 | Dr. Nabil Seyam is director of the Board of Administration of the Islamic Society of Wichita and Co-Founder of the Annoor Islamic School. He was the recipient of the Leader of the Year in 2002 in Wichita and most recently was the recipient of the Community Servant Award by the University United Methodist Church in 2003. Dr. Seyam was selected for the Community Servant Award because of his active role in peace-building and multiculturalism throughout Kansas. He is an adjunct instructor for Pittsburg State University and Wichita State University. He is married and has six children. He can be reached at (316) 630-9222 , by e-mail at nabil@seyam.org, or visit his website at www.seyam.org |
Religion
2005-08-01 08:54:00
Is there such a thing as ‘rebirth’ or reincarnation?
: : Is there such a thing as rebirth, or what some call (reincarnation)?
ANSWER: In general, the past-life regression business hasn't got much of a future in Muslim territories. Islam has no place for returning in the form of another person after dying. There is no leeway in this teaching. Islam teaches that the purpose of each life is to encounter Allah--or God--and that no matter how limited the life, it is sufficient to determine that person's ultimate destiny--paradise or perdition. Islam clearly defines the soul as part of each specially-created individual and holds that nothing can change that. The soul cannot be detached and move on to another body; it cannot engage in upward or downward mobility in the chain of creation; elements of it, such as memory, cannot be transplanted into someone in a later generation.Tenasukh refers to the transmigration of souls, the doctrine that after death the soul moves on to inhabit another body, then die again and then another body, and so on. This doctrine is called in English 'reincarnation' or 'metempsychosis'. Of course, it is not an Islamic doctrine. Belief in some form of this doctrine of endless cycles of birth, death and re-birth, can be found in almost all societies, primitive or sophisticated. Variations in it exist according to the local and regional differences in faith and popular culture. In the most materialistic societies especially, whose formal culture denies spiritual life, there is almost a fashion for pseudo-religious belief among certain small circles of people who claim-whether as a joke or seriously, it is not clear-that the spirits of the dead wander about, sometimes taking physical form, and can influence the living, until they (the spirits) settle into their 'new' bodies. It would be impractical here to go into the details of the different forms and fashions of this doctrine; more worthwhile perhaps would be to describe the main substance of it and to see it from the Islamic viewpoint.One argument for the antiquity of the doctrines of reincarnation is the 'evidence' in ancient literature, in the tales of metamorphosis-for example, Ovid's colorful extravagances of that name, in which 'gods' take on human and animal forms, humans take on a diversity of different shapes, etc. But these tales do not constitute a doctrine; the doctrine proper is not to do with, simply, colorful change of form, but with a belief that an individual soul must pass through every 'level' of creation, every species of life-form, animate or inanimate, sentient or insentient. If we reflect upon this we soon realize that the doctrine is really a strange elaboration on the immortality of the soul. In other words, the kernel of it is the intuition that the soul is immortal. That kernel is true; the rest is not. The doctrine may also have arisen from the observation of the likeness in physical and other traits between parents and offspring: in other words, the biological phenomena of heredity, perfectly intelligibly explained by the laws of genetics, are given a less intelligible, indeed irrational, explanation by the doctrine of reincarnation.Belief in reincarnation in Egypt, India and Greece, developed as a result of distortion of once sound beliefs in the hereafter, and from a longing for the immortality of the soul. Neither in Ahen-Aten's Egypt nor in Pythagoras' Greece did anyone know of the reincarnation which these distorted beliefs brought about. To Ahen-Aten, when man's life ends in this world, a different one starts in Heaven. As soon as one dies, one's soul sets off on its journey to reach 'the Greatest Court' in Heaven. It goes so high that it reaches to the presence of Osiris, and hopes to give an account of itself in words like these: 'I have come to thy presence as I was free from sins, and throughout my life, I did do everything I could that would make devout men pleased. I did not shed blood nor did I steal. Neither did I make mischief nor did I mean any. I did not commit any adultery nor fornication whatever'. Those who can speak so, join Osiris' congregation; those who cannot, whose evil deeds outweigh their good, are hurled into hell and tortured by demons.Likewise, in Ancient Greece, the belief in resurrection and the immortality of the soul were quite sound. The great philosopher Pythagoras, for example, believed that the soul on leaving the body has a life peculiar to itself; in fact any soul has this same kind of life even before it quits the earth. It is commissioned with some responsibilities on earth; if it commits any evil, it will be punished, thrown into hell and tormented by demons. On the other hand, in return for the good that it does, it will be given high rank and blessed with a happy life. Allowing for the changes that might have been made in the views of Pythagoras over time, we can certainly still see that there are fundamental similarities with the Islamic creed of resurrection. Plato's account is not so different either. In his famous treatise The Republic, he says that the soul on leaving the body forgets the material (corporeal) life totally; it ascends into an appropriate realm, a spiritual one, saturated with wisdom and immortality; the soul is free from all scarcity, deficiency, error, fear, and from the passion and love which afflicted it while it lived on earth; and then, being free from all the evil consequences of human nature, it is blessed with eternal bliss.After reincarnation was inscribed into the beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians, it became one of the central themes of songs and legends throughout the vicinity of the Nile region. Elaborated further with the eloquent expressions of Greek philosophers, it came, with the expansion of Greek influence, a widespread phenomenon. The Hindus consider matter as the lowest manifestation of Brahman, and deem that the convergence of body and soul is a demeaning of the soul, a decline into evil. However, death is believed to be salvation, a separation from human defects, a possible chance to achieve an ecstatic union with the truth. The Hindus are polytheistic in practice. Their greatest god is 'Krishna', who is believed to have come in a human figure in order to eradicate evil. Their second greatest god is 'Vishnu', which means that which can penetrate the human body. According to Hinduism, Vishnu has descended into this world nine times in different shapes (human, animal, or flower). He is also expected to descend for the tenth time. Since they believe that Vishnu will next come to this world in the shape of an animal, killing any animal is absolutely prohibited. Killing animals is only allowed during war; and the zealots of that religion do not normally eat meat. According to the Vedanta, the most important religious book of the Hindus, the soul is a part, a fragment, of Brahman; it will never be able to get rid of suffering and distress until it returns to its origin. Soul achieves gnosis by isolating itself from the ego and all wickedness pertaining to the ego, and by running towards Brahman, just as a river flows down into a sea. When the soul reaches and unites with Brahman, it acquires absolute peace, tranquillity and stillness, a state which Buddhists call Nirvana. In this state, there is an abatement of active seeking, a passivity of soul in the latter, whereas the soul is dynamic in Hinduism.All ancient, new and contemporary acceptance of the doctrine of reincarnation has one characteristic, one root, in common, that is the belief in incarnation. There is a shared failure of intellect to both grasp and accept the Absolute Transcendence of God: corrupted by this failure, people have been persuaded to believe that the Divine mixes with the corporal and that the corporal or the human will mix or can mix with the Divine. This failure is, except for Islam which, by God, has retained its strict purity of belief, all but universal.The scholars of Islam have all, unanimously and unequivocally, rejected reincarnation as totally contrary to the spirit of Islam. This is true of scholars in every field-jurisprudence, theology, Qur'anic commentary (tafsir) or commentary on Hadith. The reason for this stand is simple: the absolute centrality in Islam of the belief that every individual lives and dies according to his or her individual destiny, carries his or her individual load, will be individually resurrected and individually called to answer for his or her intentions and actions and their consequences, and each individually will receive Divine judgment (which is perfect justice) according to the same criteria.Let us look at what Allah Almighty said in the Noble Quran: "From the (earth) did We create you, and into it shall We return you, and from it shall We bring you out once again." (The Noble Quran, 20:55) "And Allah has produced you from the earth, growing (gradually), and in the end He will return you into the (earth), and raise you forth (again at the Resurrection)." (The Noble Quran, 71:17-18) "Nor will they there taste death, except the first death; and He will preserve them from the penalty of the blazing fire." (The Noble Quran, 44:56) " 'Is it (the case) that We shall not die, except our first death, and that we shall not be punished?' Verily this is the supreme achievement! For the like of this let all strive, who wish to strive." (The Noble Quran, 37:58-61)From the above Noble Verses, we clearly see that Allah Almighty created us to die only once. This clearly refutes the reincarnation theory from the Islamic perspective. To summarize, Islam altogether rejects the doctrine of reincarnation. Belief in Islam requires belief in the Resurrection and Judgment when justice is meted out to each individual soul according to that individual's record in life.
