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kullu nafsin dhāʾiqatu l-mawti wa-nablūkum bi-sh-sharri wa-l-khayri fitnatan wa-ʾilaynā turjaʿūna
Every soul shall taste death, and We will test you with good and ill by way of test, and to Us you will be brought back.
— Ali Quli Qarai
21Al-'Anbiyā’الأنبياءVerse 35 of 112
The Prophets21. Al-'Anbiyā’الأنبياء
Al Anbiyā’
The Prophets
MeccanVerse 35 of 112
Surah Al-’Anbiya’ – Verses 34 - 35
34. “And We appointed immortality for no man before you. Then if you die, can they be immortal?”
35. “Every soul shall taste of death; and We try you with evil and good for a testing, and unto Us you shall be returned.”
Through a part of the previous verses, we were acquainted with the fact that some polytheists objected about the Prophet (S) as why he was a human being. This verse refers to some other objections that they had. Sometimes they said that the fame that the Prophet (S), or as they called him ‘that poet,’ had got was not lasting and everything would be vanished by his death.6 Sometimes they thought such that since this man believes that he is the seal of the prophets, he should not die in order to protect his religion, and, therefore, his death in future will be the reason for the falseness of his claim.
The Qur’an answers them for their false imagination in a short sentence. It says:
This is the invariable law of creation that no one has an eternal life. Besides that, do these people, who are happy for your death just now, live immortally after your death? The verse says:
The duration of a religion, creed, and a sacred law does not need the ever permanence of its bringer. His successors may continue his line after him. Then the Holy Qur’an states the general law of death for all souls, with no exception, as follows:
After mentioning the general law of death, there will arise this question that: What is the aim of this ephemeral life, and what is the use of it? In the continuation of this holy verse, the Qur’an states as follows:
The Divine trial is harder when it is done by means of afflictions. Your main abode has not been assigned in this world. It is somewhere else. You have come here only for taking examinations, and after the end of the examination and gaining the necessary development, you will go to your main abode, the world of the Hereafter. By the way, Amir-ul-Mu’mineen Ali (as), concerning the Qur’anic sentence, saying:
said:
“Health and self-sufficiency is ‘good’, and sickness and poverty is ‘evil’ and both of them are for trial.” 7
Footnotes