Muhammad's Grave by Leor Halevi

Author:Leor Halevi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science/Life Sciences/Evolution
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2011-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

In the post-Qur’ānic imagination, the spirit of an ordinary Muslim appeared to disengage itself from the body at the very moment of death, a moment coinciding with the seizure of the spirit by the angels. A spirit might then be transported as if in a dream to behold the seven heavens and the seven hells. In these hidden dimensions it would not sojourn but simply pass through at lightning speed in order to capture a great number of revelations, much as a bustling tourist gathers photographs of a distant world with the intention of stopping to appreciate it elsewhere. Often by the time the corpse washers were ready to prepare the body for burial, the spirit already appeared to be back in the vicinity. It would accompany the funeral procession, hovering near the corpse. Before the sealing of the corpse in its grave, the spirit might once again become embodied and remain bound to this prison until the resurrection, unless released by the power of prayer and the mercy of God.

Not all Muslims followed this journey back to the corpse. Martyrs were the notable exception, as they abandoned their mutilated bodies immediately after death and acquired new bodies in the Garden. This concept became the occasion for fantastic fictions on the metamorphosis of the body after death. This wondrous body was subject to pleasure but not to physiological changes of the kind that would render a Muslim impure and in need of ritual ablution. In Paradise, sexual performances are not interrupted by the flow of semen but remain at the peak, near the point of orgasm.17 Certain philosophers similarly hoped they would escape the realm of rotting corpses after death if not beforehand, although their spirits, unlike those of martyrs, would soar in a sphere of immaterial delights.18 Our concern is neither with martyrs nor with philosophers, but with the rest of Muslims, who anticipated dwelling in the grave.

The post-Qur’ānic stories have all the elements of the hero’s quest. The spirit leaves family and friends to begin a long journey. After ascending to the Throne and descending to the rock of Sijjīn, it returns back to earth, where it enters a womblike cavern for a period of tribulations. At the grave, it witnesses the feasting of worms upon its own body. Near the end, it leaves the grave behind as it strives to cross the bridge to salvation. Many spirits fail in this quest. Only the hero emerges from these trials to find himself reformed in Paradise.19

Let us focus here on but a short segment of this long journey: the time between death and burial, which coincides with the rituals of death.20 According to oral traditions recorded by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, the “dead person knows who washes him” (inna al-mayyita ya‘rifu man yaghsiluhu) and in fact “knows everything so that he may even implore his washer, ‘Please be gentle in washing me!’” While in the hands of the angel of death, the deceased “observes how his body is washed [yanuru ilā jasadihi kayfa yughsalu], shrouded, and transported toward the grave.

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