An Hour with Ghosts
A real incident
Written in Arabic by
Mohammed-Ali Hassan Al-Hilly
Translated by:
E. A. Nassir
A Most Wonderful Journey in the After-life World
The American housewife Bitty Patterson
God alone knows the fore-future
[A tale about visiting the shrine of imam Kazim]
The Success Is to Follow the Example of Saints
Building the Graves Is a Sin, and Sanctifying Them Is a Kind of Associating Them with God
The Devotion Should Exclusively Be to God, and the Intercession Is Up to Him
Monotheism Is the Way of Success
[About the monotheism in the Bible]
God Is Wrathful with Associaters
Blind Adoption [of Concepts and Opinions] Is Wrong
The Mediation or the Intercession
Giving to Children Their Names
A Conversation between Me and Someone
The Life of the World and the Next Life
The reason why God created man in the World
An imaginary drawing of an ethereal date-palm
Books of the interpreter in English online
Books of the interpreter in Arabic online
بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
The soul of man gets out of the body [by death], as does the chicken gets out of the egg;
the soul will remain alive in the world of souls: eating, drinking, seeing, hearing, perceiving and feeling the pleasure and pain.
There will be no return of the soul to the body [after its departure from the body by death]; because the purpose from creating the egg is to form the chicken; and it is not logical that the chicken will return again to its egg.
بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise is due to God Who created man, and acquainted him with the knowledge, and provided for him the plant, subjected the animal to serve him, and made his life eternal throughout years and time.
Salam be to the master of the [Arab:] sons of Adnan: Mohammed, to whom the Quran was revealed, to be for us a best explanation.
However, I asked of God His mercy and surplus, so He granted to me knowledge and wisdom, and showed to me what is in the light and unveiled for me the secrets of what is in the darkness.
Therefore, I praise Him according to His generosity, and I thank Him for His surplus.
Mohammed-Ali Hassan
Know, noble reader of our book, that my story is not an imaginary one, neither is it a stage-play; but it is a true story and a past incident which happened to me in my childhood, when I was seven years old, and my family were dwelling at Karbala (which is a city in Iraq): when I fell down on my head from a high place in our house, so that I took off my material body and got out of it; I saw then the ghosts and spirits, talked with them as do I talk with living persons and I saw many things with which I wasn't familiar. So I was astonished of my condition.
Then, after staying for an hour in the world of spirits, I returned back to my body, and opened my eyes to find myself in my mother's lap. I told her about what had happened to me and what I had seen in that strange world, so she surprised from that and told my father about that when he returned home.
At that time, I did not know anything about ghosts and spirits, but I thought that these ghosts and spirits, whom I saw, were living persons like us.
Several days following that incident, I forgot about it, and then when I was forty years old, I remembered it in details.
Therefore, I praise God Who showed to me the spirits and ghosts in my childhood, and reminded me about them in my middle age, in order that I should have sure faith and belief.
[: An Hour among Spirits]
Our house was [in Karbala in Iraq] near Al- Abbas shrine, which was later on divided by the street now called the Street of Ali-Akbar.
We had a [Turkish public] bath-house in front of our house, called Shantoot's Turkish Bath-house.
In our house there was a basement, in which there was a high bench about one meter higher than the ground of the basement. Below this bench, there was a ladder joining with the fire-place of the [Turkish] Bath-house.
At that time, I was seven years old; and I wished to sleep on that bench, but my mother forbade me from doing that and said: "If you sleep on this bench, you will fall on the ladder of the fire-place and will die." But I didn't abstain from my desire, so while my mother was unaware, I climbed up the wall and slept on that bench.
It was summer time, and about one hour later I fell on my head from that bench, over the ladder [which was connected from below to the fire-place], so I fainted out and lost consciousness; then I awoke from my sleep after that fall, feeling as if I was in a cage and getting out of it: the cage was my body. So I became one of the spirits or ghosts, and started to jump the steps of the ladder like the sparrow; because my legs had attraction between them, and I could not lift one leg and lower another in order to go up the ladder; and I went up to the basement leaving my body cast on the ladder.
Afterwards, I looked at myself, to find that I was naked[1] , so I became shameful of that,
and looked right and left, searching about a dress to wear and cover my shame with, and I saw one of my dresses cast on the ground near the wall, so I outstretched my hand to it in order to pick it up and wear, but I could not lift it.
Then I saw a girl, sitting at my right side, who was one of the spirits, and was carrying with her some dresses[2].
Then that girl turned to me and said: "It seems that you want a dress to wear!"
I said: "Yes, but I cannot lift it up in order to wear it."
She said: "Today you cannot wear these clothes! Take a dress from me and wear it."
And she gave me a white dress, a snow-white one that seemed to me like a shroud, which I disgusted; so I returned it back to her, saying: "I don't want this dress; because it looks like a shroud in its whiteness!"
So she gave me another dress which was striped and colored, which I accepted from her, and wore … [3] , and covered my shame with it, but it was short not more than the level of my knees;
So I said to her: "This is a short dress."
She said: "Wear it temporarily until I give you a longer one."
Then she said: "Do you want water to drink?"
I said: "No!"
She said: "Aren't you thirsty?"
I said: "No!"
But she brought a cup or a glass, a crystal-like one containing water, and said: "Look at this water! It has a delicious taste like the fruit juice; if you drink of it you will never be thirsty afterwards!"
And she went on encouraging me to drink it until I took the glass from her and drank the water; when I perceived its coldness and its taste, I did not leave behind anything of it in the glass and returned the glass empty to her.
Then she said: "I am your sister, and this is your uncle Ali, so come to greet him!"
I looked at him to see a young man, whom I had not known before, standing at the side of the basement corner.
He smiled to me, and called me to come near him, but I did not go to him and did not wish to speak to him; because I did not recognize him, and because I did not know that I had an uncle named Ali who had died before my birth. Moreover, I did not recognize the girl and I had not seen her neither before nor after that day, but she said to me: "I am your sister"[4].
Then my mother came hurrying when she heard the sound of my fall. She lifted my body from the ladder up to the basement. She sat down on the ground, embraced my body and started to kiss it and wipe out the blood from the face, while she was crying and calling it with my name. My aunt came and sat near her.
Then my older cousin came, and took a piece of wool, burnt it then when half of it burnt, she put it out, and laid it over the bleeding wound[5], then she wrapped it with a head-band, and sat near [that body] calling and addressing it. Then my aunt brought water and started to spray it on the body face, but my body was dead-like: showing not any movement.
All this took place while I was standing, looking at them. So I surprised from that and said to myself: "My mother must have lost her mind, and her thinking has become confused, so that she calls this dead body with my name, and she kisses it and cries at him, so doesn't she see me standing in front of her? And is this dead her son or am I her son?"
Therefore, I approached her and started speaking to her and pointing at her with my left hand. I said to her: "I am your son, I am Mohammed-Ali; don't you see me standing in front of you!? I am safe, I haven't any pain in my head nor in any of my organs!"
But when I saw my mother paying no attention to me, and hearing not my speech, I became sad because of her condition, and I was about to cry!
Then that girl said: "Why are you sad?"
I said: "Don't you see my mother crying and mourning!?"
She said: "Leave her, and go to play and enjoy yourself; for she will give up crying after a while."
But when I intended to get out of the basement, I noticed that my legs did not assist me in walking, as if they were fastened with fetters or tied with ropes[6]; so I said to that girl: "I cannot walk and get out of the basement, and I don't know what happened to my legs, so that as if they are tied to each other!"
She said: "Leave walking on feet, [and go gliding and shuffling], and go forwards like birds!"
But I didn't understand her words, and I said: "Does man walk save on his feet? And how can I go forwards while my legs have been paralyzed and prevented from movement?"
She said: “see how I go forwards and do just like me!"
So I learnt that from her, and went forwards, and left my mother crying. I went out of the basement aiming at the street to enjoy myself with playing in order to forget about my mother's condition and the corpse she was embracing.
But when I reached to the house door, I lifted my left hand and put my four fingers, except the thumb, in the ring of the door and pulled it as I was used to open it every time, but this time the door did not open, and once again I pulled it with my utmost power, and the door did not open, but only my four fingers were cut in the ring of the door, and my hand became without fingers saving the thumb; so I was astonished of that event, and my astonishment increased still more when I saw my fingers floating in the air, not falling on the ground, and no blood came out of them but they were, in elasticity and softness, like the wax at Summer time.
Therefore, I became perplexed, asking myself how I could open the door when my fingers were cut off! And why I could not open it, whereas I had opened it many times before, and how my fingers were easily cut off, whereas they had been strong before, and why the blood did not come out of them, whereas it had been coming out of them for any mild scratch by any mild injury!
Then I stood near the door thinking about my condition, and the girl came towards me and said: "Why are you perplexed?"
I said: "My fingers have been cut off, and I couldn't open the door!"
She said: "As regards to your fingers, put them in their sites on the palm, and they will return as they were! While as regards the door, you cannot open it, so if you like to go out of the house then get out through the fissures of the door!"
I said to her: "Do you mock me?"
She said: "I am not mocking, but I say the truth."
I said with surprise: "Is it possible? And can I do it?"
She said: "Yes."
So, using my right hand, I took my cut-off fingers from the air and put them in their sites on the palm of my [left] hand, and they stuck to it immediately and my hand returned intact again as it was before, and I became glad with the safety of my hand.
Then I put my head in one of the fissures of the door, to find that I had become like water when you pour it through a funnel from one bottle to another, or like the air. The particles of my ethereal body were attracted to each other, and all of them were following my head, like the iron filings attracted to a magnet, so that I was outside the house in less than half a minute.
I looked right and left, and saw people (: spirits) walking naked [in that street]; some of them wore short clothes, so that their legs were uncovered and when they walked in the sun they disappeared from my sight.
Moreover, I saw men, walking in that street, having hoofs like the hoofs of horses; and when they were under the sun-rays they disappeared from my sight, but when they were in the shade they reappeared to the sight; and when halves of their bodies were in the shade while the other halves were under the sun-rays, at such instance I only saw the half that walked in the shade and I did not see his upper part, i.e. I saw two legs walking without the trunk and head until he would come to the shade region when a complete person would appear with his body and head, so I was astonished of that scene; I asked about them, and they said: "These are the genies (or jinns) who have hoofs, but have no feet."
Then I turned up my head to the sky, and saw it cracked and fissured [like the fissuring and cracking of the mud when it becomes dry], in a different way from that which I was used to see it before, and I surprised from that.
Now, while I was standing surprising from what I was seeing, a faint wind passed by me; it lifted me up from my place and threw me on the ground, and went on pushing me violently until I was stricken with the chairs of the café nearby to our house so that I suffered severe pain from that, and stayed in my place for few minutes sitting under the chair[7], and my left leg was outstretched, which I had separated from the right one with difficulty;
Then a man (: one of the alive, not of the dead,) came to sit on the chair under which I was sitting, and he trod on my leg with his foot, so that he increased my suffering and pain, so I pulled my leg and shouted at him: "Are you blind? You have crushed my leg with your foot! Haven't you seen me sitting here?" But he did not answer me with any word, then I repeated the words, but he did not hear me and did not even look at me. I said to myself: "What's the matter with people today that they neither hear nor see me!?"
However, I stayed in my place until the pain disappeared and the wind became calm, then I left my place. In that condition, I was like a piece of paper which the wind carries from one place and throws it in another place, or you can say like a bird's feather which the wind threw between the ruins, so I astonished of that.
My surprise increased furthermore when I felt myself light like the air, and that I could fly without wing; therefore, I raised myself up and became about two or three meters high, and entered the "Al-Abbas market" delightful for that I found myself able to fly. Then I said to myself: "Can I get higher than this?" And, raising myself up, I got still higher, and I came to fly up to four or five meters high.
Then I noticed several pigeons, standing on the sticks of the market roof, and I desired to catch one of them, so I approached them while they were unaware of me, and I caught one of these birds; I was feeling the bird under my hand and in my fist; but, in spite of that, I could not control the bird and prevent it from movement; and, instead, my fingers were cut up into many pieces with its force and movement, and the bird escaped my clasp, and started walking on the sticks, shouting and showing love to its female, while my finger parts remained floating in the air and did not fall on the ground[8], so I was surprised and perplexed from such observation.
Then I remembered what had happened to me when I intended to open the door [of our house] and the cutting up of my fingers; therefore, I outstretched my right hand and took the finger parts from the air one by one and returned them to their sites on my [left] hand, and they immediately stuck to it, and my hand returned to be intact as it was before.
At that instance, one of those birds, near to me, flew, and I raised my hand to catch it, and my left hand fell upon my right upper arm, and it went through it, but it went through the flesh only without the bone, and when I lifted my hand from it, it fused and returned as it was, so I astonished from that, then I hit my upper arm once again to make sure, and again my hand went through it, and a third time with the same result; so that my ethereal body was like the butter in summer when the knife easily goes through it, and fuses when the knife is lifted from it.
Then, while I was thinking, and by chance, a bird flew towards me, and pierced my belly coming out from my back, and its strike cut me into two halves so that it pushed the lower half about three meters away from me, and I fainted out because of the severity of pain[9].
When I regained consciousness, I saw my ethereal body without lower back and legs; so looking right and left, I saw my two legs behind me floating in the air about three meters away, and the air was moving them with faint movement, and my ethereal body was translucent like the egg white[10], so that I saw the leg bones appearing from inside it, and I astonished from what I was seeing and from my condition. I stayed perplexing how to bring my legs back to my body, and would my body return intact as it was, after becoming two halves?
Meanwhile, I saw a man coming up to me, flying in the air; he was completely naked; so I disgusted from him; even I was afraid of him at the beginning, but when he started to talk to me about my problem; he even guided and advised me, I was not afraid of him anymore.
He said: "What have you done to yourself?"
I said: "It is the bird that has done that to me, as you see."
He said: "Leave the birds; because you are a spirit and you cannot catch them!"
I said: "What is the meaning of 'spirit"?
He said: "You are dead!"
But I didn't understand what he was talking about; I thought he meant to say: The bird has killed you by its strike. So I said: "I hasn't died from the bird's strike, but it cut me, as you see, into two halves; then can you bring me back my two legs?"
He said: "They will not come back to you; but you, yourself, can go to them!"
Then he took me by hand, and together we went to where my legs were, and he put me upon them and leveled them with my ethereal body, so that they stuck to it immediately and they were like [a piece of] wax when you stick it to another piece, and I returned to be intact again, so I was surprised from that, and said to him: "Have you any piece of cloth to dress me with, or any medicine to spray on my wound, in order that my lower part will not separate from my body afterwards!?"
He said: "No need for that!"
Then I asked him about his condition, and said to him: "Why are you naked? Haven't you any dress to wear, or pants to cover your shame with?"
He said: "They do not give me!"
I said: "Then go and buy from the market."
He said: "Here, there is no buying and selling."[11]
But I did not understand the meaning of his words.
Then he said: "If I had given a dress to a poor man in the life of the World, for the sake of God, then the angels would have given it to me to wear and cover my shame with. But I hadn't offered any dress to any poor man in my Worldly life, so I remained naked in the afterlife."
Then he left me and went away, after advising me to leave the birds and to go to my family, while I looked at his back and his naked body which was brightening like the crystal or like a metal painted with phosphorus so that it was emitting a light.
Therefore, I surprised from his condition and thought with myself: "Is this man poor, owning not any dress? No; because the poor usually cover their shame even though with a ragged piece of cloth." Also I thought he might be mad, but a mad man does not guide and advise people, and he may hurt them; while this man guided and advised me, and he even dressed my wound, and I didn't find any harm from him.
Then I shifted my attention to myself, to find that I could not inspire the air as I was doing previously, but my lungs were quiet and unmoving, and without inspiration or expiration[12], and I became astonished of my condition. To test that I inspired an amount of air, but when it entered my interior, I felt heaviness in my inside which bothered me, and I expelled it out immediately and got rid of it.
Then I noticed my eyes: finding them do not blink as were they previously, and I could not make them roll to the left or right side, but instead they were looking forward[13], and my eyelids were not blinking, as I was used to before, but I was able to close my eyes if I wished to do that.
I suffered much from the strike of that bird, and it bothered me a lot. Moreover, the smoke rising up from the restaurants annoyed me also; so I descended down and came to fly at a height of two meters until I entered Al-Abbas shrine and circled around it half a circle, i.e. I flew in the shade side, while I could not go to the other side on which the sun shone. So I went flying at a height of about three meters, while people were below me: walking and sitting, bowing down and kneeling in prayer, but none of them saw me. I was avoiding any bird flying towards me by going away from it in order that it would not cut my body once again by its striking.
I would be at comfort when my way was in a dark place or in the shade; I was able to see from a far distance and my vision was keen[14], while if my way would be in the sun, there I was like the blind and could not see anything other than a white membrane over my sight. When I would come to a place with much light, there I could not see anything but only the thing nearby to me. The sun annoyed me a lot. And because the courtyard of Al-Abbas yard was without roof or ceiling and the sun shone on it, then its rays hurt me and its heat annoyed me.[15]
Therefore, I returned rapidly to the house, where I saw my mother sitting in her place, while my material body was in her lap, and she was crying and saying "My son has died!", while my aunt was speaking to her and saying: "Don't cry; he has only fainted, and is not actually dead! Touch his body to see that it is hot; if he had died, then his body would have become cold!"
But my mother replied: "One hour of time has passed since he fainted out, and he has not yet regained consciousness, in spite of that we sprayed water on his face but he did not awake, and we put the hot bandage on his head, but he perceived not; so if he was alive then he would have got up."
When I heard the words of my mother and her crying, I was afraid of that scene, and I said to that girl: "What's the matter with my mother that she cries and weeps and says: Mohammed-Ali has died! My son has died!?"
The girl said: "Aren't you dead?"
I answered her nervously: "No, I am alive, I have not died, and I won't accept dying!"
She said: "Therefore, you will return back to your body!"
I said: "But where is my body?"
She said: "Don't you see it in your mother's lap, and she weeps over it?"
At that time, I realized that that was my body, and that I was a spirit, as did that naked man say: the man who treated and dressed me. Then I became afraid of dying and of the end of my life by the hour of death appointment, and I said to myself: I shall return to my body and see: will it sit up or will it stay as it is; so that if it sits up, then my aunt's claim is the right one, but if it stays as it is then it is dead and my mother's claim is the right one.
I asked the girl how I might return to my body, and from where I could enter.
She said: "Enter from the nostril!"
I said: "How can I do this while it is a small opening."
She said: "That is just as how you passed through the door fissure."
Then she said: "If you determine to do that, then take off the dress and give it to me."
I said: "Why?"
She said: "because you have determined to return back to your body!"
I said: "The dress covers my shame, then how do I take it off and stay naked?"
She said: "Your body will cover you when you will return back to it!"
I did not agree about the taking off of my dress, but she insisted on that, and persisted in her demanding it till I took it off and gave it to her, then I entered into my body from the nostril of the nose; and that occurred as soon as I willed to do so.
And I recovered my consciousness and opened my eyes, to find my head in my mother's lap, and they had bandaged it with a black head-band. At that time, I felt pain in my head, and I told my mother about my story, and what I had seen in my short tour, but she became pessimist of that, and said: "Be silent and don't speak to me with such words, and never do that again!"
I said: "But, my mother, why? It was a nice tour!"
She said: "If you repeat such a tour, you will die!"
But when I told her about my uncle Ali who was standing in our basement, she astonished and said: "You saw your uncle Ali!?"
Then she allowed me to tell her my story; and when my father returned back from the market, she told him about the incident; so my father came and asked me about my uncle Ali, and where I had seen him, and asked me to describe him, so I told him all that I had seen.
Following that incident, I was sick for few days, then I restored my health; so I thank God Who cured me, and showed and made clear to me some of His signs.
Some people may not believe this incident, and may not believe in what I saw; but everyone will believe if he, himself, sees what I saw; this will take place when he will die and go to the world of souls.
Abdul-Majied Rashied, the imam and orator of the Othman Effendi mosque which is near Al-Sarai market in Baghdad, said to me:
"One day, I visited one of my friends, who was admitted to the Republic Hospital at Baghdad, because of a car accident, by which he had head injury; he stayed in bed for more than a month without any good progress. His doctor was certain about his death, and that there was no hope about his cure."
The [imam] added: "When I came to him in the hospital, he was losing consciousness, and by chance I found that his father was also visiting him in the hospital. We sat near the patient until he regained consciousness and opened his eyes, and we greeted him and asked him about his condition. He thanked God for staying alive, and that he did not die under the wheels of the car.
After a while, a seller of magazines and newspapers came, and his father said to him: "I shall buy for you some of these magazines in order that you read and enjoy yourself with them, and forget about your suffering of the illness."
The patient said: "I have read all these magazines carried by the seller" – in spite of that they were recent editions.
His father said: "When have you read them the while they are recently issued!?"
He said: "I and ‘that person’ and ‘that person’, and he mentioned some of his dead relatives; we go, every day, to the bookshops and read these magazines in the bookstores and in the market places; so if you don't believe, I shall tell you what news and events are in these magazines: They mentioned in that magazine, on page 3, a news about a car-accident, and on page 5 a news about the war, and on page 8 a news about some robbery."
And so on, he went on explaining what news and incidents were in the magazines.
His father thought that his son was delirious due to his illness; but, after buying one of those magazines, to check whether the words of his son were correct or wrong, and after seeing its pages, he realized that what his son said was correct, and that he did not make any mistake as regards to its news and what he told him about its contents, and he was astonished of that. Then few days later that patient died. "
I say: No doubt that the soul of that patient was separating from his body, at the time of fainting, and his soul went, with his dead relatives whom he knew, to the bookshops and market place, to read what news and incidents were in the magazines and newspapers. Then his soul would return to his body, so that he would regain consciousness.
The word 'spirit” in common use by people, is called in the Quran 'soul”, like His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 91: 7-8
وَنَفْسِ وَما سَوّاها . فَأَلْهَمَها فُجُورَها وَتَقْواها
The explanation:
(And [I swear by] the soul and [the body] that shaped it!
And [the body] inspired into the [soul, by means of accompanying and friendship] its lewdness and its God-fearing.)
The word "by" is for swearing, and His saying:
وَنَفْسِ وَ ما سَوّاها
i.e. (And [I swear by] the soul and [the body] that shaped it!) It means: And the body which formed it[16]; that is because the soul is made of ethereal particles which permeate through the pores and interspaces of the body to build a new ethereal skeleton identical to the body.
Therefore, this ethereal skeleton is the 'soul" which is known as the 'spirit". So the body is not more than a mould for making the soul; while the true man is the ethereal soul.
This is a threatening oath which means:
Souls will get out of bodies at the time of death; and bodies will disintegrate after death, and will disappear and become soil; but souls will be by Our hand, cannot run away and cannot be saved from Our punishment.
His saying فَأَلْهَمَها فُجُورَها وَتَقْواها i.e. (And inspired into it its lewdness and its God-fearing.)
The pronoun of the verb (taught) is related to (and [the body] that shaped it) means: The body which formed the soul; it is that taught it its sin and its piety, and that is by companionship and friendship; because anyone accompanies bad people, will be bad like them; and anyone accompanies the pious, will be a pious man like them.
[This meaning is included in some Arabic poetry, mentioned in the Arabic edition of this book.]
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 6: 93
ولَوْ تَرَى إذِ الظّالِمُونَ في غَمَراتِ المَوْتِ والمَلائكَةُ باسِطُو أيْدِيهِمْ ، أخْرِجُوا أنْفُسَكُمْ
The explanation:
(If you [Mohammed] could only see when the wrong-doers suffered the agonies of death and the angels [of death] stretch forth their hands [to those of them who were about to die on their death bed, saying to them]:
"Get your souls out [of your bodies!])
So His saying – be glorified –
والمَلائكَةُ باسِطُو أيْدِيهِمْ
i.e. (and the angels [of death] stretch forth their hands [to those of them who were about to die on their death bed, saying to them]: "Get your souls out [of your bodies]) means: Get out of your bodies; the address is to the souls; so that the angels will take them to the world of souls to the chastisement and punishment.
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 50: 21
وجاءَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَعَها سائقٌ وشَهِيدٌ
The explanation:
(And every soul [shall] come, with it a driver and a witness.)
The "driver", here, is the angel who drives the soul either to Paradise or to the Fire [of Hell.]
The "witness" is that [angel] who witnesses for [and against] him [in the Judgment] with what righteous deeds or sins he did in the life of the World.
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 16: 111
يَوْمَ تَأْتِي كُلُّ نَفْسٍ تُجَادِلُ عَن نَّفْسِهَا وَتُوَفَّى كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا عَمِلَتْ وَهُمْ لاَ يُظْلَمُونَ
The explanation:
(On the day [of man’s death] when every soul will come [to the world of souls] disputing in its own behalf, and every soul will be [fully] recompensed for all [the righteous or evil work] that it did, and they will not be wronged [by any increase or decrease of the requital or reward.][17])
While the word روح i.e. 'spirit’ , mentioned in the Quran, means Gabriel; like His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 19: 17
فَأرْسَلْنا إلَيْها رُوحَنا فَتَمَثَّلَ لَها بَشَراً سَوِيّاً
The explanation:
(And We sent to her Our 'spirit’, who assumed before her the likeness of a well-made man.)
The interpretation: We sent Gabriel, to her; and he appeared before her in the shape of a man.
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 26: 193-194
نَزَلَ بِهِ الرُّوحُ الْأَمِينُ . عَلَى قَلْبِكَ لِتَكُونَ مِنَ الْمُنذِرِينَ
The explanation:
(The ‘Faithful Spirit' [Gabriel] came down with it, upon your heart [O Mohammed], that you may become one of those who warn.)
It means: The one who brought the Quran down on you, Mohammed, is Gabriel: he is the ‘Trustworthy Ghost’ (or the ‘Faithful or the Honest Spirit’.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 17: 85
وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّن الْعِلْمِ إِلاَّ قَلِيلاً
The explanation:
(They ask you [Mohammed] about [Gabriel:] the Spirit [of revelation.]
Say: "[Gabriel] the Spirit [of revelation] is [one] of my Lord's am'r [: or ethereal creatures.]
And, of the knowledge, you [people] have only been given so little.")
So, the 'spirit" whom they asked about was Gabriel. For this reason, he was mentioned in singular, so He said – be glorified –
عَنِ الرُّوحِ
i.e. (about [Gabriel:] the Spirit [of revelation]), and He did not say: about spirits.
Therefore, every word روح i.e. 'spirit", mentioned in the Quran, means Gabriel.
This is another story which I mention, as told by Sheikh Tantawi Jawhari in his [Arabic] book 'Spirits", page 16; he said:
"Dr. Gibe, mentioned in his book "The Investigation of Affairs", the following:
A young man, 30 years old, who was a skillful painter, said to me: "Few days ago, I entered into my house, about ten o"clock p.m., and I felt a strange kind of exhaustion, so I lit the lamp [: the lantern] and put it on a table beside my bed [The translator – It seems that this story is old one before the electricity was in common use]; I lit a cigarette and sat on my sofa for rest, but as soon as I laid my head on the chair back, I felt the surroundings started to rotate by themselves, and I felt an extreme vertigo, after which I was, suddenly and unconsciously, transmitted to the middle of the room; so I was astonished from this strange transmission.
You can imagine my astonishment when I looked about and saw my body lying flaccid on the seat, while my left hand was lifted to my head with the cigarette in between its fingers. At first, I thought that I was sleeping, and that what I was seeing was merely a dream; but after a while when I realized that I had never seen such a clear dream before; at that time I thought myself dead, then it came to my mind what I had heard about the existence of spirits, and I said to myself that I had become a spirit, and I remembered all that had been told to me about this subject. Also, I became bitterly sorry for the ending of my life before I could accomplish some of my affairs.
Then I approached my body, which I thought to be a corpse; but, seeing its respiratory movement, the truth became obvious to my mind; I looked to its chest and saw the heart inside it beating regularly with feeble beats, so I became sure that what happened to me was some weird kind of fainting, and I said to myself that those who faint out won't remember what may face them during the time of fainting; and I was afraid lest I might forget what I was seeing, that is after I would awake from the fainting.
But after excluding the problem of death, I shifted my attention to the surroundings, and forgot about my body which was lying on the seat; I looked at the lamp [: the lantern], and seeing it flaming near my bed, I was afraid that the curtains might burn because of the heat; so I tried to put the lamp out; I caught the knob of the wick, and tried uselessly, to roll it in spite of that I was very well feeling the knob fine features between my fingers, but I was completely unable to move it.
Then I looked at myself and saw that as if I was wearing a white garment[18], and that my hand goes easily through my body. I stood in front of the mirror, but instead of seeing my picture in it, as it should be, I felt that my sight went behind it, so that I saw the wall and the backs of the pictures and the furniture in my neighbor's room in spite of that there was no light in it[19], but that I was getting the light from a light-ray emerging from my chest[20] and lighting the things at which I was looking.
It came to my mind to enter into my neighbor's room, which I had never seen before, that neighbor who was in Paris and was, at that time, absent from the house. As soon as I had that desire, I saw myself inside the room; I think I crossed through the wall, just as how had my sight crossed through it. Then I started to walk in the various rooms of my neighbor for the first time and to keep in my mind what I was seeing therein; I entered his library and read the titles of some of the books present on the shelves; and wherever I intended to go from one place to another, I immediately went wherever I desired and as soon as I intended to go.
Since then my thoughts became confused, and I don't remember anything else; only I know that I went to extremely remote places, even to Italy as I think, but I don't know what I saw and what I did there; for I lost control on my thoughts which carried me to wherever they went before I would direct them. So that the "fool of the house" was driving the house with her, until I awoke at five o’clock a.m., to find myself lying on the seat. I got a distressful shivering and rigor, after which I slept for few hours to awake the next mid-day.
I, then, designed a trick to enter, together with the house-keeper, into my neighbor's house, and I looked about the pictures, the furniture and the book titles, to find all that exactly as I saw during the fainting time, but I didn't tell anyone about this story lest they should ascribe, to me, madness or delusion!"
A Most Wonderful Journey in the After-life World
It is written in "The Student Voice" magazine of April/1973, no. 115, page 36, that an American youth had a sudden chest pain, and he experienced a cardiac arrest that led to a true death in the Hospital of California University, after which the doctors were able to treat him and restore the activity of his heart.
He said: "The first thing I felt was a sudden severe pain, so that I perceived my entire body become like a rigid muscle … Afterwards, the pain started gradually to lessen until it disappeared completely. Then I was overwhelmed by a feeling of deep peace and great happiness; I was flying in the sky of the hospital room, surrounded by a shining light after I left my body lying on the bed.
Suddenly, I noticed that I was not alone; for my father, who had recently died, was standing beside me; he saluted me, and I was not afraid anymore …
After a short while, the surrounding light put out, and I was overwhelmed by darkness, and regained my consciousness, to feel a severe pain in my chest; I opened my eyes to see the faces of the doctors inclining upon me. My reaction was a great anger, and I shouted in their faces: " Why haven't you let me where I was!?"
On March 24/ 1946, at 5.30 pm, an emergency happened in the Sofia Official Hospital; for while the assistant nurse Bengana Dianova – 18 years old – was sterilizing the surgical instruments, preparing them for a surgical operation, she accidentally touched an uncovered electric wire, so she was afflicted with a severe electric shock, that made her fall down as a motionless corpse.
All the efforts and attempts of the physicians, to restore the movement of her heart failed, whether by injection or by artificial respiration and external cardiac message.
Therefore, the chief of the hospital doctors decided to make to her a thoracotomy operation, by which he opened the thoracic cage and started to manually message the heart by his hand for ten minutes, then for twenty minutes but all that was useless.
Then, twenty-seven minutes later, the cardiac muscle twitched inside the open and bleeding chest, which gave some hope to the surgeons. But the heart again stopped to beat, and the chief of the hospital was obliged to continue the message for two hours, until the heart restored its movement again, but this time forcibly and continuously, and the nurse was saved from death.
Next day, her story occupied the main headlines of the newspapers of Bulgaria and the whole world; because before that it did not happen that any person had been restored to life again after being considered dead for two hours.
Miss Dianova described her feelings, when she was on the brim of death or even in the lap of death, by saying: "I found myself in a wonderful world; the sun was shining, and green fields were everywhere. I moved lightly and easily as if I was flying. I was almost in Paradise that I had imagined in my childhood. And in all my life, I didn't feel such a feeling of happiness and internal peace …etc."
The American housewife Bitty Patterson
While as regards the American housewife Bitty Patterson, who was considered clinically dead, following the burst of her appendix, after being restored to life again, she remembered the moment of her death, and she said in this respect:
"I felt that my soul was pulled out of my body and ascended up to the ceilings of the room in which I was, where I saw my body lying on the operative table.
Suddenly, I was surrounded by a nice light and a feeling of internal peace and security which I had never felt in all my life …"
The failure of science – till now – to prove scientifically the existence of the spirit, does not at all mean that it is not existent; for the cosmic radiations coming from the space and falling on our planet since millions of years ago; such radiations were existent even before scientists were able to discover them. Similarly Roentgen rays were always existent even before scientists were able to prove them and before scientists of physics could discover and apply them.
The atmosphere of the earth is full of millions of musical tones broadcasted by the world broadcast stations, in addition to the pictures and films of various television channels. But we cannot verify these pictures and tones except via the way of the radio and television sets. In addition, there are sounds that we cannot hear and lights that cannot be seen in spite of their existence.
The question is: Haven't we now any instrument by which we can pick the picture of the spirit or the soul!?
By using a new technical device for reception, the Soviet engineer Semyon Kirlian
was able in Krasnodar to make the radiation energies which come out of the bodies of living beings, to make them apparent and visible to the eye. Moreover, Kirlian's photography, which was invented by this engineer, allowed the appearance of some bodies that were not present initially; for there appeared on the Kirlian's image a person with his two normal legs in spite of that one of his legs had previously been amputated.
Kirlian achieved another important advance when he proved that at the moment of death of the experimental animal, sparks of body energy depart slowly from the material body then they put out. So were these sparks: "the spirit" as we call them?"
This is what I have quoted from "The Student Voice" magazine.
It has become obviously clear to me, and I have become certain – according to what I myself had seen in the spirit world, and according to what I had read in the heavenly books: the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran – that the 'soul" [or the human spirit] is the true man; so it is the soul that will be judged, and it is the soul that will be rewarded or punished. It is the soul that perceives the pain and pleasure, and will go into either Paradise or Hell.
While as regards the body, it isn't more than a mould inside which the soul is formed , and it will not be needed after death, and it is not necessary to bring it back to life again; because souls are perpetual forever, do not die or vanish; but some of them will be in prosperity, and some of them will be in Hell: each one according to his faith and work; so that if he is one of the believers and righteous people, then his resort will be in Paradise and he will be in everlasting happiness; while if he is one of the disbelievers or associaters [i.e. those who associate some partners whom they worship together with God], then his resort will be into the Fire so that he will be in an everlasting suffering.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 154
وَلا تَقولوا لِمَن يُقْتَلُ في سبيلِ اللهِ أمْواتٌ ، بَلْ أحياءٌ ولكن لا تَشْعُرُون
The explanation:
(And say not of those who are slain in God's way: 'They are dead.' No, but they are alive [by their souls], though you perceive [them] not.)
The interpretation:
Do not think about those killed in the way of God [i.e. while they were striving and fighting for the sake of God,] that their life has ended; because you see their bodies cast on the ground, and their blood coming out; but they are alive, while you cannot perceive them; because you see the bodies and cannot see the souls; and in fact the true man is the soul, not the body.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 3: 169
وَلا تَحْسَبَنَّ الّذينَ قُتِلُوا في سَبيلِ اللهِ أمْواتاً ، بَلْ أحْياءٌ عِندَ ربِّهِم يُرْزَقُون
The explanation:
(Think not of those who are slain in the way of God as dead. Not so, but they are living, in the neighborhood of their Lord [in the ethereal paradises], having their provision [of the fruit of these paradises, and drinking from their rivers.])
Therefore, (in the neighborhood of their Lord) means: in the ethereal layers, i.e. in the paradises, provided of its fruits and drinking of its rivers.
If God - be glorified – meant by that their bodies, then He would say: They are living in the graves, finding their provision.
Also, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 36: 26-27
قِيلَ ادْخُل الجَنّةَ قالَ يا لَيْتَ قَوْمي يَعْلَمُون . بِما غَفَرَ لِي رَبِّي وجَعَلَنِي مِنَ الْمُكْرَمِينَ
The explanation:
([And when Gamaliel died] it was said [to him by the angels]: "Enter Paradise"; [and when he entered it] he said: "Would that my people knew,"
"That my Lord has forgiven me and made me one of the honored.")
So will it be said to a dead body: “Enter Paradise”? No, but the addressing was to his soul, not to his body; because the soul survives and does not disintegrate; therefore, when his ethereal soul entered into Paradise, at that time his soul said: (“Would that my people knew.”)
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 22: 58
وَالّذِينَ هاجَرُوا في سَبيلِ اللهِ ثُمَّ قُتِلُوا أوْ ماتُوا لَيَرْزُقَنَّهُمُ اللهُ رِزْقاً حَسَناً ، وإنَّ اللهَ لَهُوَ خَيْرُ الرّازِقِين
The explanation:
(And those who emigrated [from Mecca to Medina, and joined Prophet Mohammed] for the sake of God [and His good pleasure] and then were slain, or they died, God will provide for them a good provision [with the fruit of Paradise]; for, surely, God is the Best of providers.)
Therefore, (God will provide for them a good provision [with the fruit of Paradise]) means: He will provide their souls; because the soul survives and do not disintegrate [or die.]
And God - be glorified - in the Quran 4: 69
وَمَن يُطِعِ اللّهَ وَالرَّسُولَ فَأُوْلَئِكَ مَعَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمَ اللّهُ عَلَيْهِم مِّنَ النَّبِيِّينَ وَالصِّدِّيقِينَ وَالشُّهَدَاء وَالصَّالِحِينَ وَحَسُنَ أُولَئِكَ رَفِيقًا
The explanation:
(Whoso obeys God and the messenger; they [will] be with those to whom God has shown favor: prophets, true believers, martyrs and the righteous. The best of company are they!)
So His saying
فَأُوْلَئِكَ مَعَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمَ اللّهُ عَلَيْهِم
i.e. (they [will] be with those to whom God has shown favor) means: When they die they will go to Paradise and dwell there with the prophets and martyrs.
In addition, God - be glorified – said, talking about the people of Noah, in the Quran 71: 25
مِمّا خَطِيئاتِهِمْ أغْرِقُوا فَأُدْخِلُوا ناراً
The explanation:
(Because of their sins, they were drowned [in the water], and their [souls] were made to enter into a fire.)
So, in case their bodies were drowned, then how were they admitted into the Fire? In fact, the meaning is: Their bodies were drowned in the water, and their souls were admitted into the Fire.
God - be glorified - said in the Quran 35: 36
وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ لَهُمْ نَارُ جَهَنَّمَ لاَ يُقْضَى عَلَيْهِمْ فَيَمُوتُواْ وَلاَ يُخَفَّفُ عَنْهُمْ مِّنْ عَذَابِهَا كَذَلِكَ نَجْزِي كُلَّ كَفُورٍ
The explanation:
(But those who disbelieve, for them [in the Next Life] will be the fire of Hell; it shall not be decreed for them to die, nor shall its torment be lessened for them. Thus do We reward every disbeliever.)
If it is right that man enters Fire with his material body; then how won't he die while it is the fire of Hell, whereas the least fire in this World leads to the death of man due to the fact that the torment is for souls, then it is possible that He – be glorified – says:
لاَ يُقْضَى عَلَيْهِمْ فَيَمُوتُواْ
i.e. (it shall not be decreed for them to die); because they are souls, and souls do not die even though they are cast in the fire.
Also, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 14: 17
وَيَأْتِيهِ الْمَوْتُ مِن كُلِّ مَكَانٍ وَمَا هُوَ بِمَيِّتٍ وَمِن وَرَآئِهِ عَذَابٌ غَلِيظٌ
The explanation:
(And [the means of] death will come to him from every side, but yet he will not die, and after [this torment] there will be a more severe torment.)
The Glorious Lord said also in the Quran 20: 74
إِنَّهُ مَن يَأْتِ رَبَّهُ مُجْرِمًا فَإِنَّ لَهُ جَهَنَّمَ لَا يَمُوتُ فِيهَا وَلَا يَحْيى
The explanation:
(Anyone coming guilty to his Lord; for him will be Hell, where he will neither die [and so will get rid of it] nor will live [any prosperous life, but he will be punished with various kinds of punishment.])
It means: He will neither die so that he will get rid of the torment, nor will he live a good life.
Along with this meaning, one of the Arab poets said: "People are created to remain; so anyone who thinks they will vanish is wrong; they are merely transmitted from a world of working and toiling to a world of either misfortune or happiness."
Therefore, bodies [or corpses] are valueless in the material world and have no place among living beings; because they will disintegrate and decay after death and become soil. And there is no need to bring them back to life again; because they are not suitable to the kind of the new [spiritual] life, and it is impossible to gather bodies together in the space, neither can they ascend up to the heaven on the Day of the "Gathering-together" or the Assembly and the Day of Judgment because of their heaviness.
While the souls are everlasting, and the soul is the true man who hears, sees, thinks and perceives the pain and the pleasure.
God - be glorified - said in the Quran 89: 27-30
يَا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ . ارْجِعِي إِلَى رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً مَّرْضِيَّةً . فَادْخُلِي فِي عِبَادِي . وَادْخُلِي جَنَّتِي
The explanation:
(27- "O you, soul having certainty [of belief]!"
28- "Return to [the neighborhood of] your Lord, well-pleased [about the reward and prosperity], and well-pleased with [by God!]"
29- "And [following death] enter in [the Garden of Refuge, and be with] My [righteous] servants."
30 - "And enter into My Paradise [of Everlasting, on the Day of Judgment.]")
So God – be glorified – said
يَا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ
i.e. ("O you, soul having certainty [of belief]"), but He did not say: O you, man having certainty [of belief]!
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 2: 281
وَاتَّقُواْ يَوْمًا تُرْجَعُونَ فِيهِ إِلَى اللّهِ ثُمَّ تُوَفَّى كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لاَ يُظْلَمُونَ
The explanation:
(And ward off [the punishment of] a day [of your death] in which you will be brought back to [the judgment of] God. Then every soul will be paid in full [the recompense of the work] that it earned, and they will not be wronged [by decreasing their reward or increasing their punishment.])
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 48
وَاتَّقُواْ يَوْماً لاَّ تَجْزِي نَفْسٌ عَن نَّفْسٍ شَيْئاً وَلاَ يُقْبَلُ مِنْهَا شَفَاعَةٌ وَلاَ يُؤْخَذُ مِنْهَا عَدْلٌ وَلاَ هُمْ يُنصَرُونَ
The explanation:
(And avoid [the chastisement of] a day [of your death]
when no soul will avail another anything,
neither will intercession be accepted for it,
nor will compensation [of a ransom equal to its sins] be taken from it,
nor will they be helped.)
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 3: 25
فَكَيْفَ إِذَا جَمَعْنَاهُمْ لِيَوْمٍ لاَّ رَيْبَ فِيهِ وَوُفِّيَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لاَ يُظْلَمُونَ
The explanation:
(But how [will it be with them] when We will gather them together [in the world of souls] to the Day [of Judgment] of which there is no doubt,
when every soul will be paid in full [the recompense of the work] that it has earned, and they will not be wronged.)
Therefore, God – be glorified – specified souls, apart from bodies, by rewarding their deeds.
Moreover, there is a large number of the Quranic revelations which declare that the reckoning and repayment is for souls, not for bodies.
It is asserted in the heavenly books that when prophets, saints and martyrs depart from their bodies by death, they will ascend up to the paradises in the ethereal heavens and will not remain on earth.
While as regards the rest of people, they will stay on earth till they receive fully the punishment of their sins, then they will be gathered together for judgment and recompense.
This is confirmed by His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 3: 169, about martyrs:
وَلا تَحْسَبَنَّ الّذينَ قُتِلُوا في سَبيلِ اللهِ أمْواتاً ، بَلْ أحْياءٌ عِندَ ربِّهِم يُرْزَقُون
The explanation:
(Think not of those who are slain in the way of God as dead. Not so, but they are living, in the neighborhood of their Lord [in the ethereal paradises], having their provision [of the fruit of these paradises, and drinking from their rivers.])
It means: in His neighborhood, in the ethereal paradises.
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 3: 55 – about the story of Jesus, the son of Mary:
إِذْ قَالَ اللّهُ يَا عِيسَى إِنِّي مُتَوَفِّيكَ وَرَافِعُكَ إلَيَّ
The explanation:
(And when God said, "O Jesus, I will [make you die and] take you [to Me] and raise you up to Me)
It means: He took him up to the paradises.
And He said – be glorified – in the Quran 4: 158
بَل رَّفَعَهُ اللّهُ إِلَيْهِ وَكَانَ اللّهُ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمًا
The explanation:
(But God raised his [soul] up to Himself; and God is All-Mighty, All-Wise.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 19: 57, in the story of Idries [Elia]:
وَرَفَعْنَاهُ مَكَانًا عَلِيًّا
The explanation:
(And We raised him up to a high place.)
It means: He raised him up to the paradises.
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 36: 26-27
قِيلَ ادْخُلِ الْجَنَّةَ قَالَ يَا لَيْتَ قَوْمِي يَعْلَمُونَ . بِمَا غَفَرَ لِي رَبِّي وَجَعَلَنِي مِنَ الْمُكْرَمِين
The explanation:
([And when Gamaliel died] it was said [to him by the angels]: "Enter Paradise"; [and when he entered it] he said: "Would that my people knew,"
"That my Lord has forgiven me and made me one of the honored.")
Therefore, prophets and saints ascend up to the heavens when they die, and they will not stay on the earth.
Most of people have made the graves or the shrines of sages, saints, patriarchs, imams and sheikhs as temples which they serve and worship, and as a place to visit and to sanctify; they vow to them, kindle the candles and perfume with incense; so that they have made them as rivals of God: they go round about them just like how the pilgrim goes round about the Ka’aba [in the House of God at Mecca]; they kiss the doors and the doorsteps, and seek to be blessed by the walls and the earth or dust of the ground, thinking that the saints are dwelling therein: listen to their words and answer their requests.
They don't know that these are empty graves, in which there is nothing other than decayed bodies, which do not bring any benefit nor do they drive away any harm. They don't know even that these deeds are some kind of polytheism, association with God or idolatry and an increment in sins, and that God – be glorified – has not imprisoned the imams and saints in the graves, neither in a restricted narrow place, but He lifted them up to His gardens, and let them dwell in places, and therein they have a profuse sustenance and fair wives with wide eyes (hoories.)
Therefore, visiting the graves and shrines and the crying at them is useless. [This meaning is included in some of the Arab poetry, mentioned in the Arabic edition of the book.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/saah/index.htm#قبور_الأولياء_ ]
Moreover, asking the needs and requests from [patron] saints and sheikhs is useless, and it is some sort of polytheism [and sharing them with God.] God – be glorified - is provoked to anger against anyone who asks his needs from saints and sheikhs, and at anyone who seeks help from them, and vows to them and who sanctifies their graves.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 35: 13-14, about the dispraise of the associaters (or idolaters) who worshipped angels, thinking that they are God's daughters:
وَالَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِهِ مَا يَمْلِكُونَ مِن قِطْمِيرٍ . إِن تَدْعُوهُمْ لَا يَسْمَعُوا دُعَاءكُمْ وَلَوْ سَمِعُوا مَا اسْتَجَابُوا لَكُمْ وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ يَكْفُرُونَ بِشِرْكِكُمْ وَلَا يُنَبِّئُكَ مِثْلُ خَبِيرٍ
The explanation:
(And those [angels] to whom you pray, apart from Him, cannot control anything [even cannot change a small into a large one of the flowers of Paradise.]
If you [associaters] pray them [: the angels, to remove your distress], they hear not your prayer [because they are in the ethereal heavens faraway from you.]
And if they [: those angels present with you on earth] hear, they cannot grant it you [because they do not do anything without God’s command.]
On the Day of Judgment, they will disown your associating [them with God.]
And none can inform you [Mohammed] like [Gabriel:] the one who is aware [of God's dealing with the associaters.])
The interpretation:
>> (If you [associaters] pray them [: the angels, to remove your distress], they hear not your prayer [because they are in the ethereal heavens faraway from you]): they are in the ethereal heavens, hearing not the prayer of those on the earth.
>> (And if they [: those angels present with you on earth] hear, they cannot grant it you [because they do not do anything without God’s command]), and because they control nothing of affairs, and all affairs belong to God.
>> (On the Day of Judgment they will disown your associating [them with God]) means: They will withdraw from you, and will disown of you their worship and sanctifying them [: they will quit themselves from your serving and worshipping them; and will say to you: Why did you worship us, and why didn't you make the worship exclusive for God your Lord?
This Quranic revelation is applicable today to those who worship the graves and shrines of saints, sheikhs, [saints and sages], and sanctify them and ask their needs from them.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 46: 5-6
وَمَنْ أَضَلُّ مِمَّن يَدْعُو مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ مَن لَّا يَسْتَجِيبُ لَهُ إِلَى يَومِ الْقِيَامَةِ وَهُمْ عَن دُعَائِهِمْ غَافِلُونَ . وَإِذَا حُشِرَ النَّاسُ كَانُوا لَهُمْ أَعْدَاء وَكَانُوا بِعِبَادَتِهِمْ كَافِرِينَ
The explanation:
(And who is further astray than he who calls, apart from God, upon such a one as shall not answer his prayer [whatever he may pray] till Doomsday? And they [: the angels] are even heedless of their prayer.
And when people will be gathered together [on Doomsday], [the angels] shall be enemies to them, and shall disapprove their worshipping.)
The interpretation:
Even if he goes on praying him till Doomsday, he will not answer his prayer and will not grant him his need; because the saints are in the Gardens, heedless of the prayer of anyone who prays them and they are unaware of them.
And they will deny and disapprove their worship, will withdraw from them, and will not make intercession for them.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 7: 194
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ عِبَادٌ أَمْثَالُكُمْ فَادْعُوهُمْ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُواْ لَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
The explanation:
(Those, whom you pray besides God, are servants [of God] just like you.
So, now, pray them [to anything] and let them grant you [your prayer] if you do speak the truth.)
It means: Let them grant you your needs, if you are truthful that they grant [those who ask them their] needs, cure patients and opens the eyes of the blind.
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 29: 17
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ لَا يَمْلِكُونَ لَكُمْ رِزْقًا فَابْتَغُوا عِندَ اللَّهِ الرِّزْقَ
The explanation:
(Surely those – apart from God – whom you worship cannot control any provision for you; therefore seek provision with God.)
It means: They cannot provide for you, so seek the provision from God and He will provide for you.
And God – be glorified – said in the Quran 17: 56
قُلِ ادْعُواْ الَّذِينَ زَعَمْتُم مِّن دُونِهِ فَلاَ يَمْلِكُونَ كَشْفَ الضُّرِّ عَنكُمْ وَلاَ تَحْوِيلاً
The explanation:
(Say: Pray those [angels or the Christ] whom you claim [the daughters of God or the son of God, and you worshipped], apart from Him; yet they have no power to remove the affliction from you, nor to change [your condition from poverty to richness.])
It means: they cannot avert any evil from you, nor can they save you from any problem.
But, if you say: I make them as intercessors between God and me, in order that God will grant me my need, I say in reply of this:
The saints do not hear you so that they may be intercessors for you; because they died and ascended to heaven, to the Gardens and they left the earth to sinners.
For this reason, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 35: 14
إِن تَدْعُوهُمْ لَا يَسْمَعُوا دُعَاءكُمْ
The explanation:
(If you [associaters] pray them [: the angels, to remove your distress], they hear not your prayer [because they are in the ethereal heavens faraway from you.])
[God alone knows the fore-future]
In addition, if you say that they know the unseen and the secret; therefore they know my intention and ask God to grant me my need; I answer you: none, but God alone, knows the fore-future; and neither any prophet nor any saint knows the fore-future; the indication of that is the word of God – be glorified – in the Quran 6: 50 addressing His noble Prophet:
قُل لاَّ أَقُولُ لَكُمْ عِندِي خَزَآئِنُ اللّهِ وَلا أَعْلَمُ الْغَيْبَ وَلا أَقُولُ لَكُمْ إِنِّي مَلَكٌ
The explanation:
(Say [Mohammed, to these disbelievers]:
"I am not telling you that I have the treasuries of [the mercy of] God [so that I can work miracles like those of Jesus who cured the congenitally-blind and the albino and revived the dead],
nor that I know the Unknown,
nor that I am angel [like him, because Jesus was an angel that came down from heaven according to God's command, and entered in the body of the fetus in the womb of Mary.]”)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 7: 188
قُل لاَّ أَمْلِكُ لِنَفْسِي نَفْعًا وَلاَ ضَرًّا إِلاَّ مَا شَاء اللّهُ وَلَوْ كُنتُ أَعْلَمُ الْغَيْبَ لاَسْتَكْثَرْتُ مِنَ الْخَيْرِ وَمَا مَسَّنِيَ السُّوءُ إِنْ أَنَاْ إِلاَّ نَذِيرٌ وَبَشِيرٌ لِّقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ
The explanation:
(Say [Mohammed, to them]: "For myself, I cannot bring any profit, nor avert any hurt, but only that which God wills.
Had I had the knowledge of the fore-future, I should have had abundance of wealth, and adversity would not have touched me.
I am only a warner [against idolatry], and a bearer of good tidings [of Paradise and prosperity] to a people believing [in God and His messenger.])
And God said in the Quran 11: 31, about what Noah said to his people
وَلاَ أَقُولُ لَكُمْ عِندِي خَزَآئِنُ اللّهِ وَلاَ أَعْلَمُ الْغَيْبَ وَلاَ أَقُولُ إِنِّي مَلَكٌ
The explanation:
("I do not say to you: "I possess the treasuries of God";
I know not the [knowledge of the] fore-future;
and I do not say: "I am an angel.")
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 27: 65, addressing His noble messenger:
قُل لَّا يَعْلَمُ مَن فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ الْغَيْبَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَمَا يَشْعُرُونَ أَيَّانَ يُبْعَثُونَ
The explanation:
(Say [O Mohammed]: "None [of genies and humans] in the heavens and the earth knows the fore-future except God [alone]; and they even perceive not [about] when they shall [die and] be sent forth [from their bodies to the Afterlife.]")
And God – be glorified – said in the Quran 34: 14, excluding genies from the knowledge of the fore-future:
تَبَيَّنَتِ الْجِنُّ أَن لَّوْ كَانُوا يَعْلَمُونَ الْغَيْبَ مَا لَبِثُوا فِي الْعَذَابِ الْمُهِينِ
The explanation:
(It became clear [to people] that: had the genies but known the ‘Uknown’ [or the fore-future] they would not have stayed [in the prison] in the humiliating punishment.)
Moreover, God – be celebrated His praise – said in the Quran 6: 59
وَعِندَهُ مَفَاتِحُ الْغَيْبِ لاَ يَعْلَمُهَا إِلاَّ هُوَ
The explanation:
(With Him is 'the knowledge and the exposure' of the fore-future. None [of people] but He [alone] knows them.)
[A tale about visiting the shrine of imam Kazim]
Here, I mention a past incident which happened to me in my childhood, when my age was five years:
My mother travelled from Karbala to Baghdad to visit her family, and she took me with her to Baghdad where she stayed for few days, then she took me for "visiting" [the shrine or tomb of imam Kazim there.]
When we arrived at Kazimia [where the shrine or the tomb was], she bought for me a paraffin candle, and kindled it, so I took it by my hand gladly, but when we reached to the yard of the shrine, one of the servants took it from me, which provoked my anger; because he took from me my candle which I was glad with.
When we entered to the inner parts of the building around the grave, I asked my mother: "Where is Kazim [who was an imam or a saint], whom we have come to visit?"
She said: "He is inside the cage there!"
So I looked carefully through the silver cage, but I didn't see anyone inside it, so I said to her: "There is none inside the cage."
She said: "He is in the grave which is inside the cage."
I said: "Therefore, he is dead, then how do you talk to the dead, and ask from him your needs, and request him to keep me alive and not to die!?"
She said: "He is alive and he can hear my talking and understand my intention."
I said: "Then why did they imprison him in this silver cage? And what was his crime?"
She said: "This is his shrine and it is not a prison."
But I could not understand my mother's words because there was contradiction in her words: so that one time she said he was buried in the grave, and another time she said he was alive and could grant her her needs while being inside the silver cage.
I say that even the bird does not accept to be imprisoned in the cage even though it is of gold, as is it mentioned in some of the Arab poetry that:
"The nightingale says he does not accept to be put in any cage even though it be of gold."
Then how could the righteous servants of God stay in the graves and in the silver or gold cages, while God has prepared the vast Paradise as a dwelling?
But if you like to be granted your needs, then go to one of the houses of God's
worship, which are the mosques (places of God's worship), and pray for God's sake two rak’at:
i.e. two bowings in prayer, then ask your need from God Who is All-Able to
grant you your needs; because God – be glorified – said in the Quran 24: 36
فِي بُيُوتٍ أَذِنَ اللَّهُ أَن تُرْفَعَ وَيُذْكَرَ فِيهَا اسْمُهُ يُسَبِّحُ لَهُ فِيهَا بِالْغُدُوِّ وَالْآصَالِ . رِجَالٌ ...الخ
The explanation:
(In houses [of worship] which God has allowed to be exalted [with building and construction], and that His name shall be celebrated therein. Therein [men] do always glorify Him: day and night.)
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 2: 186
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ
The explanation:
(And when My servants ask you [Mohammed] concerning Me, I am always Near;
I answer the prayer's prayer when he prays to Me.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 40: 60
وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمُ ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ
The explanation:
(And your Lord says: “Pray to Me; I will answer your prayer.”)
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 39: 53
قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَى أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
The explanation:
(Say: "O My servants, who have been extravagant [in sins] against their own souls! Despair not of God's mercy [and forgiveness]; [for] surely, God does forgive all sins; surely, He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.)
And God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 27: 62
أَمَّن يُجِيبُ الْمُضْطَرَّ إِذَا دَعَاهُ
The explanation:
([Are your associates better], or is He Who answers the distressed one when he cries to Him?)
The Success Is to Follow the Example of Saints
If you like to be safe of the chastisement and to win the Gardens, then you should follow the example of the prophets and saints in monotheism and worshiping God alone, then you will succeed; but never share or associate any of the prophets or saints together with God in the worship; because you will then lose and your work will be in vain.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran, at the end of soora or chapter 18: 110
فَمَن كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَاء رَبِّهِ فَلْيَعْمَلْ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا وَلَا يُشْرِكْ بِعِبَادَةِ رَبِّهِ أَحَدًا
The explanation:
(Then let him who hopes to meet his Lord, work righteous works, and associate none [of created beings and created things] in worshipping his Lord.)
The servitude and worship to God is of many kinds; the prayer and fasting are some kinds of servitude or worship; the vowing to God is a kind of worship; to mention God with celebration and glorifying is a kind of worship; sanctifying and glorifying God is a another kind of worship, and seeking His help is another form of worship.
Therefore, if you mention a prophet or a saint, seeking his help when you stand up and sit down, then you will share [him with God.] It is not allowed to seek their help, even if you say: "O Mohammed [help me!]" So in spite of that you everyday recite His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 1: 5
إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ
The explanation:
(You [alone] we worship; and You [alone] we ask for help.)
The meaning is: We worship none save Him; and we seek His help [and depend on Him] only, and we seek the help of none save Him.
In this respect, one of the Arab poets said:
"You always utter: " You [alone] we ask for help",
But actually you seek help of those other than God!"
Righteous saints asked the help of God when they stood up and sat down, and they did never ask the help of prophets; similarly the imams and the companions of Prophet Mohammed – salam be to him – did in like manner; so God – be glorified – revealed this Quranic revelation 3: 191
الَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ اللّهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَىَ جُنُوبِهِمْ
The explanation:
([Those], who remember God when they stand up, sit down and recline [in bed.])
It means: They mention God when they stand up, sit down and lie on their sides.
God - be glorified - said in the Quran 33: 41-42
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ ذِكْرًا كَثِيرًا . وَسَبِّحُوهُ بُكْرَةً وَأَصِيلًا
The explanation:
(Believers, mention God [in celebration] with much mentioning.
And celebrate His praises, morning and evening.)
It means: Mention and remember Him day and night; i.e. Mention and remember Him always.
Therefore, God –be glorified – said
اذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ ذِكْرًا كَثِيرًا
i.e. (Mention God [in celebration] with much mentioning); but He did not say: Mention anyone of the saints or anyone of the apostles and prophets with much mentioning and remembrance.
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 7: 205
وَاذْكُر رَّبَّكَ فِي نَفْسِكَ تَضَرُّعاً وَخِيفَةً وَدُونَ الْجَهْرِ مِنَ الْقَوْلِ بِالْغُدُوِّ وَالآصَالِ
The explanation:
(Remember your Lord [with glorification] within your soul, supplicating and fearing [Him], not loud of voice, by day and night, and don't be one of the heedless [of His remembrance.])
It means: Remember and mention Him always.
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 2: 200
فَإِذَا قَضَيْتُم مَّنَاسِكَكُمْ فَاذْكُرُواْ اللّهَ كَذِكْرِكُمْ آبَاءكُمْ أَوْ أَشَدَّ ذِكْرًا
The explanation:
(And when you have completed your rites,
then mention God [with glorification and exclusive devotion] as you used to mention your fathers [with praise][21] or even with much more praise.)
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 18: 24
وَاذْكُر رَّبَّكَ إِذَا نَسِيتَ وَقُلْ عَسَى أَن يَهْدِيَنِ رَبِّي لِأَقْرَبَ مِنْ هَذَا رَشَدًا
The explanation:
(And mention your Lord [with seeking forgiveness] when you forget [to say “If God will”],
and say: "I hope that my Lord will guide me [to the story of the ancients about which you ask me] within a shorter [time] about this [story of the people of the cave, with His] right guidance [in the near future.]")
Therefore, to seek the help of prophets and saints is not allowed, and actually it is a sort of associating and sharing [them with God in the worship]; while God – be glorified – considers the sharing or associating with Him (or the polytheism) as the greatest sin.
Building the Graves Is a Sin, and Sanctifying Them Is a Kind of Associating Them with God
Building the graves and tombs of saints and imams, and decorating them with ornaments, silver, gold and chandeliers; all these acts lead to their glorification, because man – by nature – loves the wealth, ornaments, silver and gold.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 3: 14
زُيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ حُبُّ الشَّهَوَاتِ مِنَ النِّسَاء وَالْبَنِينَ وَالْقَنَاطِيرِ الْمُقَنطَرَةِ مِنَ الذَّهَبِ وَالْفِضَّةِ
The explanation:
(Beautified to men is the love of lusts –– women, children, large amounts of gold and silver …etc.)
The glorification of graves and shrines leads to the "association", because most of people will ascribe to saints the attributes of God; so that they deem them able to revive the dead, and to make the living die, and to cure the sick, and able to grant people their needs, and that they know the fore-future, and that they have innumerable miracles, and other similar lies about saints.
And because they attribute to them the attributes of God, they blaspheme. They also associate [them with God], because they become enthusiastic about them, or exaggerate in loving them so as to consider them as the successors of God in His earth or as His assistants in His creation.
That is just as how some Christians exaggerate about the Christ when they said the Christ is the son of God!
While God – be glorified – prohibited the exaggeration in loving the prophets and saints, and He said – be glorified – in the Quran 4: 171
يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ لاَ تَغْلُواْ فِي دِينِكُمْ وَلاَ تَقُولُواْ عَلَى اللّهِ إِلاَّ الْحَقِّ إِنَّمَا الْمَسِيحُ عِيسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ رَسُولُ اللّهِ
The explanation:
(People of the Book [: the Gospel][22], do not exaggerate [23] in your religion nor say aught concerning God save the truth [24]. The Messiah: Jesus the son of Mary was but a messenger of God [25].)
Therefore, building the graves leads to glorification, and the glorification leads to the "association", and the [fate of the] associater is in Hell.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 19: 56-57, telling about the story of Idries [Elia or Elijah]:
وَاذْكُرْ فِي الْكِتَابِ إِدْرِيسَ إِنَّهُ كَانَ صِدِّيقًا نَّبِيًّا . وَرَفَعْنَاهُ مَكَانًا عَلِيًّا
The explanation:
(And mention, in the Book, Idries; he was truthful [and] a prophet.
And We raised him up to a high place.)
"Idries" is the same "Elia" (or Elijah) mentioned in the Bible. He was a prophet of the Children of Israel, and his title is Idries; because [as the title in Arabic indicates] he taught the Torah [included the Old Testament], to his students.
During the years 875-853 BC, he strove against the pagan idolatry [i.e. worshiping idols] introduced by Jezabel, the wife of King Achab; therefore he was exiled to Serfat, where – by his prayer – he revived a son of a widow. And by God's permission and God's granting, he caused the rain to fall upon the earth after its cessation for three years near the Mount Karmel (or Mount Carmel).
He overcame the priests of Baal and Astaroth and commanded killing them, and this caused Jezabel to pursue him with her zeal [for her idols and priests]; so that he ran away to the wilderness of Sinai.
Then he returned, and prophesied to Achab the vengeance of God; because he associated [the idols with God in the worship], and because he, together with his wife Jezabel, associated and worshipped the Ba’al.
Idries was lifted up, after his death, to heaven, i.e. to the Paradises. He foretold his companions, by that, before his hour [of death.] Then they went out of the city in Jordan, he and his disciple Eliseus, walking towards the mountains where he died, while his body was buried by the storm which covered it with dust and earth, so that his companions could not find his body afterwards, while his ethereal soul ascended to heaven.
It was the will of God that his body should not be found on those mountains, just as how did Aaron die over the mountain and they could not find his body afterwards; and just like Moses the son of Imran and Jesus the son of Mary; in order that no graves and shrines would be built for them, then these graves would be worshipped after them when they would be considered as equals to God, and as idols for those who sanctify them.
As regards the graves of Moses which is found nowadays at Al-Khalil [: Hebron in Palestine]; it is a symbolical grave and it isn't his true grave[26].
The purpose from that is that the Children of Israel should not worship their graves following their death, just as how are the tombs and shrines of some of the prophets, sheikhs and imams worshipped besides the worship of God by some of Muslims and non-Muslims.
One point to be emphasized is that the conduct and life history of prophets and saints and their righteous work are not exalted by such enthusiasm and exaggeration (and they are not in need of such enthusiasm), because their work is inscribed in the conscience of every faithful man.
God gave to every one of His prophets a miracle special for him only, and not for anyone else, so that that prophet could not bring about another one from himself except only that which God would permit; e.g. if Pharaoh said to Moses: "I don't accept from you this staff which you cast and it becomes a serpent; but I shall give you [another] staff to cast it on the ground and let it be a serpent", then that staff would not be a serpent by the hand of Moses, except the particular one which God had prepared for Moses and ordered him to take it to Pharaoh.
Similarly, all the prophets and messengers could not bring miracles from their own selves and of their own accord, except that which God gave to every messenger a miracle special for him apart from anyone else.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 13: 38
وَمَا كَانَ لِرَسُولٍ أَن يَأْتِيَ بِآيَةٍ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِ اللّهِ
The explanation:
(And it was never the part of any messenger to bring a miracle [of His own accord, and he could not do that] except as God permitted.)
The word آيَةٍ or "aya" means here the miracle, and the meaning is: Any messenger [of God] cannot bring any miracle from himself except that miracle given to him and which he is permitted to use.
Pagan Arabs asked of Prophet Mohammed a large number of miracles, of which the prophet could not bring anyone other than the Quran which God sent down on him with Gabriel through revelation. This is indicated by His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 29: 51
أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِهِمْ أَنَّا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ يُتْلَى عَلَيْهِمْ
The explanation:
(So is it not enough for them [as an indication of your truthfulness] that We have sent down to you [Mohammed] the Book [: the Quran] which is rehearsed to them?)
Then the associaters [or the idolaters] said: The book alone is not enough to prove his apostle-hood; we want a material or objective miracle like the staff of Moses and the female camel of Salih [the apostle of the tribe of Thamood]; as it is indicated also by His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 21: 5
فَلْيَأْتِنَا بِآيَةٍ كَمَا أُرْسِلَ الأَوَّلُونَ
The explanation:
(So let him bring to us a miracle as were the former [messengers] sent [with the miracles.])
It means: Let him bring us a miracle just as how was Moses sent with the staff and how was Salih sent [to the tribe of Thamood] with the female camel.
But God answered them with His saying – be glorified – in the Quran, the same soorah, the next aya 21: 6
مَا آمَنَتْ قَبْلَهُم مِّن قَرْيَةٍ أَهْلَكْنَاهَا أَفَهُمْ يُؤْمِنُونَ
The explanation:
(No city before them did believe, of those whom We destroyed; so will these [Meccans] believe [if We give them an objective miracle?])
The meaning: Neither did Pharaoh nor did his folk believe in Moses while We gave him the staff as a miracle. Similarly, Salih's people did not believe in him, while We gave him the she-camel as a miracle, but they disbelieved and denied them, so We took vengeance and destroyed them.
So as such will your folk not believe even though We give you any objective miracle and they see it with their own eyes, but [on the contrary] they will disbelieve and say: "This is an obvious magic" just as did their ancestors say, but We have given you a scientific miracle, better than the objective miracle, so call them by [this scientific miracle, which is the Quran]; this is obvious in His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 16: 125
ادْعُ إِلِى سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَالْمَوْعِظَةِ الْحَسَنَةِ وَجَادِلْهُم بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ
The explanation:
([O Mohammed] invite [people] to the way of your Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation,
and reason with them in better [ways and words than theirs.])
In addition to these ayat, there are many other ayat in the Quran which declare that prophets, apostles and angels cannot bring any miracle by themselves and of their own accord, except the miracle which God gives to whom, of the prophets and apostles, He likes to give.
While in fact, most of people claim that saints have the ability to carry out miracles, and that actually they did a large number of miracles, which they don't call as "miracle", but as "Carama" which gives the same implication, and are only different in words.
I say: prophets and saints do not agree about such acts and deeds which are not acceptable by God, but they disapprove, condemn and disown anyone who does such deeds and from anyone who associates them with God in the worship and glorification.
The Devotion Should Exclusively Be to God
and the Intercession Is Up to Him
People should not hold fast with saints, imams and sheikhs instead of God; neither should they sanctify their tombs and shrines; because they passed away and transferred to heaven, and became in the neighborhood of their Lord, and none of them remained on the earth save only their empty graves which contain nothing more than the rotten and decayed bodies.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 18: 102
أَفَحَسِبَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَن يَتَّخِذُوا عِبَادِي مِن دُونِي أَوْلِيَاء إِنَّا أَعْتَدْنَا جَهَنَّمَ لِلْكَافِرِينَ نُزُلًا
The explanation:
(Do disbelievers think that [they will be saved from the punishment] if they choose My servants [the angels and prophets] as [their] patrons besides Me?
Surely, We have prepared Hell as an abode for disbelievers.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 32: 4
اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ ثُمَّ اسْتَوَى عَلَى الْعَرْشِ مَا لَكُم مِّن دُونِهِ مِن وَلِيٍّ وَلَا شَفِيعٍ ..الخ
The explanation:
(It is God Who created the heavens and the earth and what [moons] are between them in six [of the] days [of the Next Life.] Then He mounted the throne. You have not, apart from Him, any patron nor any intercessor …etc.)
It means: Don't choose for yourselves, patrons, from among creatures, that you sanctify and worship besides God; eventhough they are prophets or angels of high rank; or you choose them as your intercessors with God; because the intercession, as a whole, belongs to God and is up to Him, and they do not mediate except for those whom God is pleased with.
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 6: 51
وَأَنذِرْ بِهِ الَّذِينَ يَخَافُونَ أَن يُحْشَرُواْ إِلَى رَبِّهِمْ لَيْسَ لَهُم مِّن دُونِهِ وَلِيٌّ وَلاَ شَفِيعٌ لَّعَلَّهُمْ يَتَّقُونَ
The explanation:
(And warn with the [Quran] those [believers] who fear [of their Lord's punishment for some of their deeds; because they know] that [in the Next Life] they shall be gathered together to their Lord;
there is no patron for them besides Him, and no intercessor;
[so warn them with it] haply they may ward off [God's punishment by warding off His disobedience.])
In "the aya of the Chair" 2: 255, God – be glorified – said:
مَن ذَا الَّذِي يَشْفَعُ عِنْدَهُ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِهِ
The explanation:
(Who is he that intercedes with Him [on the Judgment Day] except only by His leave [on behalf of monotheists only]?)
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 39: 44
قُل لِّلَّهِ الشَّفَاعَةُ جَمِيعًا لَّهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ
The explanation:
(Say: "To God belongs exclusively the [right to permit] intercession: To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth.)
Also God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 48
وَاتَّقُواْ يَوْماً لاَّ تَجْزِي نَفْسٌ عَن نَّفْسٍ شَيْئاً وَلاَ يُقْبَلُ مِنْهَا شَفَاعَةٌ وَلاَ يُؤْخَذُ مِنْهَا عَدْلٌ وَلاَ هُمْ يُنصَرُونَ
The explanation:
(And avoid [the chastisement of] a day [of your death]
when no soul will avail another anything,
neither will intercession be accepted for it,
nor will compensation [of a ransom equal to its sins ] be taken from it,
nor will they be helped.)
And in the Quran 10: 18, God – be glorified – said:
وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ مَا لاَ يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلاَ يَنفَعُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ هَؤُلاء شُفَعَاؤُنَا عِندَ اللّهِ قُلْ أَتُنَبِّئُونَ اللّهَ بِمَا لاَ يَعْلَمُ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَلاَ فِي الأَرْضِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ
The explanation:
(They worship, apart from God, that which [can] neither hurt nor profit them, and they say: "These [idols] are our intercessors with God!"
Say [Mohammed, to them]: "Will you inform God of that which does not know [anything] in the [ethereal] heavens nor in the [material] earth?
Celebrated be His praise, and glorified be He above what [created beings] they associate [with Him!]")
Similarly, most of people have now become worshippers of the tombs of saints; and they say: "These are our intercessors with God; just like how the associaters [: the idolaters of Mecca, before the Islam] worshipped the angels and said: "These are our intercessors with God."
Monotheism Is the Way of Success
God – be glorified – stated in the heavenly books [: the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel and the Quran]; that God is One, and it is not allowed to worship others apart from Him.
In the same manner, He commanded His prophets and apostles and emphasized His order to them to serve none but God, and not to associate with Him anything in their worship and servitude, and to sanctify none of creatures; so that any who associates with God any of these beings, then His fate will be in Hell.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 39: 65-66, addressing His apostle Mohammed, the seal of prophets:
وَلَقَدْ أُوحِيَ إِلَيْكَ وَإِلَى الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ لَئِنْ أَشْرَكْتَ لَيَحْبَطَنَّ عَمَلُكَ وَلَتَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ . بَلِ اللَّهَ فَاعْبُدْ وَكُن مِّنْ الشَّاكِرِينَ
The explanation:
(And it has been revealed to you [Mohammed], as [had it been revealed] to those [messengers] before you [that]: "If you associate [anything with God], your work will be in vain, and you will be of those who lose!"
"But [in fact, think and] worship God [alone]; and be [always] one of the grateful [to Him.]")
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 4: 48
إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يَغْفِرُ أَن يُشْرَكَ بِهِ وَيَغْفِرُ مَا دُونَ ذَلِكَ لِمَن يَشَاء
The explanation:
(God does not forgive that anything should be associated with Him, but forgives anything short of that, to whomsoever He pleases.)
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 31: 13 expressing the exhortation of Luqman (: Tobias) to his son:
يَا بُنَيَّ لَا تُشْرِكْ بِاللَّهِ إِنَّ الشِّرْكَ لَظُلْمٌ عَظِيمٌ
The explanation:
("My son, associate none with God; for, surely, the association [with God] is a tremendous wrong."[27])
He also said – be glorified – in the Quran 98: 6
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ وَالْمُشْرِكِينَ فِي نَارِ جَهَنَّمَ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أُوْلَئِكَ هُمْ شَرُّ الْبَرِيَّةِ
The explanation:
(Surely, those who disbelieve, among the people of the Bible and [among] the associaters, shall be in the fire of Hell to dwell therein forever; they are the worst of [all] people.)
There are different and numerous kinds of the association and polytheism:
The association is not confined to one who worship an idol:
Because you may worship a shrine or a tomb of an imam or a saint while you think that it is only a holy place which you visit and sanctify;
You kiss the door and walls and you think that this is a righteous work, and that God will recompense you for it.
But you are wrong about this imagination, and your hope is in vain, and your work is a sort of association, and you will be punished according to it; because God is Zealous, does not agree that you sanctify and glorify creatures, whether intelligent or unintelligent creatures.
Or you kiss the tombs of prophets and saints, or you kiss the doors and walls or bow down to them in salutation.
Or you vow for them.
Or seek their help at your standing up and sitting down.
Or you swear by them, while the swearing by those other than God is not allowed, but you should only say: I swear by God!
God – be glorified – instructed us in His glorious Book [: the Quran] that we should swear by Him, and that we should not swear by anyone or anything else, so He said in the Quran 10: 53, addressing his noble prophet Mohammed:
وَيَسْتَنبِئُونَكَ أَحَقٌّ هُوَ قُلْ إِي وَرَبِّي إِنَّهُ لَحَقٌّ
The explanation:
(They ask you [Mohammed] to tell them [about the sending forth to the Next Life, the Judgment and the punishment]: "Will it really take place?"
Say, "Yes indeed, by my Lord, this is the truth.)
God – be glorified – said also in the story of Joseph, in the Quran 12: 85
قَالُواْ تَالله تَفْتَأُ تَذْكُرُ يُوسُفَ
The explanation:
(They said: "By God! you will never cease to remember [and weep about] Joseph.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 64: 7
زَعَمَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَن لَّن يُبْعَثُوا قُلْ بَلَى وَرَبِّي لَتُبْعَثُنَّ
The explanation:
(The disbelievers assert that they will never be sent forth [to the Next Life.] Say:
"Yes, by my Lord! You shall be sent forth [to the Afterlife following your death, then to the 'gathering together' on Doomsday])
Therefore, the glorification of those other than God is also a sort of "association".
The swearing by those other than God also is a sort of "association".
Moreover, kissing the tombs, and the walls and doors of shrines is another kind of the "association".
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 18: 103-104
قُلْ هَلْ نُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِالْأَخْسَرِينَ أَعْمَالًا . الَّذِينَ ضَلَّ سَعْيُهُمْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَهُمْ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُمْ يُحْسِنُونَ صُنْعًا
The explanation:
(Say: "Shall we tell you who will be the greatest losers of [the reward of] their works?"
[They are] those whose efforts in the Worldly life will be lost, while they think that they do good work.)
Similarly nowadays most people have started to associate with God: by doing such acts, while they deem themselves doing good. They said just as had the ancient said before; as it is mentioned in the Quran 39: 3
مَا نَعْبُدُهُمْ إِلَّا لِيُقَرِّبُونَا إِلَى اللَّهِ زُلْفَى
The explanation:
("We worship them only that they may bring us close to God in honor!")
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 10: 18
وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ مَا لاَ يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلاَ يَنفَعُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ هَؤُلاء شُفَعَاؤُنَا عِندَ اللّهِ
The explanation:
(They worship, apart from God, that which [can] neither hurt nor profit them, and they say: "These are our intercessors with God!")
That is because the tombs of saints do not harm neither do they grant the needy their needs.
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 5: 76
قُلْ أَتَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ مَا لاَ يَمْلِكُ لَكُمْ ضَرًّا وَلاَ نَفْعًا وَاللّهُ هُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ
The explanation:
(Say [to them, Mohammed]: "Do you serve, apart from God, [the Messiah] that [now] cannot hurt or profit you [because he died and his soul ascended to heaven, to be among angels];
while God is the All-Hearing [of any who cries to Him], the All-Knowing [of any who supplicates Him?])
Also, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 17: 23
وَقَضَى رَبُّكَ أَلاَّ تَعْبُدُواْ إِلاَّ إِيَّاهُ وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا
The explanation:
([O Mohammed] your Lord decrees, that you [people] must worship none save Him [alone],
and [He decrees too that you must show] kindness to parents.)
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 7: 194
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ عِبَادٌ أَمْثَالُكُمْ فَادْعُوهُمْ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُواْ لَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
The explanation:
(Those, whom you pray besides God, are servants [of God] just like you.
So, now, pray them [to anything] and let them grant you [your prayer] if you do speak the truth.)
This is some of what is mentioned in the Quran about abandoning the worship of idols, tombs and shrines.
[About the monotheism in the Bible]
Now, I shall tell you what is mentioned in the Bible [included in the Old Testament] about this subject; for it is mentioned in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 26: 1; God – be glorified – said:
"I am the Lord your God. You shall make for yourselves no idols[28], neither shall you raise up an engraved image [29] or a pillar[30] , neither shall you place any figured stone[31] in your land, to bow down to it: for I am the Lord your God."
Moreover, it is mentioned in the Tablets of Prophet Moses – salam be to him – in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 5: 7-9, God – be glorified – said that:
"7 You shall have no other gods before me.
8 "You shall not make an engraved image for yourself, [nor] any likeness [of anything] that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
9 You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them; for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God."
God Is Wrathful with Associaters
God – be glorified – gets angry with associaters, hates them, distracts them from His mercy and never forgives them their sins.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 4: 48
إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يَغْفِرُ أَن يُشْرَكَ بِهِ وَيَغْفِرُ مَا دُونَ ذَلِكَ لِمَن يَشَاء
The explanation:
(God does not forgive that anything should be associated with Him, but forgives anything short of that, to whomsoever He pleases.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 5: 72
إِنَّهُ مَن يُشْرِكْ بِاللّهِ فَقَدْ حَرَّمَ اللّهُ عَلَيهِ الْجَنَّةَ وَمَأْوَاهُ النَّارُ
The explanation:
(Surely, whoso associates [anyone] with God, God has forbidden him Paradise, and his resort will be the Fire.)
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 4: 48
وَمَن يُشْرِكْ بِاللّهِ فَقَدِ افْتَرَى إِثْمًا عَظِيمًا
The explanation:
(Whoso associates [anything] with God, he has indeed invented a great sin.)
Therefore, if you like to be one of monotheists, then let your work be devoted to God alone, and don't associate with Him anyone of prophets or saints; so don't vow to prophets, imams, sheikhs or saints; because it is a sort of the association, and do not seek their help in your standing up and sitting down; because it is an "association"; even if you say: O Mohammed! [help me].
Kissing of their tombs and the doors and walls of their shrines is an "association"; and their sanctification and bowing to their tombs with salutation is an association.
Asking of them your needs also is an association.
Moreover, if you name your children with names like: Abd-Ali i.e. Ali's slave, Abdul Hassan i.e. Hassan's slave, Abdul Hussein i.e. Hussein's slave, Aon's slave, Hamza's slave …etc; it is also a sort of association.
But if you need something, then enter one of the mosques, and pray two bows of prayer for the sake of God and ask God your need and He will grant it to you; for God – be glorified – said in the Quran 40: 60
وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمُ ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ
The explanation:
(And your Lord says: “Pray to Me; I will answer your prayer.)
It means: Serve Me and devote your service and worshipping to Me, and so I will answer your prayer.
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 186
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ
The explanation:
(And when My servants ask you [Mohammed] concerning Me, I am always Near;
I answer the prayer's prayer when he prays to Me.)
Blind Adoption [of Concepts and Opinions] Is Wrong
Any man that imitates and follows others [without thinking] is like a blind man guided by a seer; so that he may stumble in his way, and may fall into a pit if his leader is unaware of him.
God rebuked those who imitate and follow others [without thinking], and He praised those using their mind, and who do not follow others blindly in religion and belief.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 43: 23-24; dispraising the imitators [who blindly adopt the opinions and concepts]:
وَكَذَلِكَ مَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِن قَبْلِكَ فِي قَرْيَةٍ مِّن نَّذِيرٍ إِلَّا قَالَ مُتْرَفُوهَا إِنَّا وَجَدْنَا آبَاءنَا عَلَى أُمَّةٍ وَإِنَّا عَلَى آثَارِهِم مُّقْتَدُونَ . قالَ أَوَلَوْ جِئْتُكُم بِأَهْدَى مِمَّا وَجَدتُّمْ عَلَيْهِ آبَاءكُمْ
The explanation:
(And as such [concerning the past nations] We sent not any warner before you [Mohammed] into any city but its luxurious men said:
“We have found our fathers following [the program of] a sect, and we – after them – are following [their same program.]”
[And the warner] said [to them]: “What! Even if I have brought you a better guidance than that you found your fathers following?”)
God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 2: 170
أَوَلَوْ كَانَ آبَاؤُهُمْ لاَ يَعْقِلُونَ شَيْئاً وَلاَ يَهْتَدُونَ
The explanation:
(What if their fathers did not understand, and were not guided [to the truth]?)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said also in the Quran 5: 104
أَوَلَوْ كَانَ آبَاؤُهُمْ لاَ يَعْلَمُونَ شَيْئًا وَلاَ يَهْتَدُونَ
The explanation:
(What! Even though their fathers did not know anything [of the religion] nor were they guided [to the truth?]")
Then God – be glorified – explained that leaders will deny and withdraw from followers and imitators, who imitated and followed them, on the Day of Judgment; and that there will be enmity and hatred between leaders and their followers; as in the Quran 2: 166-167
إِذْ تَبَرَّأَ الَّذِينَ اتُّبِعُواْ مِنَ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُواْ وَرَأَوُاْ الْعَذَابَ وَتَقَطَّعَتْ بِهِمُ الأَسْبَابُ .
وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُواْ لَوْ أَنَّ لَنَا كَرَّةً فَنَتَبَرَّأَ مِنْهُمْ كَمَا تَبَرَّؤُواْ مِنَّا
The explanation:
([In the spirit-world] when [leaders and religious scholars] who were followed [in the life of the World, and who invited people to the peers of God], [shall] disown [their] followers,
and they [shall] see the punishment [with their own eye sights],
and all their efforts [to escape the punishment] shall collapse with them.
And the followers [of the misguided religious leaders, will] say:
'If a return [to the World] were possible for us, we would disown them [in the life of the World] even as have they disowned us [in the afterlife.]')
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 33: 67 telling about the imitating followers [who blindly adopt opinions and concepts]:
وَقَالُوا رَبَّنَا إِنَّا أَطَعْنَا سَادَتَنَا وَكُبَرَاءنَا فَأَضَلُّونَا السَّبِيلَا
The explanation:
(And they [will] say: "Our Lord, we obeyed our masters and chiefs, and they misled us from the [right] way.")
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 38: 59-61
هَذَا فَوْجٌ مُّقْتَحِمٌ مَّعَكُمْ لَا مَرْحَبًا بِهِمْ إِنَّهُمْ صَالُوا النَّارِ. قَالُوا بَلْ أَنتُمْ لَا مَرْحَبًا بِكُمْ أَنتُمْ قَدَّمْتُمُوهُ لَنَا فَبِئْسَ الْقَرَارُ.
قَالُوا رَبَّنَا مَن قَدَّمَ لَنَا هَذَا فَزِدْهُ عَذَابًا ضِعْفًا فِي النَّارِ
The explanation:
(This is [what your hands forwarded;
now there has come to you] a troop [of those whom you deceived] rushing in [to the fire] with you;
[they will say]: "There is no welcome for them; they will broil in the fire."
[The followers will] say [to their leaders]: "No, it is for you the ‘no welcome’; you forwarded this [punishment] to us, so [this day] let evil be your settlement [in the fire.]"
[The followers will] say: "Our Lord, whoso forwarded this [chastisement], give him a double chastisement in the fire.")
I say: the Muslim [and anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and the rest of God's prophets], should not follow anyone of religious doctors and leaders blindly without thinking and contemplation; but he should follow the Quran, which is the word of God that no falsehood can touch whether in the past or in the future.
While as regards the divisions and sects of Muslims; they became seventy three sects in spite of that Prophet Mohammed – salam be to him – did not bring save one religion, one Book and one law; but God's adversaries have divided Muslims into many divisions aiming to attain the leadership, control and supervision as it is said: "Divide and rule!"
Each sect says: We are right and the others are wrong, but [actually] each follows his fathers and grandfathers even if those were wrong.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 7: 30
إِنَّهُمُ اتَّخَذُوا الشَّيَاطِينَ أَوْلِيَاء مِن دُونِ اللّهِ وَيَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُم مُّهْتَدُونَ
The explanation:
(These, indeed, take the [men that are] devils for [their] friends instead of God, [yet] they deem themselves rightly guided.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 43: 37
وَإِنَّهُمْ لَيَصُدُّونَهُمْ عَنِ السَّبِيلِ وَيَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُم مُّهْتَدُونَ
The explanation:
(And the [devils] surely bar the [associaters] from the way [of the truth], and yet the [associaters] deem themselves rightly guided.)
I say: Have they referred to a just judge or arbiter, so that he judged for one of the Islamic sects that it is right, while the other sects are wrong; or has God revealed in the Quran that a certain sect or division is right?
No, neither of these two suppositions is right; but merely it is a blind adoption.
In fact, God – be glorified – explained and made it clear, in several soora's [or chapters] of the Quran, that monotheists are right and are rightly guided, while associaters or polytheists are wrong, and they will abide in Hell forever.
But if you say to anyone of them: You are an associater (or a polytheist), he will deny that and become angry and say: No, on the contrary, I am a monotheist, and God is One without any associate with Him.[32]
But if you say to him: Then why do you worship and sanctify the graves?
He will say: These are our intercessors and mediators with God.
Which is just as how the pagan Arab, who worshipped angels, said as indicated by His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 10: 18
وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ مَا لاَ يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلاَ يَنفَعُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ هَؤُلاء شُفَعَاؤُنَا عِندَ اللّهِ
The explanation:
(They worship, apart from God, that which [can] neither hurt nor profit them, and they say: "These are our intercessors with God!")
And God – be glorified – said in the Quran 39: 3
وَالَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا مِن دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاء مَا نَعْبُدُهُمْ إِلَّا لِيُقَرِّبُونَا إِلَى اللَّهِ زُلْفَى
The explanation:
(But those who choose 'patrons' [: the angels] apart from [God], [and say:] "We worship them only that they may bring us close to God in honor!")
Nowadays, those who worship the graves and tombs say the same words.
I say: Do the silver and the gold in the shrines of the saints and imams: is it which brings them close to God? Or do the souls of saints and imams do that?
If they say: it is the gold and the silver; then they are wrong; for God – be glorified – said in the Quran 34: 37
وَمَا أَمْوَالُكُمْ وَلَا أَوْلَادُكُم بِالَّتِي تُقَرِّبُكُمْ عِندَنَا زُلْفَى
The explanation:
(It is not your [abundant] wealth [eventhough you spent all of it in charity] would bring you to Our neighborhood, nor would your children [eventhough they worked righteous work] have an honorable degree before Us [because you are associaters.])
But if they say: The souls of saints will bring us close to God; then I say: Prophets and saints ascended to the Gardens following their death, and nothing remained on the earth except the decayed bodies and corpses which do not bring any benefit nor drive away any harm.
And because the abode of prophets and saints is in the heavens, they do not hear anyone who call on them, and they do not perceive their secret conversation, and are unable to grant people their needs.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 35: 14
إِن تَدْعُوهُمْ لَا يَسْمَعُوا دُعَاءكُمْ وَلَوْ سَمِعُوا مَا اسْتَجَابُوا لَكُمْ وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ يَكْفُرُونَ بِشِرْكِكُمْ
The explanation:
(If you [associaters] pray them [: the angels, to remove your distress], they hear not your prayer [because they are in the ethereal heavens faraway from you.]
And if they [: those angels present with you on earth] hear, they cannot grant it you [because they do not do anything without God’s command.]
On the Day of Judgment, they will disown your associating [them with God.])
Therefore, if you like to be saved, then abandon worshipping men and sanctifying them, even though they are prophets, but worship and serve your Lord alone, and don't associate anyone else in the worship.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran in the end of chapter 18: 110
فَمَن كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَاء رَبِّهِ فَلْيَعْمَلْ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا وَلَا يُشْرِكْ بِعِبَادَةِ رَبِّهِ أَحَدًا
The explanation:
(Then let him, who hopes to meet his Lord, work righteous works and associate none [of created beings and created things] in worshipping his Lord.")
The Mediation (or Intercession)
The "mediation" is practiced among created beings, but this act cannot be practiced between God and His servants; because among people there are the noble and the wicked; so that if your need is by the control of a wicked or mean man, then he will not grant it you unless you make a mediation or intercession with him.
Whereas the noble or generous man: there is no need for mediation with him; but he will grant you your need without any mediation or intercession. This matter is uncontroversial one.
Then, what do you think about God: isn't He the Most Gracious of all the gracious and the Most Merciful of all the merciful?
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 186
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ
The explanation:
(And when My servants ask you [Mohammed] concerning Me, I am always Near;
I answer the prayer's prayer when he prays to Me.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 40: 60
وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمُ ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ
The explanation:
(And your Lord says: “Pray to Me; I will answer your prayer.”)
So here, God – be glorified – said:
ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ
i.e. (Pray to Me; I will answer your prayer), but He didn't say: Make an intercession or mediation between Me and you.
In addition, it is mentioned in a prayer of Ali, the son of Hussein – salam to him:
"Praise is due to God on Whom I call whenever I need [anything], and I be in private alone with Him for my secret without any intercessor, and He grants me my need.
Praise be to God on Whom I call and I never call on anyone else; for if I do call on "anyone else", this ["latter"] will not answer my call."
So think and contemplate in this prayer, when he said: "without any intercessor", means: without any mediation, and He grants me my need.
Therefore, learn from it the monotheism and stick to it, and do not seek an intercession with God except your righteous work and your monotheism and devotion to God only; so that you will win and attain Paradise.
Giving to Children Their Names
In the pre-Islam period, they called their sons: Abd–Lat, Abd–Uzza, Abd–Manat, Abd–Shams and other names which declared them as the slaves of idols and pillars; or they name them as slaves or servants of the angels. In fact, Prophet Mohammed – salam be to him – prohibited the naming with such names.
[The translator: The suffix ‘Abd’ in Arabic: means the slave or servant; notice also that the surname of Prophet Jacob: "Israel" which means: Isra-el: the servant of God: the same in Arabic as Abd-Allah. In the Torah, Moses, Joshua and other righteous men, each is called the servant of God.]
Nowadays, the same situation has appeared again; so that people started to name their sons: Abd–Al-Hassan, Abd–Al-Hussein, Abd–Al-Zahra, Abd–Al-Hamza, Abd–Al-Ekhwa and other names which declare them as slaves or servants of imams and sheikhs; while this as a whole is some sort of associating [such imams and sheikhs] with God.
This kind of names is not allowed, even if you name your son Abd–Al-Nabi [i.e. the servant of the prophet], or Abd–Mohammed; because all people are God's servants and they are not servants or slaves of men.
It is mentioned that Imam Ali – salam be to him – sent a message to Hassan, his son, including admonishings and advices. In one of such advices he said:
"And never be a slave of others while God has made you free."
Therefore, if you want to name your son, then name him: Abd–Allah, Abd–Al-Kariem or Abd–A-Rahiem or what is like that of names [which signifies slavery to God alone]; in order that God will be pleased with you and will not dislike you.
People have associated by their work and deeds which should be devoted to God, even as regards building mosques; so that when one of them intends to build a mosque, he will associate Hussein[33] with God when he will write over the gate "Husseiniah and mosque".
And because this mosque is shared between God and one of the imams, so God will not accept it from its builder, and will not recompense him for it because he associated in the mosque one of God's servants.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 72: 18
وَأَنَّ الْمَسَاجِدَ لِلَّهِ فَلَا تَدْعُوا مَعَ اللَّهِ أَحَدًا
The explanation:
(The mosques [: the places of worship] are for God [alone], so pray not to anyone along with God.)
This is God's word; but they prayed, along with God, to tens not ones, and actually hundreds whom they loved like loving God and actually more [than the degree of their loving God.]
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 165
وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَتَّخِذُ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ أَندَاداً يُحِبُّونَهُمْ كَحُبِّ اللّهِ
The explanation:
(Yet [some] of people choose [to worship], apart from God, peers [to God]; they love [these peers] as should God be loved.)
So this is the "associating" or "association".
Therefore, man should devote himself to God alone, so that he should love God more than his children, his fathers and his clan.
God – be glorified – said after the first part of the preceding Quranic aya
وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِّلّهِ
The explanation:
(But those who believe love God more ardently.)
However, people started to love imams, sheikhs and saints more than their love of God; therefore, this is the "association".
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 12: 106
وَمَا يُؤْمِنُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ بِاللّهِ إِلاَّ وَهُم مُّشْرِكُونَ
The explanation:
(But most of [people] believe not in God unless they associate [others with Him.])
It means: They believe that God is their "Creator" and "Provider" and that He is the "All–Able" to grant them their needs, but [in spite of that] they associate the creatures with the Creator in the worship and servitude and they seek provision from them and forget about the Provider; they ask their needs from those that cannot accomplish their needs, while they forget about the All-Able God [or All-Mighty.]
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 29: 17
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ لَا يَمْلِكُونَ لَكُمْ رِزْقًا فَابْتَغُوا عِندَ اللَّهِ الرِّزْقَ
The explanation:
(Surely those – apart from God – whom you worship cannot control any provision for you; therefore seek provision with God.)
It means: Ask the provision from God, and don't ask from those other than Him.
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 16: 73
وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ مَا لاَ يَمْلِكُ لَهُمْ رِزْقًا مِّنَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ شَيْئًا وَلاَ يَسْتَطِيعُونَ
The explanation:
(And they worship, besides God, [the angels and idols] that cannot control for them any provision in the heavens and the earth and have no power [at all to do that.])
Someone built a mosque in the Babylon Province in Iraq, and wrote over the gate of the mosque: "Husseiniah and Mosque of Ali, the son of Abu Talib"!
So think about that, dear reader! This builder associated two persons with God, and actually he didn't specify any part of it for God; because the Husseiniah: he dedicated to Hussein the son of Ali, while he dedicated the mosque to Ali, the son of Abu Talib and nothing of it remained for God.
The work of the pagan Arab was similar to this; because the part of their cattle dedicated to God: they used to offer it to their idols, while the share of their idols: they did not offer to God; as it is indicated by His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 6: 136
وَجَعَلُواْ لِلّهِ مِمِّا ذَرَأَ مِنَ الْحَرْثِ وَالأَنْعَامِ نَصِيبًا فَقَالُواْ هَذَا لِلّهِ بِزَعْمِهِمْ وَهَذَا لِشُرَكَآئِنَا فَمَا كَانَ لِشُرَكَآئِهِمْ فَلاَ يَصِلُ إِلَى اللّهِ وَمَا كَانَ لِلّهِ فَهُوَ يَصِلُ إِلَى شُرَكَآئِهِمْ سَاء مَا يَحْكُمُونَ
The explanation:
(They assign to God, out of what He produces of crops and cattle, a portion; [and another portion, they assign for their idols];
and they say: "This [portion] is for God" – as do they claim – "and this [portion] is for our associates."
So what [portion] is for their associates reaches not God; and what [portion] is for God reaches their associates.
Evil indeed is their judgment.)
Similarly, this builder made the mosque shared between God and Hussein, then the portion of the mosque dedicated for God: he offered it to Ali – salam to him. Therefore, nothing of it remained for God; while God – be glorified – said in the Quran 72: 18
وَأَنَّ الْمَسَاجِدَ لِلَّهِ فَلَا تَدْعُوا مَعَ اللَّهِ أَحَدًا
The explanation:
(The mosques [: the places of worship] are for God [alone], so pray not to anyone along with God.)
A Conversation between Me and Someone
I said to him: "It is not allowed to kiss the walls and doors of the shrines of saints; for it is a kind of associatoin."
He said: "We kiss the walls and doors as a glorification of those buried in these graves; as it is mentioned in the Arab poetry when the poet said that "he kissed the walls of the houses because he loved those who dwelt in those houses, and not for the love of the houses themselves."
I said: "I know that your loving the saints is more than your loving God, and for this reason you kiss the walls and doors and adore the threshold of the door, and seek to be blessed with the stone and earth."
He said: "We do that as a glorification and sanctification of the saints, and it is not for the stone and earth; and we don't love them more than we love God."
I said: "But [actually] you sanctify the tombs and love the saints more than you love God."
He said: "How can you prove that?"
I said: "Did you ever go to one of the mosques to pray therein?"
He said: "I frequently go to mosques and pray to God therein, especially during the month of Ramadan."
I said: "Did you ever, even though in one occasion, kiss the wall or door of any mosque?"
He said: "No."
I said: "Did you ever, even though once, present to any mosque, a piece of furniture, lamps or chandeliers, or silver or gold?"
He said: "No, I didn't present anything of that."
I said: "Mosques are the houses of God, while tombs and shrines are the houses of the dead; therefore, you are glorifying the houses of men and you are not glorifying the houses of God. You kiss the walls of the tombs, but you do not kiss the walls of the mosques which are God's houses of worship. You present your gifts of the furniture, the chandeliers, the silver and gold to the tombs of men, but you do not present such things to the houses of God.
Then this is certainly a certain proof that you love the saints more than you love God.
Second: You have attributed peers to God by your sanctifying and glorifying the tombs of the saints.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 22
فَلاَ تَجْعَلُواْ لِلّهِ أَندَاداً وَأَنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ
The explanation:
(Therefore, do not set up peers for God, the while you know [that the One Who produced the fruits for you is God, not the peers.])
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 165
وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَتَّخِذُ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ أَندَاداً يُحِبُّونَهُمْ كَحُبِّ اللّهِ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِّلّهِ
The explanation:
(Yet [some] of people choose [to worship], apart from God, peers [to God]; they love [these peers] as should God be loved.
But those who believe love God more ardently.)
In addition, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 41: 9
قُلْ أَئِنَّكُمْ لَتَكْفُرُونَ بِالَّذِي خَلَقَ الْأَرْضَ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَتَجْعَلُونَ لَهُ أَندَادًا ذَلِكَ رَبُّ الْعَالَمِينَ
The explanation:
(Say [Mohammed, to the idolaters]: "Do you, then, disbelieve in [God] Who created the earth in two days, and do you ascribe to Him opponents [or peers]? –– That is the Lord of [all] the worlds!")
And you know what punishment God has prepared in the afterlife for those who attribute peers to God. So if you like to be saved in the afterlife: then abandon the enthusiasm about the saints, like the enthusiasm of Christians about the Christ, so leave the enthusiasm and the association and make your work exclusively devoted to God alone; and let your love of God more than any other being; as God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 165
وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِّلّهِ
The explanation:
(But those who believe love God more ardently.)
Thirdly – You may acquire some of the infectious diseases because of your kissing the tombs, shrines and walls."
He said: "How is that?"
I said: 'some of the visitors of such shrines bring some fragrances and aromatic oils, with which they rub the tombs, walls and doors; and people come and kiss such places. It might be that some of them have pulmonary tuberculosis or some other infectious diseases, so that the microbes will be transmitted from the mouth of the patient to the mouth of the healthy person by the way of kissing and contact of hands with those sepulchers and shrines; and because of the kissing you may acquire an infectious disease while you are unaware of its source."
He said: "This is right, and your words are reasonable, so I shall abandon kissing the shrines and the walls; I shall also abandon the associating of other beings with God, and become one of the "monotheists" [who are devoted to God alone] and this is possible only by God's will."
The Life of the World and the Next Life
God – be glorified – explained to us in the Quran, and declared that man lives two lives:
The First – is that which he lives in the "life of the World" which is the material life with his material body.
The Second – is the everlasting life which he lives in the "afterlife" in the ethereal world.
[The reason why God created man in the World:]
Then God – be glorified – explained why He created man in the "life of the World" and the duty of man therein, and He explained to us in many ayat of the Quran that:
The first purpose: is in order that man should understand and become wise by studying sciences and by studying the heavenly books and by contemplating in the universe and what God has created in the heavens and the earth, and by the experience which he acquires in his life, and the events and the incidents that happen to him [by God's decree.]
The second purpose: is that he should come to know that there is a Creator, Who created him and bestowed on him all these favors and grace; so that he should worship and serve Him alone.
That is His saying – be glorified – in the Quran 51: 56
وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ
The explanation:
(I created not the genie-kind and the man-kind but only to worship Me [alone.])
And God – be glorified – said in the Quran 2: 242
كَذَلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
The explanation:
(As such does God expound to you His revelations, in order that you may use your minds.)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 40: 67
هُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ عَلَقَةٍ ثُمَّ يُخْرِجُكُمْ طِفْلًا ثُمَّ لِتَبْلُغُوا أَشُدَّكُمْ ثُمَّ لِتَكُونُوا شُيُوخًا وَمِنكُم مَّن يُتَوَفَّى مِن قَبْلُ وَلِتَبْلُغُوا أَجَلًا مُّسَمًّى وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
The explanation:
(It is [God] Who created you[r father Adam] from earth, then [created you] from scanty [seminal] fluid [of your fathers poured in the wombs of your mothers], then from a ‘structure shaped like the mosquito larva’, then We take you out [of your mothers' wombs] as a child [after another], then to attain your [age of] full strength, then to become elderly -- though some of you may die before the [elderly] -- and that [each of] you may reach [his] stated lifetime; and so that you may become wise.)
Therefore, God – be celebrated His praise – explained that He gave to man a long life-span in order to learn so that his mind will grow and he will become wise.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 6: 151
قُلْ تَعَالَوْاْ أَتْلُ مَا حَرَّمَ رَبُّكُمْ عَلَيْكُمْ أَلاَّ تُشْرِكُواْ بِهِ شَيْئًا وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا وَلاَ تَقْتُلُواْ أَوْلاَدَكُم مِّنْ إمْلاَقٍ نَّحْنُ نَرْزُقُكُمْ وَإِيَّاهُمْ وَلاَ تَقْرَبُواْ الْفَوَاحِشَ مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا وَمَا بَطَنَ وَلاَ تَقْتُلُواْ النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللّهُ إِلاَّ بِالْحَقِّ ذَلِكُمْ وَصَّاكُمْ بِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
The explanation:
(Say [O Mohammed, to these associaters and idolaters:] "Come, I will recite to you what your Lord has forbidden you [in the Book]:
that you associate not anything with Him,
and that you do good to parents,
and that you slay not your children because of penury – We provide for you and for them,
and that you come not near to adultery whether open or concealed.
And that you kill not the [living] person, which God did forbid save by right.
This [statement] He has commanded you; haply you will understand.)
The commandments which God – be glorified – commanded in this aya are five commandments that none commits but only the unwise, the short-sighted and the ignorant person.
The first of them is His saying – be glorified -
أَلاَّ تُشْرِكُواْ بِهِ شَيْئًا
i.e. (that you associate not anything with Him)
And none, associates with God: so as to worship idols or pillars, but only the ignorant one.
Then His saying – be glorified –
وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا
i.e. (and that you do good to parents)
That is because none denies the favor of his parents on him and their care about him, but only the ignorant and wicked person.
Similarly His saying – be glorified –
وَلاَ تَقْتُلُواْ أَوْلاَدَكُم مِّنْ إمْلاَقٍ نَّحْنُ نَرْزُقُكُمْ وَإِيَّاهُمْ
i.e. (and that you slay not your children because of penury – We provide for you and for them)
And none kills the sons of people, robs their clothes and steals their wealth but only the wicked and short-sighted person, because the murderer must be killed, and the victim's family or friends will take revenge on him.
Then His saying – be glorified –
وَلاَ تَقْرَبُواْ الْفَوَاحِشَ
i.e. (and that you come not near to adultery)
Certainly none approaches to adulteresses and commits adultery save the foolish, unwise and short-sighted person.
Similarly, anyone kills a human being is a wicked rancorous and short-sighted person; because the family members of the victim will certainly take revenge against him.
Therefore, if man trains himself to patience, piety and avoiding such prohibitions, then his wisdom will gradually increase and he will become wise; that is His saying – be glorified –
ذَلِكُمْ وَصَّاكُمْ بِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
i.e. (This [statement] He has commanded you; haply you will understand[34].)
Moreover, God – be glorified – said in the Quran 12:2
إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَاهُ قُرْآنًا عَرَبِيًّا لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
The explanation:
(We have revealed it [in your language], an Arabic Quran; in order that you [people] may understand[35] [it.])
It means: in order to study the Quran, understand it and work according to its instructions, and by that your wisdom will increase.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 75: 26-30
كَلَّا إِذَا بَلَغَتْ التَّرَاقِيَ . وَقِيلَ مَنْ رَاقٍ . وَظَنَّ أَنَّهُ الْفِرَاقُ . وَالْتَفَّتِ السَّاقُ بِالسَّاقِ . إِلَى رَبِّكَ يَوْمَئِذٍ الْمَسَاقُ
The explanation:
(No, [they will not get rid of the chastisement, nor will the intercession of any intercessor avail them.]
[Then God – be glorified – started to explain about the condition of the dying one on his deathbed, and He said:]
But when the [soul] reaches to [the level of] the collar bones.
And it is said: "Who is an enchanter [that may heal him? Or a doctor that may cure him?]"
And he became certain that it is [the death inevitably and] the parting [from the life of the World.]
And [after death], leg shall be wrapped with leg.
On that day [of death of each one of them], the driving [of the soul] shall be to your Lord’s [judgment.])
The interpretation:
>> (But when the [soul of a dying man on his death-bed, on its way out of the body], reaches to [the level of] the collar bones.)
It means: When the soul reaches to the neck bones.
>> (And it is said [by his family]: "Who is an enchanter [that may heal him? Or a doctor that may cure him?]")
It means: The family of the dying person, who is going to die on his bed, say: "Is there any wizard who can cure him or any doctor who can treat him?"
The "wizard" is the one who writes some amulets (or spells or charms) and say some prayers for the patient in order that he may be cured.
>> (And he became certain that it is [the death inevitably and] the parting [from the life of the World.])
>> (And [after death], leg shall be wrapped with leg.)
God – be glorified – meant by that the legs of the soul, not of the body; because
They have attraction so that one leg will stick to the other.
The meaning: His both legs will be bound to each other, as if they are tied with ropes; so that he cannot walk on the earth by feet as was he walking before death, but he will go forwards, as if he glides on the ice.
>> (On that day [of death of each one of them], the driving [of the soul] shall be to your Lord’s [judgment.])
It means: The "death angels" will take and drive him to God – be glorified – and He will reckon and punish him according to his sins if he is one of the faithful, so he will be imprisoned and punished according to his sins, then will be released and return back to his family; i.e. to the house in which he died, where he will stay and see his family members who died before him, and he will gather with them; also he will see his living family members and hear them, but they neither can see him nor can they hear him.
While as regards the disbelievers: they will not be judged, but will remain on earth chastised with various kinds of chastisement: naked, hungry, thirsty, lowly and humbled among souls and they will serve the devils till Doomsday, then they will go to Hell.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 84: 7-15
فَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِيَ كِتَابَهُ بِيَمِينِهِ . فَسَوْفَ يُحَاسَبُ حِسَابًا يَسِيرًا . وَيَنقَلِبُ إِلَى أَهْلِهِ مَسْرُورًا . وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِيَ كِتَابَهُ وَرَاء ظَهْرِهِ . فَسَوْفَ يَدْعُو ثُبُورًا . وَيَصْلَى سَعِيرًا . إِنَّهُ كَانَ فِي أَهْلِهِ مَسْرُورًا . إِنَّهُ ظَنَّ أَن لَّن يَحُورَ . بَلَى إِنَّ رَبَّهُ كَانَ بِهِ بَصِيرًا
The explanation:
([Then God – be glorified – explained about the conditions of people in the Next Life, and He said:]
Then as for him who is given his book [of deeds] in his right hand,
He shall be punished with a mild punishment,
And will return [after the punishment] joyfully to his [new] family [in the Paradise of Refuge.]
But anyone given his book [of deeds] behind his back,
He shall invoke [on himself] destruction.
And shall broil in a blaze [on Doomsday.]
Surely, in his family, he was joyful [with his disobedience to God.]
He thought that he should never return [to Our quarter to be punished.]
Yes, indeed [he will return to Us; for] his Lord is Ever Seeing him.)
The interpretation:
>> (Then as for him who is given his book [of deeds] in his right hand)
It means: his book of deeds, written by the angels in charge of him; so pious men will be given their books by their right hands.
It means: He shall be punished according to his sins, in the world of souls, with a mild punishment like the prison, hunger, thirst or other than that, which will be a mild punishment in comparison to the punishment of disbelieving men.
>> (And will return [after the fulfillment of his punishment] joyfully to his [new] family [in the Paradise of Refuge.])
It means: he will return back to his house where he died, and where he will find his family members who died before him: his sons, daughters, wives and his other relatives; he will be glad and joyful with the elapsing and ending of his punishment, and will hope to go into Paradise on Judgment Day, and shall stay with his family: the souls; they hear each other, see each other, and will talk, eat [or he will go to his new family in the Paradise of Refuge.]
>> While as regards the disbelievers: they will not be reckoned with, but will remain on the earth chastised by various kinds of chastisement: naked, hungry, thirsty, despised and humble among the souls: they serve devils, by loath till Doomsday, then they enter into Hell.
While the book of their deeds will be stuck on their backs in order that souls will read it, and will be a ‘shame and disgrace’ to them; that is His saying – be glorified
وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِيَ كِتَابَهُ وَرَاء ظَهْرِهِ . فَسَوْفَ يَدْعُو ثُبُورًا
i.e. (But anyone given his book [of deeds] behind his back, he shall invoke [on himself] destruction.)
It means: he will be tormented with various kinds of torment, so that he will invoke destruction for himself; i.e. he will desire for death but cannot find any way to die; because souls do not die even though they are cast into the fire.
>> (And shall broil in a blaze [on Doomsday.])
>> (Surely, in his family, he was joyful [with his disobedience to God]) in the life of the World, and was not fearing God.
>> (He thought that he should never return [to Our quarter to be punished]), i.e. he thought that he should never return to God's side where he will be chastised and punished for his disbelief.
An imaginary drawing of an ethereal date-palm
It produced the date for five years, then it died,
and all its fruit remained on it in the spiritual world
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All praise and gratitude is due to God our True Master and Guide.
Books of the interpreter in English online:
http://www.quran-ayat.com/index.htm#Quran_interpretation
http://www.quran-ayat.com/man/index.htm
http://www.quran-ayat.com/hour/an_hour_with_ghosts.htm
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/index.htm
The Conflict between the Torah and the Quran
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/index.htm
Books of the interpreter in Arabic online:
http://www.quran-ayat.com/arab.htm
http://www.quran-ayat.com/alkhilaf/index.htm
http://www.quran-ayat.com/kown/index.htm
http://www.quran-ayat.com/shabaha/index.htm
[1] Prophet Mohammed said: "People will be gathered together on Doomsday: naked, bare-footed and uncircumcised." And God – be glorified – said in the Quran 18: 48
لَّقَدْ جِئْتُمُونَا كَمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍ
The explanation:
([Angels will say to them, rebuking and censuring:]
"Now you have come to Us [naked, bare footed, without wealth or sons] as had We created you at first [when you came out of the wombs of your mothers])
It means: You have come to Us naked as had you come naked to the World.
[2] One of the habits and doctrines of Muslims is that they offer the dresses of the dead to the needy and poor; and that is on behalf of the dead; so my mother had offered the dresses of her dead children. I think the dresses, which that girl was carrying, were some of the dresses of my dead brethren which my mother had offered to the poor, i.e. the clothes, which that girl gave to me, were their ethereal [copy], and not the material [clothes themselves].
[3] Muslims used to offer the dresses of their dead relatives to the poor; my mother too gave the dresses of her dead children to the poor. I think that the dresses which that girl was carrying and gave me one of them, was the result of their offering to the poor; so that the ethereal dresses were the share of my sister; for the children had gone to Paradise and left the excess of their dresses with my older sister; and that dress was my share at that time.
From this it seems that children will not be naked in the spirit world because children have no sins. While men and women [: the adults] are treated according to their deeds, so that the angels give the righteous person among them some dresses to cover his shame.
I saw my uncle Ali wearing clothes, also the girl who gave me the dress, she too was wearing clothes.
While the sinner and the disobedient will remain naked among souls, and that is the "disgrace doom" in the spirit world.
God – be glorified – said in the Quran 41: 16
لِّنُذِيقَهُمْ عَذَابَ الْخِزْيِ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَلَعَذَابُ الْآخِرَةِ أَخْزَى وَهُمْ لَا يُنصَرُونَ
The explanation:
(To let them taste the chastisement of disgrace in the life of the World. And the chastisement of the Next Life will, surely, be more degrading, and they will not be helped [: none will save them from the punishment.])
[4] Many of my brothers and sisters died in their childhood; but I didn't see them in our house, except the girl whose age was twelve years; while as regards the children: they were taken to Paradise.
[5] The iodine paint or other antiseptics were unknown to people at that time, but they used to put, on the wound, a piece of wool after burning half of it and putting it out.
[6] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 75: 29-30, describing spirits when they leave the bodies:
والتَفَّتِ السّاقُ بِالسّاق . إلى رَبِّكَ يَوْمَئذِ المَساق
The explanation:
(And [after death], leg shall be wrapped with leg.
On that day [of death of each one of them], the driving [of the soul] shall be to your Lord’s [judgment.])
The cause of this wrapping is an attraction occurring between the two legs which prevents the souls from walking on their feet, so that they go forwards like birds, light in weight and quick in movement.
[7] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 22: 31 about the dispraise of idolaters and associaters:
ومَنْ يُشْرِكْ بِاللهِ فَكَأنَّما خَرَّ مِنَ السّماءِ فَتَخْطَفُهُ الطَّيْرُ أوْ تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ في مَكانٍ سَحِيق
The explanation:
(Anyone associates [anything] with God: it is as if he had fallen from the sky, and the birds had pierced him or the wind had blown him down into a far distant place.)
Therefore, the bird and the wind are dangerous to spirits.
[8] From this, it seems that the earth gravity has no influence on spirits.
[9] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 22: 31 concerning the dispraise of idolaters and associaters:
ومَنْ يُشْرِكْ بِاللهِ فَكَأنَّما خَرَّ مِنَ السّماءِ فَتَخْطَفُهُ الطَّيْرُ أوْ تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ في مَكانٍ سَحِيق
The explanation:
(Anyone associates [anything] with God: it is as if he had fallen from the sky, and the birds had pierced him or the wind had blown him down into a far distant place.)
So this is the "piercing-through" of birds.
[10] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 76: 19 describing the boys of Paradise:
وَيَطُوفُ عَلَيْهِمْ وِلْدَانٌ مُّخَلَّدُونَ إِذَا رَأَيْتَهُمْ حَسِبْتَهُمْ لُؤْلُؤًا مَّنثُورًا
The explanation:
(And there will wait on [and attend] them immortal youths [who will not grow older.] When you [man] see them, you suppose them some pearls scattered about.)
The pearl is transparent before its extraction from the shell.
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 37: 49
كَأَنَّهُنَّ بَيْضٌ مَّكْنُونٌ
The explanation:
([And who are transparent souls] as if they are concealed pure eggs.)
It means: they are like the white of the egg in its purity and transparency.
In addition, God – be glorified –in the Quran 56: 22-23 described these "Hooris" like pearls:
وَحُورٌ عِينٌ . كَأَمْثَالِ اللُّؤْلُؤِ الْمَكْنُونِ
The explanation:
(And girls with wide eyes and white faces [: hooris.]
Like the pearl well-preserved [in the shell.])
It means: like the pearl before its extraction from the shell.
[11] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 2: 254
مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَ يَوْمٌ لاَّ بَيْعٌ فِيهِ وَلاَ خُلَّةٌ وَلاَ شَفَاعَةٌ
The explanation:
(Before there comes a day [of your death] wherein shall be:
no trafficking [so that you may buy some righteous deeds],
no friendship [so that your friend may give you some of his righteous deeds],
nor intercession [because the prophets and saints are in Paradise and will not come to meet them, after death, so as to intercede for them.])
Moreover, God - be glorified - said in the Quran 14: 31
مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَ يَوْمٌ لاَّ بَيْعٌ فِيهِ وَلاَ خِلاَلٌ
The explanation:
(Before the coming of a day wherein there will neither be trafficking nor befriending.)
[12] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 14: 43, describing the souls:
لاَ يَرْتَدُّ إِلَيْهِمْ طَرْفُهُمْ وَأَفْئِدَتُهُمْ هَوَاء
The explanation:
(Their eyelids blinking not, and their hearts being void [of blood, as being their lungs void of air.])
It means: Their ethereal hearts are devoid of blood, and their [ethereal] lungs are devoid of air; because they are ethereal souls.
Moreover, some of the Arabic words in the aya are mentioned with the same meaning in the Arab poetry, mentioned in the Arabic edition of the book.
[13] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 14: 42-43
إِنَّمَا يُؤَخِّرُهُمْ لِيَوْمٍ تَشْخَصُ فِيهِ الأَبْصَارُ . مُهْطِعِينَ مُقْنِعِي رُءُوسِهِمْ لاَ يَرْتَدُّ إِلَيْهِمْ طَرْفُهُمْ وَأَفْئِدَتُهُمْ هَوَاء
The explanation:
(He only postpones their [punishment] till a day [of their death and their coming to Us] when eyes will fixedly stare forwards.
Being submissive and listening [to the words of the angel of death],
stooping their heads [looking down to the ground, being humble.]
Their eyelids blinking not, and their hearts being void [of blood, as being their lungs void of air.])
It means: He postpones their punishment to the day of their death, in which their sights will be fixed, and will not roll right and left, and their lids will not blink.
[14] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 50: 22
لَقَدْ كُنْتَ في غَفْلَةٍ مِنْ هذا فَكَشَفْنا عَنْكَ غِطاءَكَ فَبَصَرُكَ اليَوْمَ حَدِيدٌ
The explanation:
([At that time, it will be said to him:] You used to be oblivious to this*; but We have now [by death] removed from you your cover**, so today keen is your sight.)
------------------------------------------------------------
* i.e. this day, this judgment and punishment.
** i.e. the body which was a covering of the soul, and it has been removed by death.
It means: he will be sharp-sighted.
[15] God - be glorified - said in the Quran 76: 13 describing the people of Paradise:
مُتَّكِئينَ فِيها عَلَى الأرائكِ لا يَرَوْنَ فِيها شَمْساً ولا زَمْهَرِيراً
The explanation:
(Reclining in the [Garden] upon couches; they shall neither see therein sun [or heat] nor moon [or piercing coldness.])
So, God - be glorified – avoids them the sun; because it hurts the soul.
[16] The word "what" is used for material things, objects and animals; while the words "whom" and "who" are used for intelligent beings like men, angels, genies …etc.
E.g. the Arab say to anybody who wants some objects from them: Take what you want; but for one who wants men for help in harvesting or what is like that; they say to him: Take whom you want.
[17] i.e. they will have their full rewards according to their deeds, without any increase in their chastisement more than what they deserve, and without any decrease of what they deserve for their good deeds.
[18] This is opposite to what I saw [in the world of souls]; for I saw my soul naked, and the reason for that was because [his fainting] was at night, and the ray, which got out of his chest, confounded his sight, so that he saw himself as if he was wearing a covering of white clothes. But if that was at day-time then he would see himself naked as I had seen.
[19] That is because spirits see in the darkness better than they can see in the light, so their sight at night will be sharper than their sight by day time; for this reason he saw clearly what was in his neighbor's room.
[20] Because it was night, but had it been day time he would not have seen the light ray issue from his chest; e.g. the watch numbers painted with phosphorus: the numbers are seen in the darkness at night, and not seen in the light at day time.
[21] It was the custom of the pagan Arab to praise their fathers and grandfathers at the conclusion of the pilgrimage to Mecca.
[22] Here, it means the Christians.
[23] i.e. do not exceed the bounds in your religion.
[24] i.e. You should say that God is One, as mentioned in the Torah, Gospel and the Quran; but don't say that He is a third of three.
[25] And Jesus is not His son, but His messenger to people to save them from darkness to light or to guidance.
[26] It is mentioned in the Torah, Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 34: 5-6
"5 – So Moses the servant of God died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of God.
6 – He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth Peor: but no man knows of his tomb to this day."
[27] i.e. You will wrong yourself if you associate partners with God, so that you worship these partners as you worship God; on the contrary you should worship God alone, and none else.
[28] The "idol": is a high round building ascribed to one of the alleged false gods or to one of the saints or imams,
like the "Maqam" of the present time: e.g. the Maqam of Khidhir or Maqam of Sadiq.
[29] The "engraved images": are the statues of created beings, like those erected by Christians: e.g. the statues of Mary and Jesus, the cross and similar things.
[30] The "pillars": are some protuberant stones hanged on the wall or erected over it; as a symbol for some alleged false gods or kings or others; e.g. A stone at Qadam Gah in Iran: which people visit and kiss.
[31] The "figured stones" or “remarkable stones”: There is a large number of such figured stones in the shrines of imams, sheikhs and saints. Nowadays, a large number of people kiss such stones and sanctify them.
[32] Therefore, if they are asked on Judgment Day about their association with God, they will say, as in the aya 6: 23
قَالُواْ وَاللّهِ رَبِّنَا مَا كُنَّا مُشْرِكِينَ
The explanation:
([They] say [following their death]: "By God, our Lord, we never associated [other gods with You.]")
[33] By doing so, it will be as if he considers God and Hussein as partners or associates, so that he worships and serves them both.
[34] Literally: will reason and use your minds.
[35] Literally: may reason and use your minds.