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→Arguments for resurrection
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=== Souls fall 'asleep' at death === | === Souls fall 'asleep' at death === | ||
Reynolds (2020) notes | Reynolds (2020) notes in regards to the interchangeability of sleep and death in the Qur'an:{{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (pp. 72-73). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|The Sleep of Souls This notion that souls will fall “asleep” at death is vividly depicted in two qur’anic stories. The first of these is contained in one verse of Sura 2 and has to do with a man and his donkey: | ||
<i>Or him who came upon a township as it lay fallen on its trellises. He said, “How will God revive this after its death?!” So God made him die for a hundred years, then He resurrected him. He said, “How long did you remain?” Said he, “I have remained a day or part of a day.” He said, “No, you have remained a hundred years. Now look at your food and drink which have not rotted! Then look at your donkey! [This was done] that We may make you a sign for mankind. And now look at the bones, how We raise them up and then clothe them with flesh!” When it became evident to him, he said, “I know that God has power over all things.”</i> (Q 2:259) | <i>Or him who came upon a township as it lay fallen on its trellises. He said, “How will God revive this after its death?!” So God made him die for a hundred years, then He resurrected him. He said, “How long did you remain?” Said he, “I have remained a day or part of a day.” He said, “No, you have remained a hundred years. Now look at your food and drink which have not rotted! Then look at your donkey! [This was done] that We may make you a sign for mankind. And now look at the bones, how We raise them up and then clothe them with flesh!” When it became evident to him, he said, “I know that God has power over all things.”</i> (Q 2:259) | ||
The man in this story (which is connected to a Jewish tale about Jerusalem)<sup>6</sup> has no sense that a hundred years has passed: he feels as though it has been only “a day or part of a day” since he died, or “fell asleep,” so he is surprised to learn that he has slept for one hundred years. According to the Qur’an this is what the experience of death will be like: we will fall “asleep” and will be “woken up” on the Day of Judgment. Yet even if a hundred (or a million) years have passed, we will experience this time as though it were “a day or part of a day.”}} | The man in this story (which is connected to a Jewish tale about Jerusalem)<sup>6</sup> has no sense that a hundred years has passed: he feels as though it has been only “a day or part of a day” since he died, or “fell asleep,” so he is surprised to learn that he has slept for one hundred years. According to the Qur’an this is what the experience of death will be like: we will fall “asleep” and will be “woken up” on the Day of Judgment. Yet even if a hundred (or a million) years have passed, we will experience this time as though it were “a day or part of a day.”}} | ||
footnote 6 | Which he explains has a similar parallel in a late antique Judeo-Christian writing in footnote 6 of the above text: | ||
{{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (p. 254). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|6. This verse is related to an anecdote found in the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah (a Jewish text, also known as 4 Baruch, from the second century AD) by which Abimelech (see Jer 38:7–13) is made to fall asleep just before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and is awoken sixty-six years later, when Jerusalem lies in ruins.}} | {{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (p. 254). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|6. This verse is related to an anecdote found in the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah (a Jewish text, also known as 4 Baruch, from the second century AD) by which Abimelech (see Jer 38:7–13) is made to fall asleep just before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and is awoken sixty-six years later, when Jerusalem lies in ruins.}} | ||
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=== Arguments for resurrection === | === Arguments for resurrection === | ||
{{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (pp. 76-77). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|Few arguments are more common in the Qur’an than the analogy that it makes between God’s ability to bring a dead body to life and the way in which rain brings a barren land back to life: | Reynolds (2020) notes the repeated argument that God can resurrect the dead using the analogy that he can bring life back to barren (or dead) land.{{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (pp. 76-77). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|Few arguments are more common in the Qur’an than the analogy that it makes between God’s ability to bring a dead body to life and the way in which rain brings a barren land back to life: | ||
<i>17 So glorify God when you enter evening and when you rise at dawn. 18 To Him belongs all praise in the heavens and the earth, at nightfall and when you enter noontime. 19 He brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living, and revives the earth after its death. Likewise you [too] shall be raised [from the dead].</i> (Q 30:17–19; cf. Q 16:65, 43:11, 50:6–11, 57:17) | |||
One can imagine that this argument would be meaningful in the arid climate of the Middle East. In many places, when autumn rains come after a long dry summer, one can see a barren landscape turn dramatically green.<sup>10</sup>}} | One can imagine that this argument would be meaningful in the arid climate of the Middle East. In many places, when autumn rains come after a long dry summer, one can see a barren landscape turn dramatically green.<sup>10</sup>}} | ||
Footnote 10 above : | Which he notes in the Footnote 10 of the above text may be related to a non-biblical Jewish tradition: | ||
{{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (p. 254). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|10. This argument in the Qurʾan, that the resurrection of the dead is like the effect of rain on dry earth, might be related to a Jewish tradition that God will resurrect the dead with dew. For example, see b. Shabbat 88b.}} | {{Quote|Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Allah: God in the Qur'an (p. 254). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.|10. This argument in the Qurʾan, that the resurrection of the dead is like the effect of rain on dry earth, might be related to a Jewish tradition that God will resurrect the dead with dew. For example, see b. Shabbat 88b.}} | ||