What is the barzakh?

The barzakh is the barrier between this world and the Hereafter: the life of the graves after death. According to Ahl al-Sunna, the dead person is questioned there about his Lord, his Prophet and his religion. ¹

The Sheikh says that human will ends with death and that after it God's will operates as He wishes in the world of the barzakh ². He adds that Juz' 'Amma reminds a person of the basis of his existence ².

The Sheikh relates that when a person dies and his soul ascends, the souls of the believers gather around the new soul as they used to be drawn together in the world, even if they did not know one another's names, and they ask it about people who are still alive (needs_source) ³.

He says they ask about this person and that, and when the new soul tells them that one of them has died they find it strange, since he has not passed through to them, and a knowing soul among them says that he has gone to his mother, the abyss (needs_source) ⁴.

The Sheikh says that his mother in the hereafter is the abyss because he left no mercy in his chest toward God's creatures and instead spread fear among people ⁵.

The Sheikh tells that a righteous man may be buried beside a wicked one, so that the soul of the one enjoys paradise and the soul of the other is punished in the fire (needs_source) ⁶. He then relates the story of a Companion who buried his sister and, a few steps before reaching home, found that his bag of money had fallen into the grave, so he went back and dug (needs_source) ⁶.

He continues that the man found the grave hot, and the more he dug the hotter it became until his hands burned, so he filled the grave in again, returned to his mother and asked what his sister used to do, and she said she was one who fasted much and prayed at night but would put her ear to the neighbours' walls (needs_source) ⁷.

The Sheikh reports that the soul is called by the name it loved best in the world and ascends to beneath the throne, and that the believing servant has his grave widened as far as the eye can see, is spread with silk, and has a door opened so that he can see his seat in paradise (needs_source) ⁸.

The Sheikh likens this to the graduation ceremony of a top-achieving son, and then says that a European who earned an academic licence from an Islamic university in al-Andalus used to place the Qur'an on his head at graduation, and that the graduates' cap today developed from that (needs_source) ⁹.

He completes the comparison: the children wait behind the scenes for the minister to honour them in person, and the son wants this honour now rather than tomorrow, as an image of the believer in his grave awaiting his Lord's honour ¹⁰.

The Sheikh says that the wicked servant has his grave narrowed on him until his ribs cross, has snakes and scorpions set upon him and has a door to the fire opened for him, and compares him to a prisoner awaiting a death sentence (needs_source) ¹¹.

The Sheikh relates that a righteous man was buried next to a wicked man; worms crept over the wicked man's body and stopped at the boundary of the righteous man, because the earth and the worms are commanded not to eat his body, and he explains this by saying that the world and its cares had worn him down and he had been patient with them (needs_source) ¹².