Dana Foley

What does "shala" mean in islam?

Death and the Afterlife

Professor: Angela Sumegi  

Monday, February 13, 2017: Week 6: Lecture 6

Islam  

∙ Most recent of monotheistic faiths  

∙ “Muslim” means one that submits or surrenders to the will of God  ∙ Doesn’t mean that believers of this faith don’t want to submit  ∙ It really means [one who finds peace in the submission of God] ∙ “SLM” (letters in the word “Islam”) means peace, wholeness, safety ∙ “Islam” also means prime ordeal faith, truth, the functioning of all things  per god  

∙ “Shala” means “God wills it”  

∙ Implies that every act in the universe is encompassed by God’s will  ∙ Every stone and leaf submits to the will of God, this is considered natural  ∙ Everything must witness to the oneness of God  

How do islamic religions call the unity of god?

∙ Everything, every baby, is born in purity and innocence  

∙ Human beings have choice, they are required to consciously choose to  follow god’s laws or not  

∙ There will be a time when all people must accept the consequences for  their choices…

3 Fundamentals of Islam  

∙ Unity of god- shahada- “There is no god by the one god, Mohammed is the prophet of God.” To become a Muslim one must repeat this before  witnesses.  We also discuss several other topics like What does william james strongly believe about the mind?

∙ Prophecy- Mohammed is considered by Muslims to be the last of the  Prophets  

∙ Eschatology- the knowledge or study of the end times  

∙ ***this is only outwards…Only god knows who truly submits to him. It is a  matter of the heart.  

Where was mohammad born?

Rabi’ah of Basra  

∙ Told to take a husband  

∙ She says she will do so if he can answer 4 questions  

∙ “What will the judge of the world say when I die?”

∙ Answer: He said only god could know.

∙ “When I am put in the grave, will I be able to answer the angels’  questions?”

∙ Answer: This is known only to god.  

∙ “When I am given a book. Will it be given in my right hand?”  ∙ Answer: Only god knows  

∙ “When man is summoned to judgement, where will I go? If you want to learn more check out How does one compute for stockholders' equity?

∙ Answer: Only god knows  

∙ Her logic was that if God knew everything, she should just love God  ∙ So, she remained unmarried and devoted herself to the love of God.  We also discuss several other topics like What that state’s constitution means?

Mohammed  

∙ Birth place of the prophet Mohammed is Mecca around 570 CE  ∙ In 610 CE he received the first revelatory vision  

∙ Gabriel commanded him to recite the words of God (Qur’an)  ∙ Qur’an is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy  

Mecca

∙ Mecca has water running through it with a miraculous origin  ∙ Mecca was an oasis in the desert  

∙ National stopping place, this was the meeting place for all the trading  caravans in the Arabian Peninsula, hub of trading activity  

∙ It had a Bubbling spring in the center of it  

∙ Kaaba is in the middle- held images of the local gods and goddesses  ∙ It was eventually turned into one place of worship

∙ God promised Abraham many descendants  Don't forget about the age old question of What is the foundation of the universe?

∙ Abraham’s wife Sarah did not have children

∙ He took up with house made and had Ishmael  

∙ God blessed Sarah and she had a child in her old age, Isaac ∙ Caused a lot of jealousy in the family  If you want to learn more check out What do you mean by correlation?

∙ Abraham took Hagar and Ishmael to the desert

∙ She searched frantically for water but there wasn’t any to be found  ∙ When she was ready to give up, an angel appeared, and a spring of water  came from the sand under the foot of Ishmael  We also discuss several other topics like When did bayeux tapestry emerge as a form of art?

∙ This spot became a sacred well in Islam  

∙ Hagar settled there  

∙ Abraham retuned later to visit and built the shrine called the Kaaba  ∙ Most sacred place in Arabia  

∙ Mecca was also a religious center that had annual festival that attracted  many people  

Pre-Islamic Arab society  

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∙ Worship was focused more on local deities because the supreme god is  thought to be too far away to care about anyone’s problems  

∙ Allah was too remote to be contacted directly  

∙ They called these local gods and goddesses the sons and daughters of  Allah  

∙ Therefore, the Muslim tradition finds it not right to speak about “the son of god” or “Jesus”  

∙ In their religion, this was a polytheistic view  

∙ Desert life was hard  

∙ Very fierce independence based on their nomadic lifestyle  ∙ Didn’t have many possessions- but the breath is regarded as the most  important possession

∙ From the breath comes song, speech, payer…all very important  ∙ Language becomes one of the most beautiful possessions that a person  can have  

∙ Power of the word was a divine power  

∙ The language of the Qur’an is the most beautiful in all the religious  languages religious language

∙ It is thought that no human being could have composed such beauty  without it coming from a divine source  

∙ Group of people known as Hanifs  

∙ They were attracted to the monotheism of Judaism and Christianity  ∙ scholars think Mohammed might have been one of these people  ∙ At age 40, he is without an heir

∙ Values that he believes in are not very apparent in a marketplace (greed)  ∙ Values of honor and generosity were eroding  

∙ The Kaaba was surrounded by peddlers  

∙ Every year during the month of Ramadan he would spend days of  seclusion in a cave  

∙ It was during one of those retreats that he was visited by the angel  Gabriel  

∙ Meant to recite the words spoken to him  

∙ The message that the Mohammed preached was: listen and preach the  will of the one god

The Idea of Soul  

∙ Nafs- the soul, the inner self or person  

∙ Ruh- the divine spirit, the life-breath of god that animates a person  Cosmology of Islam  

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∙ Light- place of the angels. (compared with the pure light of the realm of  the angels, the human word is darkness compared)

∙ The worlds in between are the realm of beings that are said to be neither  pure light nor pure darkness. Jinn are said to be made from fire. Somehow substance but also light, they are like images in a dream, the world of the  senses.  

∙ Not quite the external world but somehow, they appear “Imaginal”. They  are not purely imaginary or fantasy…kind of like how a dream has some  reality to it.  

“Imaginal”  

∙ Something that can appear in any kind of shape or form- like Jinn  ∙ Something which appears in a from that shows its meaning- like a dream  tiger might show the meaning of power or a dream monster might show  the meaning of anger of fear  

The human being as microcosm  

∙ We are material on the inside  

∙ At the middle is the divine spirit or pure light  

∙ Soul is the meeting place of body and spirit  

∙ The soul represents what qualities the person had developed  ∙ The 99 beautiful names of god- merciful, avenging, the loving, the slayer… ∙ Qualities of forgiveness, justice or, anger  

∙ People are no different in their bodies, all bodies are the same, everyone  is made of flesh blood and bones

∙ We don’t differ in the core of our being because every human being is  brought to life with the breath of God  

∙ So, the only place that we differ is in our souls  

∙ So, the soul can be said to be the meeting place of spirit and body

From the Katibal ruh (the book of the spirit) by Ibn Qauyyim  ∙ Islamic theologians struggled with the idea of purely immaterial soul.  ∙ But, if the soul is utterly immaterial, how is it related to what is material? ∙ Body and soul are related to each other in such a way that the soul is  individualized  

∙ Souls can be differentiated between one another  

∙ The soul that leaves the body carries certain characteristics that are  recognizable  

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What Happens After Death  

∙ Islam is very specific  

∙ Stages of the afterlife are laid out very clearly  

∙ Remembering that death is coming inevitably is crucial to living a good life ∙ After death and before resurrection, soul exists in a state called Barzakh literally boundary or barrier between death and resurrection-sometimes  translated as the interworld

∙ After death, the soul will show its true shape  

∙ We can mask our true feelings, but the soul after death is in an imaginal  state, the shape you take reflects your meaning

∙ The animal imagery intending to make the point that the true meaning of  the person will be revealed by the soul. You could be a pig or a wolf or a  dog.  

∙ In the first night of the grave the person is questioned by 2 angels  (Munkar and Nakir)- these angels are very scary beings. Very big men with for and smoke bellowing from their mouths.  

∙ The questions that are asked relate to the foundation of Islam “who is your God, what is your religion, who is your prophet?”  

∙ Munkar and Nakir also ask “what do you have to say about the prophet?”  ∙ If you answer from the heart, you will sleep in a peaceful state until the  day of resurrection

∙ You will be visited by a man with a beautiful face, he represents your own  good deeds.  

∙ If you cannot answer the angels properly, your time in the grave will be a  time of torment.  

∙ The day or resurrection and judgement is an apocalypse.  

∙ Next comes the questioning of God. Everybody is questioned by god as to  their actions. “how did you spend your youth? What did you do with your  life? What did you do with our money?”  

∙ Also, refers to the weighing of good and evil deeds. After the questioning  of all people, they will be divided into 3 groups.  

∙ People who go to heaven  

∙ Those who go straight to hell

∙ And then those who have sinned and done good things, and then their  actions are weighed to see if they are more good or evil  

The places you will think of only yourself  

∙ When the scales are erected and actions weighed  

∙ At the scrolls, see if you are to receive the book in the right hand or the  left  

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∙ At the traverse: the bridge over hell  

Heaven  

∙ Wine that does not get you drunk  

∙ Food served to you on a silver platter  

∙ Most beautiful pace you could ever think of

∙ Heaven and Hell can refer to the states of the soul, but also to real bodily  suffering and real bodily pleasure  

∙ It is not for us to say who god’s mercy will save and who it will not…that is completely up to god  

The Sufi Mystics  

∙ Their goal is union with god through pure love  

∙ They are a movement in which this way of thinking is prominent  ∙ They very much promote contemplation of death as a stage in the union  with god.  

∙ This can be attained in life when the individual selfhood of the person  completely passes away

∙ Reading points to 3 types of symbolic death  

∙ Biological death- denying the ordinary needs of the body  

∙ Psychological death- renunciation of all desires except for union with god  ∙ Social death- abandoning caring for social convention, focused only on the love of god  

∙ Fana- the Sufi goal- extinction of individual self in the light of God- living  in unity with god  

The Mystical Idea of the Union with God  

∙ Worst sin- Associating anything or anyone with god

∙ Because god is utterly unique  

∙ If you are too proud of anything, or too much afraid of anyone, that is also  a huge sin, because you should not fear anyone but god

∙ It is so invisible that it is like a black ant crawling on a black rock at night  ∙ The feeling that you could have done something different to affect the  outcome of your life- the idea that you are not accepting your fate as  coming from God  

∙ When Sufi mystics speak about union with god or becoming one with god  we must think about the union of sunlight and air.  

∙ When the self- the I- is annihilated, the person become like air, and then  like sunlight, god can completely permeate the person. Air is still air, and  sunlight still sunlight, but they become inseparable.  

∙ This is one way to think about union with god in monotheistic traditions.  6

Weekly Reading: Muslim Perspectives  

∙ Shahada: primary Muslim constitution of faith  

o There is no God but The God, Muhammed is the messenger of God  ∙ Existence (on its own) is proof that God exists  

∙ Everything that comes into the world has a natural tendency of  submission towards God  

∙ The well that appeared under Ishmael’s heal became known as the well of  Zamzam  

∙ Tawhid- The oneness of God  

∙ The proper relationships of humans to God is that of a servant to a  supreme ruler  

∙ Belief in a Day of Judgement is also important in Islamic faith  ∙ Every human choice in circumscribed by the conditions under which it is  made- it is because of God’s will that we have the choices we do laid out  before us…but it is up to us what we choose  

∙ The difference between Ruh and Nafs is sometimes compared the  difference between sleep and death  

∙ At death, then the rational soul (nafs) that dies with the body and the  divine spirit or breath of life (nah) that continues  

∙ After death and before resurrection, the soul stays in an intermediate  state called Barzakh  

∙ Person is visited by Izra’il, the angel of death, who comes to take the soul  away from the body  

∙ Images of heaven and hell are very clearly indicated, either life in a  garden of green or a garden of fire  

∙ The final sign of the end of time will be the sounding of a trumpet blown  by the angel Seraphiel  

∙ On the day of Judgement God will shine light on each person per their  works; some may have light shined only on their toes  

∙ It is believed by some that the sinners will be punished in Hell but that  they will eventually be released into the garden (in this case Hell would  function more like a purgatory)  

∙ Cremation is prohibited in Islam, and so is embalming and autopsy  ∙ Burial should take place within 24 hours  

∙ The body is to be washed and shrouded in white plain cloths  ∙ Prolonged periods of mourning are discouraged because God’s will  included the death of all humans  

∙ Only men are accompanied to carried the body to the grave site, where it  is buried without coffin  

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∙ Among the Safaliba Muslims, funerary rituals carry on until 40 days after  the death  

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