Lesson 10 Islamic Faith Essentials – Resurrection Dr Omer Atilla Ergi

Okay, inshallah we're in week 10 should say and it's topic 10 and and we're going to cover the resurrection and life after. So this was the topic that we will do. So when we look at human beings we are on this long long long journey. It's very long journey. Our journey it actually starts with spiritual existence even before birth. So our soul is created even before birth and then we have this stage which we call life on earth and we are there now. You know how when you go to some markets they put you know big shopping centers they have this sign there and it says map it says you are here. So we are here now on earth because it's big big journey for us. That's the second part of our journey. The third part is the grave or we should say barak for example and the spiritual life in ali in that dimension. And then we have the fourth part of the journey. This is Islamic esquetology which is the end of the universe and sounding of the sur which is resurrection. And then we still continue the sixth path part of our journey is gathering which is hashir we call before the divine court where we all will be gathered at maidana hashir all of us will be there billions and billions and billions of us and then the seventh step is judgment of people's lives lives on earth. Have they lived on earth? We will be judged there. This includes receiving the final book of deeds and it also includes the weighing of good deeds against bad deeds. So that is on the day of judgment. There are different views on it how long it will be. They say our prophet peace and blessings be upon made dua for human beings so that it'll be fast. Some scholars say it'll be one day but you know day and we can make the assumption that the day of ya could be 50,000 years because there are some indications to that malik you know he is the malik of the day of ding. So they say that refers to that scholars it could be 50,000 years you know in our calculation. So and then the final destination where people either end up in paradise or in torment in punishment. And this in this also includes you know if we pass the test on the day of judgment with flying colors inshallah then there is crossing of long bridge you know in narrations which is called and and some scholars describe the surat there's also in hadiths as well as being you know this huge bridge as you cross it underneath The bridge of Srat, the gates of hell, the gates of Jahanam. They say that the gates of Jahannam, entrance of Jahanam is on the top on the top of it. So once people enter that sat, some scholars said there are different stations as you cross it and you stop station by station and then you you are held accountable for different obligations obligations and harams as well. You are questioned for like for example you come to station it's station of the daily prayers. So first you answer for that if you pass it you move on to the next and that's how you cross it. That is why some people it will take thousands of years to cross. They said others will be pulled down to hell for punishment. Once they cleaned up they will be replaced back to the spot they were on. There are views like that. And there are also some views that some people will cross it, cross the bridge without even touching. They will fly across it straight into Jenna. May Allah make us one of them. Inshallah. But it is long journey and as you can see we are only in the sec second station of this journey earth. We got long long way to go. So when we say death and beyond as said we are looking at Islamic esquetology. Esquetology is investigating in particular the unseen right. It could in include the angels the gins you know everything that we cannot see but mainly life after death the grave and onwards the intermediary world and the eternal life. Death is the separation of human spirit from the body and transmission of the spirit to another plane of existence. And the Quran says in death and life that he may try which of you are best indeed test us and he is exalted in might oft forgiving it's interesting whenever Allahha cautions us in the Quran with something even if it's punishment it always the last sort of the words you know mer we see it frequently in the Quran in the verses Always it's included that he is the forgiving one. That's very interesting. So after caution comes glad tiding. Another verse in surah says they say the angel of death which we call the Quran doesn't use the term at all. uses the term angel of death who has charge concerning you will gather you and afterward onto your lord you will be returned so the angel will collect your souls that's our true identity not this flesh and blood and when the time comes we will all return to him to our maker the spirit spirit, our soul will continue to exist in what's called the intermediary world, intermediate world. Usually we say grave. Usually we we use the term punishment in the grave. But in reality, we are not talking about the physical grave itself. You know some people may describe it as you know there is some sort of punishment for evil doers in the grave. The grave squeezes you. There are some hadith but some people take these very literal you know physical thing but in reality it is not like that because once person dies the spirit is removed from the body. The body does not feel pain and things like that anyway. decomposes into the earth. It is the spirit that lives on. So when we say there's punishment for those disbelievers, minafuks, hypocrites, people who commit shik and evildoers, tyrants, we mean punishment something like something like you would experience in nightmare, in dream. It is spiritual punishment not physical punishment. But even in dream sometimes you think it feels like physical too. It could be very scary as well. So but it is in liken to dream punishment of the because your body doesn't exist anymore. And another thing argument we can put forward for this to support this is you know some people when they die nothing is left from their bodies anyway. People may burn on fire. May Allah protect us. You know, some people are melted in acid or something like that. It happens, you know. So, there's nothing left anyway. So, it is not the body that suffers in the grave or in bara should say. It is the spirit also. There's an indication in the Quran to you know about the small you know punishment before the big one. So of course we should not scare people in regards to this because Allah is all merciful. Inshallah he will forgive us as long as we believe in him and we try to keep on that straight path. But since the Quran also cautions people, we need to caution people too. First warning and then the glad tiding. So what is berzah? Berzah is not the actual physical grave but another realm another world. Literally the term berah means barrier barrier to eternal life before hashir barrier. So that is why we say it's the intermediate world between this physical world and the eternal world. It's somewhere in between. So it is dimension or world where only spirits exist, not physical beings. But there is questioning there. There may be you know punishment or there may be life in that waiting place which is very similar to Jenna as well because they say your bersera your grave might turn into garden of paradise as well. That is possibility too. So different perspectives on death. Most people are afraid of death. Most people reckon almost everyone. Maybe there's few people that who are not. And when people say I'm not afraid of death, they are only using their tongues. They are not very sincere because when it comes to them, you will see their face and how it everything changes in reality. People are worried. That's reality. but death is reality as well. You cannot escape from it. For believer in for believer in fact afterlife person who believes in afterlife and good person who performs good deeds death should be different. Understanding of death should be different and how we should look at death. First of all it is mercy. Death is mercy. It is blessing and we can prove this very easily too. You know just imagine if we could not die what would happen? We keep on getting old because this world is built with physical laws. One of them is entropy. Second law of thermodynamics. You know we start getting old. Everything you know wears out eventually. And imagine you reach the age of 500, 600. You see, you cannot stand up anymore. You can't go to the toilet yourself. You cannot even eat for for yourself. When you're in that situation, you would wish that you were dead. It's reality, isn't it? And imagine having people like that in your house. your grandfather, your greatgrandfather, your great great grandmother, their great great they're all together with you. They're getting old but none of them could even wash themselves and the population of the world keep on increasing, keep on increasing and nobody could die. It's scary thing. So it is mercy death. Secondly, it is release being released from prison of this life. This life is like prison because where the world is very small for human beings. You know, always use this analogy. if you get blue whale, you know, it's about 150 tons of animal, biggest animal that ever lived, and put it into Olympic size pool, that animal is not going to be happy in there. It's too small for it. And human beings are like that. This world is too small for us. Too small. And and if you were to live thousands of thousands of years here, every human being will say, "I'm sick of this. want to die now. had enough of it." Because what are you going to get out of this world? It's very limited. No matter what you get, as said, you won't be satisfied and it will be limited. So, it is like release from life which is like prison. And then it is also the end of duties because we are not here in on this earth just to have fun and games and that's easily proven. You know if you look at the statistic how much fun do we get out of this it's very limited. So our duties end with death. We complete our mission here. Our duties end and we move on to better world inshallah. That's what it is. And then it is also reunion with the loved ones. Everyone that we love eventually will die if we don't die first. We will lose people. Our mothers, our fathers, our close ones, you know, our partners, everyone we will lose slowly and they will all move on to the other side. And when we reunite with them, it it will only happen through death. So it is reunion with the loved ones. But it's not just that. There are people we love the most like our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the Sahabah you know many other people we will unite with them as well. So it's unique blessing and most importantly the biggest dost do that's Allah subhanana wa ta'ala we will return to him is there bigger blessing than that and the one of the important things about death being mercy too it is an everlasting life for youth and elderly because in this world we will lose our youth. That's guarantee. We keep on getting older, keep on getting older. And when we reach the age 75, 80, life becomes very difficult. The quality of life drops. You can hardly walk good. You know, everything things don't even taste the same anymore. So it is like death when with death you have chance to start from new beginning if you live the good life and is promised to us by Allah subhana wa ta'ala in the Quran as well and Allah is he doesn't do he doesn't return back on his promise when he promises something he will do And he promises us an everlasting life, an everlasting youth. We will be young again there. That that's very clearly in the Quran. So of course there are certain stages that we need to pass as we said like one of them is the questioning in the bza that will happen and we know that from the narrations there are two angels they are called and they will question every human being in Alam when we enter there and what does and nek In English, the denied and the denier. Their duty is just question. These two angels approach the soul, the RO who has passed away. The body is gone. The is still there. And they will begin with three main questions. Who is your Lord? Who is your prophet? What is your religion? They say they are the first three question women. They are the first ones. If someone doesn't answer those questions, forget that forget about the rest. Nothing else will save you. So which means the most important thing for human being is to enter that grave with eman that is the most important thing. Then the rest of the question and we'll continue obligatory acts and and all the rest harams far all of these things but iman comes first. If there is no imam, you don't need to be questioned about the rest anyway. You are the loser. And depending on the answers and life we lead during this earthly life, there are three possible outcomes for person in this barak in this intermediate world. Three possible. The first for the believer and the righteous person, the grave enlarges. It becomes bigger and it becomes window opening onto the world of light and bliss. Which means window will open to you showing you perhaps your place in Jenna little glimpse of it. So it will become large your bersa for believer and person who does good am good deeds. For the second category only three categories of entrance to the grave. The second one is for the sinful. One who believed but was sinner. Either did not practice the obligatory acts or committed you know major harams sins. The grave will tightened. So bera will become tight place and it will become prison like prison place you know. It says zindan or solitary confinement. Solitary confinement huj one little tiny place and you are there by yourself and how long you will be ke kept there. It depends on your sins because time will flow differently for each individual there. For some people maybe within minutes they will look hashid is happening even if they died 50,000 years ago for example but for some people they will actually go through that waiting period. So if kyama is 1,000 years later they will wait for 1,000 years there. So it depends on their situation how they entered that place. That is the second. And the third one is for the disbelievers for people who denied God. For mafics who said they believe but they don't for hypocrites for people who assigned partners to gods to God. The one who rejected God, the the bersza becomes place of punishment until the day of resurrection. So they will suffer during the entire waiting period. They will suffer and that's very scary thing is before the major punishment though because the major punishment on the other side is physical. physical and spiritual. May Allah protect us from it. I'm almost there. I'll keep it short because we started by bit and which is doomsday literally means to rise you know standing up straight to rise up and remain standing. The wordy appears in the Quran 110 times in 21 verses. The concept appears as the last day as topic is the dominant theme in the Quran especially in the last 48 chapters revealed mainly in Mecca. It's interesting that in the earlier days if you look at the verses in the earlier days they mainly focus on things to do with theology to with iman. The practical issues came later mainly. So that's interesting too. So the Quran built the im of people first and then obligations came. So kyama is the cataclysmic transformation of the universe to place of testing to place from the place of testing to place of judgment and reward. So the universe will not disappear. Doesn't mean the universe will disappear but every living being shall taste death. Everything that includes the gins, that includes the angels, that includes every living being. There will come time there will be nothing left except his countenance, except Allah subhanana wa ta'ala. Everything else will die. But the universe will not disappear. There will be destruction. It will transform into it will transform into so this is the the the main view in regards to this maybe the this last one I'll will explain to and we can conclude. The Quran gives picture of kyama occurring at cosmic scale. There are views sometimes people think it is only local to do to do this with this world this earth or the solar system but actually will happen universally it will happen everywhere in the universe when the heaven is cleft as so it's talking about the universe and when the stars have fallen and scattered see it's Not just talking about earth and when the seas are burst man at the earth it came to the earth and when the graves are turned upside down there are some scary verses in the Quran this is in in fetar first verse to fourth and then another verse the day that we roll up the heavens like scroll rolled up for books. So the books pages opened up. It's very interesting description, isn't it? Definition. It sounds like you know after the big bang when the universe opens up like this like book and it keeps on expanding. When the time comes it says we will roll it back up. Everything will be rolled up again. And then the Quran says just as we produce the first creation with the beginning of the universe so so shall we produce the new one. See so creation will reoccur again from the same materials from the universe. That's very interesting too. So will create Allah will create new universe but it's different one different laws of physics maybe no thermodynamics there anymore no entropy that is why everyone will have continuous life there endless life however mentioned this few places before it's philosophical argument will conclude with that most people think that the eternity in the life after in regards to time they assume that it will be linear. It will flow linear. You know the time believe that time flow is linear here in this world. It means like like river it flows from point to point till the end of the universe. But this cannot happen from my view in the life after because if if it flowed time flowed in linear motion it would mean it has no end. There is an point beginning but there's no point there's no end. And if there is no end to time Allah is all knowing. How is it possible that his all knowingness encompassing time altogether when the time doesn't have an end? You know there there there's psych philosophical inconsistency there. So what think the way that time will flow there in the life after it will be it will be in circular motion in circular motion and this is possible because like can give you one example if was to start walking around the earth from the equator it's about 40,000 kilometers and let us assume that am immortal don't die. It's only an analogy. can go around the earth for eternity. Yeah. Keep on traveling because will not die and can do this eternity and the knowledge of Allah will cover everything in seven. It will happen within the knowledge of Allah subhana wa ta'ala because nothing can escape his knowledge. He is and his so nothing can escape. So if we have this model where life will be circular motion there I'm just saying as an example you know it could be like every one trillion years it repeats itself that's it can happen you if Allah wanted but it will still be confinement where the knowledge of Allah encompasses everything. Maybe that's one of the know theological explanations for