ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Barzakh (Purgatory) Death Death: The First Station Truth about Death: The dislocation or the breaking of the relationship between body and soul is called death. Several examples have been quoted to explain this connection. Some say it is like the relation between a ship and its captain wherein death snatches away the ship from the control and authority of the captain. You say: My hand, my leg and my eye.

This means ‘I’ (my) is something other than the said hand, leg and eye. When you say: I walked, it is true that you moved, but you walked through your legs. This shows that ‘You’ are something other than the limb called leg. Likewise you say: I saw, I heard, I said. In all these three sentences the word ‘I’ (my) refers to a person and this person is the same as your soul, which manifests through the said scenes and which has been expressed through the above sentences.

It is the soul that sees and hears, but through the eyeballs in the eyes and the holes in the ears respectively. These eyes and ears are, of course, the means of seeing and hearing. Soul is a lamp lighted by God’s Might in the dark house of body, which shows its light through eyes, ears and other organs. What is Death? It is like shifting of a lamp from one place to another. For instance, suppose there is a hut having many holes.

If a lamp is placed in it, its light would be emitted through those holes. But as soon as that lamp is moved out of that hut, it will make the hut dark. Similarly, so long as the lamp of soul remains in the body, it manifests its existence known through the light, which comes out from limbs like eyes and ears etc. But as soon as this lamp of soul is removed from the body, all its manifestations also cease and the body becomes dark. This is Death. This was just an explanatory example.

Otherwise… The Soul Neither Enters the Body nor Gets Out of it It must be understood that the relation between the soul and the body is not by way of Hulool (penetrative migration). It is not like the entrance of water in a utensil or of air in vacuum. It also cannot be said that it remains out of body or it goes out of it at the time of death, because soul is essence, not matter. There is no question of its entering or vacating.

The only thing is that its relation with body is such that it remains fully attentive to the body. Death disconnects this relation. It is also obligatory for us to believe that death occurs by the command of God.