Life after death - Liberal Islamic views Flashcards
Why do many modern Muslims prefer not to write about life after death?
Embarrassed about the details in the traditional thinking
Want to stress the importance of the community in this life and think this has been devalued. Want to stress a work ethic in this life which is in keeping with the western world.
How do modernists understand life after death?
Want to understand it in the light in science, the possibility of a continuum between this life and the next and stress on the Qur’an on ethical responsibility
What are modernists more concerned with?
Stressing the nature of human responsibility and accountability - the meaning of life after death in terms of living an ethical life. Faith is essential - incentive for improving, growing and developing ethical behaviour
How do modernists help people deal with life after death?
Discuss the Qur’anic analogy between sleep and death. Helps us understand that death is as natural as sleep in our every day lives and we can understand something of the after life condition by considering what occurs in sleep
According to Mahmud how does ethical behaviour affect the life after?
The body may disintegrate at death but the soul does not. This is characterised by continuity and awareness. Brain cells die and disintegrate but memory continues and remains alive, constantly reminding us of ever deed we have done in this life.
Why do modernists think of physical continuity with earthly life and Barzakh differently?
The ideas of time and space in the life after are very different from life in this world and people cannot really conceive of the next life in the way that they conceive of this life.
What do modernists think will be punished or will be sent to heaven?
Until modern times it has been assumed that the body and soul will have a role in the life after but for modernists the body plays no role in the life after. Only the spirit has a role.
How does Qutb understand punishment?
The suffering in the grave can be understood as a psychological condition as physical punishment can be impossible after death. He argues that the “fear and awesomeness” of the life after death and sense of alloness is a kind of suffering.
What does Ervin argue about punishment?
Punishment actually happens in this life and “those who are in the tombs” refers to this life and this earth and that those who are heartless , selfish, rude or immoral are punished at every moment in this life.
What does Latif argue?
That people should begin working on their destiny in this life. This means working out the nature of sin and trying to rectify one’s mistakes but nevertheless barzakh exists as a transitional state where “one will have to realise the hideousness of sin…”
How does Awaad understand the resurrected body?
The body is resurrected to its same frame as it bore in this life.
How does Nawfal understand the resurrected body?
Suggests that on the day of resurrection each cell will know the body it came from and no cell will find itself in a strange body just as an organ will be rejected from a body it is foreign to.
How does Mawdudi understand the resurrected body?
Thinks that on the Day of resurrection the dead will received a different body and this must be the case as sometimes the body is devoured by fish or animal. However, God could reassemble the old body if he wished
How does Mahmud understand the resurrected body?
Claims that the resurrected body is made up of different matter to the earthly body.
What does Iqbal say about heaven and hell?
Denies that these are physical places but instead hell is “…the painful realisation of one’s failure as a man”. The descriptions of Heaven and Hell in the Qur’an are visual representations of inner fact.
