One truth should not veil another truth…

The external aspect of our practices should not veil the internal, and the internal experiences should not veil the external practices!

I was at a Friday prayer once, the hodja who was giving the sermon was telling everyone they should keep engaging in prayers, even after the month of Ramadan. He gave reference to the verse in the Quran “Wa’bud rabbaka hatta ya’tiyakal yakeen.” He translated this as “Pray to your Rabb until death comes”!

Did not the One who revealed the Quran know that the word ‘mawt’ meant ‘death’ in Arabic? Why didn’t the verse say “Wa’bud rabbaka hatta ya’tiyakal MAWT” but instead it used the word ‘yakeen’?

If ‘yakeen’ had meant ‘death’ then wouldn’t we have to say ‘kulla nafsin dhaikatul yakeen’!?

If Allah has used the word ‘yakeen’ in a verse one cannot change that to ‘mawt’ or vice versa! One may ask ‘I wonder why this was used here’ but one can never cover it with the meaning of another word that Allah has not used, just because they don’t understand it!

The verse “Every soul (consciousness) shall taste death”^[1] must be understood correctly.

Every individual consciousness is going to experience the event through which the body is going to become inoperative and all communications with the world are going to be severed. The individual is going to be fully conscious and aware of what is happening, and they are going to continue their life in the realm of the grave with the same consciousness.

The word ‘akhirah’ (afterlife) is the name of the lifetime that commences after the bodily life in the world ends, and life continues throughout other dimensions of existence. In this respect, the process we explained under ‘inquisition’ in the previous chapter will also be a conscious experience. There is nothing to interpret here, it is very clear.

The individual who has engaged in prayers in the world will see and experience the benefits of their practices against the creatures in this new abode. And this lifetime will continue as such until the Doomsday of earth.

With Doomsday, the life in the realm of the grave will come to an end, and every spirit, in the form of its last state at the point of death, will gather in the place known as ‘mahshar’.

This is the stage when every individual will assess and see, in detail, their gain and loss, as a result of their worldly life and the activities. This stage will be particularly long and troublesome for mankind.

After this, in attempt to escape the hell besieging the earth, people will begin to follow the Rasuls and Nabis in which they believed on earth. With this journey, the believers will succeed in making the transition to the dimension known as ‘heaven’, while those deprived of the light (nur) of faith will continue their existence in the dimension known as ‘hell’.^[2]

Prayer and all practices pertaining to prayer observed by the believers in this world will aid their transition to heaven. Consequently, those who fail to engage in the practices advised by the Rasuls and Nabis will suffer during this transition.

While those who remain in ‘hell’ will continue their lives with their spirit bodies, those who succeed to heaven will undergo a type of transformation where they will be purified from their spirit bodies and commence a ‘luminous’ (nur) state of existence.

This is a concise summary of the knowledge disclosed to us by Allah’s Rasul. This is my understanding and belief and, of course, each will be questioned about their own faith. May Allah enable us all to have faith in His Reality and bestow on us a state of yakeen.

15 December 2002

Raleigh –NC, USA