Introduction

ʿUmar Sulaymān al-Ashqar, the Jordanian scholar of Palestinian origin born in 1940, devoted a significant portion of his academic career to producing a systematic, source-grounded series on the Islamic understanding of the unseen dimensions of existence. al-Qiyāma al-Ṣughrā, translated as The Minor Resurrection, is one of the central volumes in that series. The Arabic title refers to the individual's death: each person's resurrection, in the Islamic understanding, begins at the moment the soul departs the body, which is why classical scholars designated death as the minor or smaller resurrection in contrast to the universal resurrection of all creation on the Day of Judgment. Al-Ashqar treats this threshold and everything that follows it, the state of the soul, the realities of the grave, and the signs preceding the major Hour, with the same documentary discipline that characterizes the rest of his series, working exclusively from Quranic verses, authenticated prophetic reports, and the explanations of the classical commentators.

The book is organized into three principal areas of inquiry. The first concerns death itself: the experience of dying, the moment of the soul's departure, the roles of the angels in that process, and the Islamic teachings on what the dying and the newly dead may perceive. The second concerns the intermediate state known as the barzakh: the life of the grave, the questioning of Munkar and Nakīr, the realities of punishment and blessing in the grave, and the condition of the souls of martyrs, children, and those who died without receiving the message of Islam. The third addresses the minor signs of the Hour, those events the Prophet (peace be upon him) described as preceding the final resurrection, distinguishing between those already fulfilled, those ongoing, and those awaited. Al-Ashqar brings the same methodological caution to weak and fabricated ḥadīths on these topics that he applies throughout the series, since eschatological material has historically attracted more than its share of unreliable narrations.

The volume occupies an important place in contemporary Islamic eschatological literature. Questions about death, the grave, and the soul are among the most emotionally charged in religious life, and the absence of reliable, accessible treatments in modern Arabic had left many Muslims dependent on popular books that mixed authentic material with unfounded claims. Al-Ashqar's work addressed this gap and was widely adopted in Islamic studies programs and used by scholars preparing sermons and educational materials on death and its aftermath. Its treatment of the punishment and blessing of the grave in particular, a topic on which Ahl us-Sunnah hold firm positions against the rationalist rejection of these realities, has been cited as a clear and well-documented exposition of the Atharī and broader Sunni position, drawing on both the primary texts and the classical works of ʿaqīdah.

A reader coming to this book is advised to approach it as an exercise in both knowledge and preparation. The classical scholars wrote that frequent remembrance of death (dhikr al-mawt) is among the most powerful motivators of righteous conduct, and al-Ashqar's detailed, evidence-based account of what awaits the soul serves precisely that function: it makes the unseen real in the mind of the reader without resorting to exaggeration or emotionalism. Students of Islamic theology will find the sections on the barzakh and on the conditions of the soul after death particularly useful for understanding the Sunni positions on intercession, visiting graves, and supplication for the deceased. General readers will gain a coherent, scripturally grounded answer to the questions that arise around death and grief, answers drawn from the sources that Muslims have always regarded as authoritative.