Rituals and Beliefs Surrounding Death in Islam

Abstract

The view of human nature within Islam can be derived from the Qur’an and the Hadiths. The Qur’an states that God created everything in six days (7:54; 57:4), and after informing the angels about the creation of human beings and their superiority over them (15:28-29), he formed them from dirt (22:5; 23:12-16). God keeps a supply of souls in heaven and takes them from there1 (Merklin 2012:3) to place in each human being, choosing the right one for each person (Sahih Muslims 1214). Therefore, it is God who put a soul inside the first man’s body of clay and he became alive (Qur’an 32:7-9). The Muslim belief regarding the soul is that the soul lives on into eternity and will receive the reward or punishment along with the body (Allen and Toorawa 2011:56). Haeri (1991:2) believes that the final destiny of people will be decided at the final judgment, but this life is given to finally allow the soul to return to where it emerged from, and that is permanent non-time reality. Although the angels knew that humans would be disobedient and sin against God (Qur’an 3:30), Merklin (2012:6) explains that humanity’s failure was in that they had “forgotten” God and his ways. The Qur’an records that people were created weak (4:280), impatient (70:19), stingy (17:100), and argumentative (18:54), and it is the soul that prompts a person to do wrong as when Cain’s soul told him to kill his brother (5:29).