Part 2

countered and fiercely rejected by their contemporaries. But there is no way to stop the truth from spreading, and Allah's Light will surely be complete and prevalent. These ‘ulama’ (may Allah bless them and reward their efforts) have produced marvelous writings that have rectified the Islamic beliefs and practices.

Very little of these great writings have been translated to English, or have been resorted to in English writings on Islam. Thus a good deal of the existing Js/amic literature in English suffers from the two problems cited earlier. It also suffers from additional problems, mainly:

3. Many writers have had a shallow Islamic education. They had to self-educate themselves to meet the requirements of da‘wah in the West. But their education has not been, in general, adequate enough to qualify them to write on Islam.

4. Some non-Muslim scholars and orientalists have volunteered to write on Islam. Despite their wide academic knowledge, their writings on Islam are usually charged with obvious fallacies and prejudiced misinformation.

These problems have caused a further deviation from the truth in many of today's English writings and talks on Islam.

This publication is, therefore, a humble response to our realization of a great responsibility: the responsibility to help bring forth, before the general English speaking public, writings that refine the Islamic concepts from the above problems and present Is/Gm pure and simple, as close as possible to the way that it was understood and practiced by its early good pioneers - the Salaf.

Translating and Transliterating Arabic

Attempt has been made to minimize the use of Arabic terms. This is a frequently neglected service to the English speaking reader. Transliterated Arabic terms are used in the following two situations only:

a) When no English expression is found that can reflect the same meaning as the original term.

b) When it is judged that an Arabic term is of such importance that it is essential to familiarize the readers with it.

In such cases, the Arabic terms are defined at their first occurrence, between brackets or in a footnote. They are then include in the INDEX OF ARABIC TERMS, usually appearing at the end of the book.

Except for proper nouns, transliterated Arabic terms are italicized. In general, the rules of English pronunciation can be applied. The following table includes additional symbols employed in this book to help pronounce the Arabic terms.

Symbol Stands for English Equivalent Sounds a, A Alif (long vowel a) At times: Father, hard, god. a,U Waw (long vowel u) | Root, soup, flute. 7,1 Ya*(long vowel i) Seed, lean, piece, receive. The first consonant vocal Hamzah sound uttered when saying: at, it or oh. No equivalent. Produced in the -> lower throat, below “h”. Hb Ha Resembles the sound produced after swallowing. No equivalent. Produced in the Kh, kh Kha’ back of the mouth and top of the throat.

Symbol Stands for English Equivalent Sounds

A deeper “‘s” sound. Somewhat

Sounds deeper than a “d”. Dd Déad Produced by touching the tongue to the mouth's roof.

Ti, t Tah Similar but deeper than a “t”.

A deeper thal, produced by Z, Zz Zah touching the tip of the tongue to the back of the front teeth.

le Ayn Produced in the bottom of the . throat, underneath “h’.

A gurgling sound produced in the back of the mouth, just

Gh, gh Ghayn above the khd’. Similar to the “R” in some french accents. =, Somewhat similar to the “‘c” in

Translating and Referencing Quran and Hadith

1 Ayah: A Qur nic phrase approximately equal to one sentence, but sometimes longer or shorter than that, Its plural is dyar.

the English meaning in boldface. The meaning is extracted from books of tafsir (Quranic commentaries and interpretations) and from accessible translations.

The location of a Quranic citation is specified in a footnote. It provides the name of the sérah (Quranic chapter) followed by its number and the number(s) of the dyah(s) cited.

In general, the Arabic text of a cited hadith is not provided. This is based on a general agreement among the ‘ulama’ permitting relating hadiths by meaning. The meaning of a hadith is included, in boldface, between single angle quotation marks ().

A footnote normally specifies the location of a cited hadith in the Hadith compilations. The footnote indicates as well its degree of authenticity and the names of scholars who made such judgement. If a hadith is narrated by al-Bukhari or Muslim, its authenticity is taken for granted.

Out of love, appreciation, gratitude or other noble feelings, a Muslim is encouraged to utter certain phrases at the mention of Allah, His messengers, the angels, the sahdbah, or other righteous Muslims. We present these phrases in condensed Arabic calligraphy as follows:

Phrase | Mentioned | Transliteration Meaning with fa Allah’s Subhanahi wa He is exalted Name ta'ala. above weakness and indignity. & Allah’s ‘Aza wa-jall. May He be glorified. & Allah’s Jalla jalaluh. May His glory be

Phrase | Mentioned | Transliteration Meaning with

Be Muhammad | Salla ’Llahu May Allah's peace and other ‘alayhi wa and praise be on prophets sallam '. him.

a8) Prophets ‘Alayh is-Salam. Peace be on him. and angels

> A male Radiya ’Llahu May Allah be companion | ‘anhu. pleased with him.

he A female Radiya ’Llahu May Allah be companion | ‘anha. pleased with her.

the Two Radiya ’Llahu May Allah be companion | ‘anhuma. pleased with them.

Es More than | Radiya ’Llahu May Allah be two ‘anhum. pleased with them. companions

re A past Rahimahu ’Llah. | May Allah have righteous Muslim.

When coming across any of these symbols, the reader is advised to utter the complete phrase in order to obtain the reward of saying the appropriate thikr (remembrance) or du‘@’ (invocation).

Uttering this is sometimes described as, “saying salah upon the Messenger”.

The purpose of this book is to cover the details of this intermediate life in al-Barzakh, The discussion is only based on authentic texts from Allah’s Book and His Messenger’s Sunnah. It totally avoids unfounded presumptions and speculations that people have accumulated in various cultures and societies.

In addition to the subjects usually discussed when dealing with the study of al-Barzakh, we include in this book material covering subjects that, we believe, are highly relevant. Among these is “Communication with Ad-barzakh (Chapter 10)” and “Things That Benefit the Dead (Chapter 11)”. Other material, which is believed to be relevant but not to the same high degree, is included in the other parts of this series (The Inevitable Journey).

Whereas we make no claim to encompassing all authentic texts related to this subject, we have made a serious attempt to cover all authentic incidents and help form as complete a picture of that stage of life as possible.

Our hope is to provide with this an important reference that will help people gain a clear understanding of that inevitable stage of life and, therefore, help them prepare themselves for it.

We have attempted to present the material in a highly structured and organized manner, introducing tables as much as possible, in order to enable using the book as a classroom or study-circle reference.

The idea of this book started with a rough translation of the booklet “Al-Qabr, ‘Athadbuhii wa-Naimuh (The Grave, Its Tortures and Pleasures)” by Husayn al-‘Awayshah. However, that book was found to lack in providing sufficient commentary on the cited texts. Its titles were found to be unstructured, presenting the material in a somewhat unorganized and detached manner.

In addition to the above-mentioned reference, we have used a number of other references, many of which are cited in the back of the book. The most important of those are “Ahkam ul-Jand@izi waBida‘uha (The Regulations of Funerals, and Innovations Thereof)” and “Al-Ayat ul-Bayyinat, Fi ‘Adami Sama’ il-Amwat (The Clear Signs

Concerning the Inability of the Dead to Hear)”, both by Muhammad Nasir ud-Din il-Albant.

All praise and thanks are offered to our Lord (8%) who facilitated completing this work. May He further reward all the Muslims who helped and supported this effort in various ways. In particular, may Allah (8%) reward ‘Imran Husayn (from Guyana) for initiating the work on the subject of this book. May Allah (8%) also reward “Abdullah al-Jibalt who typed all of the Arabic text and designed the cover.

We ask Allah (38) to make this humble effort helpful and fruitful to the Muslims, forgive our shortcomings, purify our work from hypocrisy and conceit, and accept it from us.

Our Lord, forgive us and all of the believers, and bestow Your peace and praise upon our Prophet Muhammad (48).

Muhammad al ibale 29 Thul-Qa‘dah 1418 H

CHAPTER 1 THE APPROACH OF DEATH

Loving to Meet Allah

A true believer’s greatest wish and ultimate hope is to meet his Lord (4%) and be able to see Him in the hereafter. ‘Ubadah Bin asSamit (<) reported that the Prophet (4%) said: