ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Basic Beliefs of Islam Chapter 18 : First Phase of Our Existence -life Before Birth We have come in this world from the body of our mother as a new born baby. But our appearance in this world as a new living species is not the first stage of our existence. We were created by Allah Subhanahu taala much before our bir th. Before our birth, we all were living somewhere in the universe as individual souls.

This is what Quran and ahadith tell us about the origin of our existence. The Holy Quran says: "When your Lord brought forth descendants from the loins of Adam's children, and made them testify concerning themselves (saying) AM I NOT YOUR LORD ?

they replied :we bear witness that you are.....(this he did so ) so that you should not say on the Day of Judgment that we had no knowledge of this." (7:172) This verse of the Holy Quran reminds us about a pact that was made between us and our Lord before our birth, that none other than Him is our God. This confirms that we had an existence and conscious life before our bir th. Those who don't believe in Quran will instantly reject this piece of infor mation i.e.

pre-birth existence, on ground that it can not be testified on the basis of scientific experiments. But there are many things which scientists believe but they can not prove them by experiments. At least all scientists believe in some realities which are totally beyond the limits of experimental verifications. Thus, it is true that we can not prove our pre-birth or after-death existence by any experiment but the incapability of proving it by experiment is not the valid ground to deny these facts.

We now know about the development of embryo during the various stages of the pregnancy (i.e., many facts about pre-bir th developments) which no one could have imagined hundreds years ago. Similarly we can never know many facts of our life that occurred before our birth or that will take place after our death. This shows the necessity of Divine books and Prophets which are the only reliable source of such information.

There is also a hadith of the Holy Prophet(sws) in which he has told us some impor tant facts of pre-birth existence. The Holy Prophet (sws) said: "The souls are (like) an army joined (in the world of spirits) whichever souls knew each other (in that world) are attracted towards each other (in this world) and whichever remained distant and indifferent (there) are disinterested to each other (in this world)".