THE SOUL (KITAB AR-RUH)

FOR :IBN KAIYM AL-JAWZIYA

What is death? Is it total annihilation? Or is it simply the severing of the soul from the body? When the soul is separated from the body, what happens to each of them? What happens to man himself, the owner of this transient body and eternal soul? Does his consciousness come to an end when his body dies? Or does his awareness continue to live on in his eternal soul? Do the dead feel enjoyment and pain the way the living do? Can the awareness of a living man whose soul is locked in his body compare with the awareness of a dead man whose soul has been released from his body’?
Naturally the answer to this last question is, No! The living are aware and the dead are aware. But there is a difference and there is no way to compare them. Death is not pure annihilation. It is merely movement from one world to another. When the dead man feels the bliss or punishment of the grave, it does not mean that he is alive in his grave, needing food, clothes and so on. Nor does it mean that his soul permeates all the parts of his body as it did when he was in this world. The soul returns to the body again in a way which is not the same as in this world so that the dead man can be questioned and tested in the grave.

COMPILED BY : IMAM SHAMSEDDIN ABI ABDULLAH

RENDERED TO ENGLISH BY : F.AMIRA ZREIN MATRAJI

CORRECTED AND REVISED BY : MAHMOUD MATRAJI

PUBLISHER : DAR EL FIKR

PAGES : 341