QV14.....What happens when one dies?

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I have dealt with this very question earlier, when I discussed various Indian scriptures, whether it is the Upanishads, or the Bhagavad Gita, or even the Buddhist Tipitakas.

Though there are differences in the details, most Indian schools of thought do believe in re-birth – either the soul entering another new body, or the ‘dying consciousness’ of the person getting transmitted to another newly formed body, and resulting in rebirth.

If you look at the ancient western world, more or less similar views existed even there. The Greeks had their theory of metempsychosis which is very similar to rebirth theory of Indians. Even some sects of ancient Jews are believed to have had a theory of re-birth.

But what surprises me is the fact that Jews in general, Christians and Muslims in particular, reject this theory of rebirth – at least in the way it is believed by the rest. They have the theory of ‘resurrection’.

That is what I am going to discuss today.

To make the discussion brief, I will skip exact verses from Quran and focus on summery of how this belief is described in Quran. This belief however is interspersed almost in the entire Quran, but I will take up Chapter 39 of Quran as a typical reference.

This is how chapter 39 of Quran explains the events that take place once a person dies.

First, Allah takes the soul of the person who is dead.

The commentators say that this soul is kept in a special spiritual plane waiting for the ‘final day of judgement’. It will neither be returned to the body nor will it take any new birth.

While the body of the deceased person perishes, the soul remains.

This process repeats for each person who dies, till the end of the world.

On the final ‘day of judgement’ or at the end of the world, the trumpet of ‘resurrection’ will be blown twice.

First time when it blows, the entire world will completely be transformed into a new form; the souls which were waiting till then for the ‘day of judgement’, would completely swoon and lose all their sense of time and space.

When the trumpet of ‘resurrection’ is blown for the second time, all these souls come alive and stand attentively for the final verdict.

‘The book of deeds’ of these resurrected souls that have their past deeds recorded in it, is kept open for them to see. All the past prophets and other witnesses are also summoned, so that a just verdict can be given. No wrong is done to any. They are judged purely based on their deeds.

Since Allah knows whatever each soul had done in their lifetime on earth before they died, he pronounces a fair judgement.

Those who followed an unrighteous path are sent to the hell to be punished in the hell fire. And those who followed a righteous path during their lifetime are ushered into heavenly garden. There, they will see the angels singing praise of Allah and surrounding the divine throne.

Quran also suggests that a new creation of life in a new world would start all over, once again.


Though this description may look like some imaginary story, there are many things one can see even in these descriptions.

Firstly, the message is very clear – ‘if you do wrong, you will not be spared even after you die. So be on the righteous path.’ This is a strong motivating message for people to fall in line.

Though the Christian/Islamic views seem to be totally different from rest of the world, they do have many things in common.

Indians believe in a ‘Karmic’ record that keeps track of deeds of a person. A person suffers or is rewarded based on these records after his death. There are Hindu mythologies where a record keeper namely ‘Chitragupta’ reads out these records before verdict is given. The wrong doers are sent to Hell and the righteous are sent to heavens.

If you look at very ancient Indian scriptures, many believe that the concept of rebirth did not exist at all. People just went to ‘Pitr Lok’ the world of departed souls, just to revisit their families on regular occasions or when summoned by their near and dear descendants.

But at least some Upanishads like Kathopanishad clearly talk about re-birth. So also, the Bhagavad Gita.

There is another interesting belief among the dualist school of later Indian philosophy. Unlike their monist Advaita philosophers, they can’t accept the merger of soul with the God ‘at the end of the creation/destruction cycle’. So, they say that the ‘souls return to the God’ at the ‘end’ and will be with him till they are once again ‘released’ in a new creation – a concept that seems close to what Quran describes!

Quranic verses episode 14

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Based on verses from Holy Quran. The interpretation is by Dr.King. The Quran recitations are from various sites such as Quran.net, Quran411.com and so on.