes to the hellish regions of being, when it floats in their direction, it experiences such a horror, which we call a “nightmare.ˮ
And in the same way, sometimes in a dream, the feelings of joy, bliss, and delight are incomparably stronger than in life – for the same reason as mentioned earlier. The soul floats to the heavenly regions and experiences this pleasure there. Now imagine a nightmare that constantly lasts and from which there is no exit, from which you cannot wake up – and you will get a rough idea of the Barzakh’s hell, where sinners go after death. And this is just Barzakh’s hell! In the Akhirat’s hell that will come after the Day of Judgment, everything is much, much worse…
And if a person in this life is actively engaged in ibadat, then his dreams change. That is, if he does everything that is obligatory and, in addition, performs additional prayers, fasts, makes ziyarat, tawassul, reads dua from Ahl ul-Beit – then his dreams themselves change. Why? Because the soul is constantly going to the heavenly regions. Therefore, in a dream, he sees very pleasant things; he can see the Imams and the righteous and smells paradise…
And because of this similarity between sleep and death, a person who died unexpectedly, at first does not understand that he is dead. For example, someone had an accident and died instantly. Initially, he does not understand that he is already in Barzakh. He thinks he is dreaming. I was driving and fell asleep, saw a dream, some other creatures nearby, the whole situation changed… And only with time he realizes that he is already in another world.
So, from the experience of sleep, we can roughly imagine what the world of Barzakh is. “Sleep is the brother of death,” as Imam Sadiq (A) said. In our world, after thinking about something, you have to realize it with the help of material means. For example, I thought I wanted to be in a different country. To turn this idea into reality, I need to buy a ticket, get on a plane, fly – that is, perform certain actions to move my body. But in that world, it is not so. Just by thinking about something, you are there. You saw how it happens in a dream. I thought that I am on the other side of the earth – and I am already on the other side of the earth…
And upon death, the soul is directed to what it is close to, in its properties. One who is in hell cannot go to heaven. The way there is closed. Why? Because the properties of his soul, which he acquired in this world, are such that it goes to regions similar to it in properties. This is the meaning of what we said – in Barzakh, thinking is equal to reality. The reality there would be as you think. If your soul has been thinking about evil all its life, then outside the body, it will rush to those regions where evil rules. This is called reckoning. These are the laws of the world that the Most High established. It is just like in this world: if a person jumps from a roof, his body will surely fall down. He cannot fly up; it is impossible, such are the laws of this world. The law of universal gravitation pulls him down, and he falls.
In the same way, that world has its own laws. Going to the upper light regions is impossible if your soul is weighed down by darkness. As soon as such a person dies, the darkness of his soul will immediately pull him into the regions corresponding to the properties of his soul. That is, to Hell. He will simply float to these regions of being, seeing how this blackness is inexorably approaching him, like certain dawn… This is falling into Hell. And on this path, he will see Munkar and Nakir: their heads are in the seventh heaven, their feet are on the ground. “They plow the ground with their feet, their voices like the roar of thunder, their looks like flashing lightning,” as quoted in “Kafiˮ… “And the intoxication of death will bring the truth; that is what you were trying to avoid” (50: 19).
Conversely, the light of the believer’s soul will pull him to regions with the same qualities, that is, to the light of Paradise.
And therefore, death is a small Judgment Day. As the Messenger of Allah (S) said, “Whoever died – for that came his Day of Judgment.ˮ For the one who dies – the heaven of his false passions collapses, the mountains of his feelings and arrogance turn to dust, and the Qaim of his reason rises to fill the earth of his body with justice, as it was filled with violence and oppression.
Maybe someone will say, “Well, I can change myself there, I can change my thoughts, and therefore go to heaven”… No, it will be impossible because there is no more such thing as “timeˮ. Death means that your clock has stopped; there will be no more time for you. “Change yourselfˮ means moving from one state to another over time. But how to do this if there is no more time? That is why it is said in the Quran and hadiths that this world is the world of deeds, and the future world is the world of reckoning. There are no more deeds, no change in the sense in which we understand it. This does not mean that you freeze there in the same state forever; on the contrary, everything is richer and more abundant, but the laws are different. In that world, the present, the past, and the future penetrate, forming one whole. And there is no distinction between time and space. Moving in space is already moving in time, and vice versa. And so, your clock, when you died, stops; that is, you seem to continue to live forever in the second at which you died. An endless plane of possibilities and states unfold from this second, but precisely from this second, not from the next, and not from the previous one. You will forever remain in the state in which you died.
So, in that world is neither time nor space in our understanding. Or, in other words, there is spiritual time and spiritual space. What does this mean? Imagine that those who sympathize with each other would instantly gather in one place, and those who hate each other would immediately disperse in space and time. That is, the formation of space and time would take place according to mental criteria. Now we cannot even approximately imagine how it can be; we do not even have a language to describe it. These are entirely different laws.
Indeed, in this material world, everything is different. The space and time of this world exist completely independently of our spiritual movements. Perhaps now I want to be in someplace thousands of kilometers away. But I know this is impossible. Maybe I have to be in the company of some people I hate. But I cannot do something about it because the laws of space-time oblige me to be with them here and now. By an effort of thought, I cannot be transferred to that place or time where these people are not. Earthly space and time are indifferent to our mental movements. Whereas in that world, the space is such that you find yourself in any place simply by an effort of thought.
Our earthly time is like the movement of a cinematic tape. We start watching it from the beginning and gradually move towards the end. In contrast, the time of the Barzakh is like if all the frames of this tape appeared before us simultaneously.
As already mentioned, we experience this in part in a dream. You know that in a dream, we can instantly move anywhere. And there is no time there either in our usual sense. Very long conversations and events experienced in a dream take several seconds in earthly time. It so happens that in a dream, a person sees future events that have not yet occurred. Or can relive the past. Because there is no such division…
There are many descriptions of the so-called clinical death; extensive literature is dedicated to this matter. The clinical death experience fully confirms what the Quran and hadith tell us. Usually, people in this state see a tunnel – that is, an exit to the level of the World Soul – and then they see a figure of light; often, they see their physical body from the outside. That dark tunnel with light at the end, from which the experience of clinical death usually begins, is a way out to the level of the universal World Soul, and this is only the beginning of the posthumous experience. As far as I know, none of the survivors of clinical death described the moment of overcoming the border, going to the other side after the tunnel. Because there comes the real death, from which there is no return.
The first volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam” can be purchased on Amazon at this link.
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