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There are different ways that people try to gain knowledge about what happens after death. Usually, Muslims look to scripture (Quran and hadith) for information about life after death. The majority of Muslims interpret the Qur'an and hadith to say that people are only born once and die once (apart from the possibility of the raj'ah, as held by Shi'is, and which is not reincarnation). The standard view among Sunnis and Twelver Shi'is is that people do not reincarnate or transmigrate, and every being has its own soul. Beyond that, it is hard to say with full certainty what happens after death, since we cannot learn about life after death through conventional means. If it were possible to prove what happens after death with full certainty in a way that all people would agree and accept it, these things would not be questions. No one disagrees about what happens immediately when you arrive at Los Angeles airport, because it is known and provable. Life after death is a different sort of subject. While some people argue for reincarnation on the grounds that some young children seem to remember things about previous lives, there are also other non-physical explanations for how they could have this sort of knowledge, so it isn't necessarily proof for reincarnation. What one can say that, if there were a possibility that people reincarnate, the Qur'an did not consider it important to tell us about it. Instead, it tells us to focus on this life and how we are living right now, and not to guess whether we might be suffering due to wrongdoing in a previous life. It also tells us to interact with others equally and fairly, based on the idea that they have come to this life newly, rather than what one might guess about their previous life. Sometimes, belief in reincarnation can lead people to limit themselves or treat others wrongly, due to the belief that they are bearing a karmic burden or something equivalent, and this is against the Qur'anic ethos of justice. As with all things, God knows best. |
The claim of some people that the soul of somebody will be transferred to another person is baseless and it goes against the justice of God. Allah is fully able and He creates for every one his own body and his own soul. Allah's Justice will never put a burden on any one because of the acts of another person. Body and soul of every one will get the results of his faith and deeds and there is no point at all in a person having the soul of someone else. This false claim of incarnation came from non Muslims. Those who claim incarnation need to prove it, and they could not and will never be able to prove their claim. It is just imagination with no evidence whatsoever. Wassalam. |
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There are many websites dealing with similar subjects related to Quran and science, Quran and health etc. You can also consult experts in these fields as well as in Islamic teachings. You can contact WABIL office in London to discuss the matter. Wassalam. |
In the Qur'an, when used alone, the word "nafs" is not really used as a synonym for soul (in the sense of the soul as a non-corporeal entity distinct from the body). Rather, it is usually used to refer to the complete self; for instance, in phrases like "bring yourselves" or "they deceive themselves". (Of course, this distinction can be blurry based on how one perceives the nature of the soul and the relationship between the soul and the body.) This is different from the use of the word "nafs" outside the Qur'an, in that "nafs" in other texts or discussions is often used to mean specifically the immaterial part of the human. Therefore, when the Qur'an says "kullu nafsin dha'iqat al-mawt", it means that all people will taste death in a holistic sense, not specifically that all souls will. However, since the soul and body experience things simultaneously, the soul will also taste the experience of death, just as it experiences other things occurring via the body. If one understands death to mean "transfer from realm to realm", rather than "annihilation", then definitely the soul will experience transfer from realm to realm upon death. Some say that we will have a different type of body as a vehicle for the soul in the barzakh and in the Hereafter. Therefore, if death is also understood to mean "transfer from one type of body to another", the soul will also taste death in that way. So it is not incorrect to say that all souls will taste death; the usage of the word in the Qur'an is simply more expansive than that. Note that compound phrases in the Qur'an such as nafs al-'ammarah (the bestial soul), nafs al-lawwamah (the blaming soul), and nafs al-mutma'innah (the content soul which God calls to Paradise) refer more to immaterial aspects of the human being. |
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