The stages of human life

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy says that human life has five stages (needs_source) ¹ The first is the world of the dharr before the creation of Adam, when God took the covenant from the souls, ¹ the second is the world of the wombs, ² and the third is the world of witnessing, which is this life; ³ this stage ends with the start of what the opening of Surat an-Nazi'at addresses. ⁴

The Sheikh says that human life, whether the person is a believer or a disbeliever, obedient or disobedient, has five stages (needs_source) ¹. The first was before the creation of Adam, in the world of the seed (dharr), when God took the covenant from the souls ¹. In this stage the souls affirmed God's oneness; then we come to this world and divide into two parties, believer and disbeliever, the believer being the one whose deeds engaged with what he affirmed in the world of the dharr ⁵. He explains kufr as covering: the disbeliever covered the testimony to God's oneness that he had affirmed, and in his view kufr is this covering ⁶. He says the disbeliever covered the innate disposition to monotheism within him, and that his tongue may deny in this life while every atom of his being testifies that there is no god but God ².

The second stage is God's moving us from the world of the dharr to the world of the wombs ². He mentions that the drop stays forty days, then a clot forty days, then a lump of flesh forty days, then God inspires the angel in charge of the wombs, who writes the creature's lifespan and provision; it remains in the darkness of the womb and belly until God wills that this darkness end and it comes out into the light of the world (needs_source) ⁷. The third stage is the world of witnessing, with nursing, then childhood, boyhood, puberty, youth, manhood or womanhood and full maturity ³. Then come middle age and the age of old frailty, and this stage we are in ends with the start of Surat an-Nazi'at 1, that is, with a day on which departure begins ⁴.

In a later episode the Sheikh says that Surat an-Nazi'at concerns the stage between this world and the hereafter, that is, the beginning of a person's movement into the fourth stage of his life ⁸. He counts what came before as three rings: the world of the dharr, then the world of the wombs, then the world of witnessing in which we now live; the surah comes to speak of the start of the soul's rise and release from the body, and he asks what the souls would say if asked whether they are pleased with the bodies they are in, saying some of these vessels are good ⁹.