Sadly, for many, the reality of death is unknown; it is thought of as an end. Far from it! Death is a transition from the material dimension to the immaterial dimension. It is a transformation.

With death, the person leaves his material body and continues to live with his holographic radial-wave body, i.e. spirit in the grave or beyond it. In short, death is the end of life with the material body to commence a life with the spirit body. The Quran brings clarity to the process known as death with the following verse:

“Every individual consciousness will taste death (life without a biological body will continue eternally) ...”(Quran 3:185)

Death is abandoning the biological material body to live with the spirit body at the level of waves.

When the brain ceases to function, the electromagnetic energy, which keeps the spirit connected to the body, stops being supplied, causing the spirit to detach and continue its life independent of the body. This is the event we refer to as death.

Since every activity that occurs in the brain throughout one’s lifetime is uploaded to the holographic wave body (as television waves are through audio and visual waves) the person will continue his life as the spirit without feeling any difference. He will live as the spirit and won’t feel any difference in terms of the continuity of his life, albeit for one exception. He will not be able to use his physical body despite being completely alive and conscious! It will be as though he is in a coma or in a vegetative state, whereby he can see, hear and perceive everything that is happening around him, yet he is unable to show any response!

In his acclaimed Marifatname, Ibrahim Hakki Erzurumi narrates the following about death, in the words of Muhammad (saw):

 

“The deceased will know who washes and shrouds his body, who partakes in his funeral prayer, who puts him down in his grave, and who offers condolences.” 

 

The warning ‘Do not beat your chest and cry out loud near your dead, as by doing this you will be torturing them’ is again alluding to the fact that the deceased are able to hear and become grieved by all the mourning.

 

Perhaps the Bukhari collection of hadith comprises the most explicate narrations in clarifying the reality of death and life after death. There are many hadith affirming that the deceased, though unable to use his physical body, will be fully aware and conscious in the grave as the spirit and will be able to perceive all that transpires around him. Here is an example:

 

Narrated by Talha (r.a.):

The day of the battle of Badr, Rasulullah (saw) ordered us to gather the corpse of twenty of Quraysh’s notable men and throw their bodies down a dirty well. As such, the dirty well had gathered more dirt.

It was Rasulullah’s (saw) custom to spend three nights on the field of battle once he was victorious over the enemy. So, on the third day after the battle of Badr, Rasulullah (saw) asked for his camel. We tied his bag to the camel and Rasulullah (saw) began to walk as we followed him. The men talked amongst each other trying to guess where Rasulullah (saw) was going. Finally, he stopped by the well in which we had thrown the corpses and called out to them with their fathers’ names.

 

“O such and such, o Aba Jahl ibn Hisam, o Utba ibn Rabia… If you had believed in and obeyed Allah and His Rasul, would you have been happy now? O slayed ones! We truly found the victory promised by our Rabb. Did you also find the victory promised by your Rabb to be the truth?”

 

Upon this, Omar (r.a.) asked Rasulullah (saw) “O Rasulullah, why do you talk to the corpses who are dead?”

Rasulullah (saw) answered:

“By the One in whose hands the soul of Muhammad is, you do not hear my words better than they do!”

 

As can be seen from this hadith, Rasulullah (saw) is trying to correct a big misunderstanding regarding death. No other hadith can correct the misconception that people are dead when placed into their graves and will only be resurrected back to life on Doomsday. Indeed, people will be as aware and conscious as they are now when they are buried and will be able to hear everything that is told to them, just as they would if they were outside.

 

The third Khalifa Osman bin Affan (r.a.) stood near a grave he would cry until his beard got soaked. Someone once said to him “You do not weep when you hear about heaven and hell but you cry in fear of the grave”. He replied: “I heard Rasulullah (saw) say:

‘The grave is the first station of the afterlife, if one is able to pass this station the rest of his journey will be easier, but if one cannot pass this station, the rest of his journey will be much difficult.’” 

Then he added, “Rasulullah (saw) said,

‘I have never encountered a scene more frightening than that of the grave.’”