Question 95 - The Enlightening Answer Across the Ether, Vol 2

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, the Imams and the Mahdis, and grant them abundant peace. A1: Yes, properly speaking there should be no taking of the soul, but only its being commanded to return to its Originator and the sperm departing as a consequence. What is meant is not the seminal sperm, but the sperm that descended from the World of Particles and from which the human being was created. This is if the person remains upon the primordial nature upon which Allah created the people: ‘O reassured soul, return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing’ (^[169]). What occurs, however, is that the souls of most people have become occupied with love of this corporeal world, and roots have extended from their souls and become attached to the stakes of this corporeal world. How can these souls be separated from this corporeal world except by cutting these roots, or the ropes bound tightly to the stakes of this corporeal world? The pains of death are therefore caused by cutting these roots and ropes. For this reason there is also no intercession that delivers one from the pains of death, because a person attached to the world dies only through them. The Exalted said: ‘Be mindful of a day when no soul will avail another soul in anything, no intercession will be accepted from it, no compensation will be taken from it, and they will not be supported’ (^[170]). ‘Be mindful of a day when no soul will avail another soul in anything, no compensation will be accepted from it, no intercession will benefit it, and they will not be supported’ (^[171]). ‘O you who believe, spend from what We have provided you before there comes a day in which there is no trade, friendship, or intercession. It is the disbelievers who are the oppressors’ (^[172]). The day on which intercession is impossible is the day of death. If you understand what has preceded, you know that intercession has no meaning here, because these roots must be cut for death and deliverance from this corporeal world to occur, and this cutting is inevitably accompanied by pain. A2: The answer to this and other questions concerning this issue will come in the book They Ask You About the Spirit, Allah willing. A3: The answer was made clear in A1. A4: The meaning of the heavens being above the earth, or the other earths being beneath the earth, is not spatial above and below. Rather, it means that the other earths are lower in the ranks of creation than the earth-that is, they are darker than the earth.