The belief in some sort of afterlife is ubiquitous. The human being finds the concept of total dissipation of self after death more difficult to accept than the notion of conscious existence after death. The Land of the Dead need not be pleasant; one of the earliest literary examples of an afterlife is the one recorded in Homer's Odyssey. The Land of the Dead that Odysseus visits is a place of darkness, sadness, and despair. yet it is not primarily a place of punishment.

The religious cultures that stress the struggle between good and evil in this world are the ones that divide the afterworld into areas of suffering and bliss. The Christian and Muslim concept of heaven and hell is only one example of this tendency.

In the more mystical religions that stress the illusory nature of life, the afterlife may be a distinctly nonphysical realm, even a place where self loses its individual identity in a larger Self. In fact, such concepts as nirvana do not include a sense of place and are not properly thought of as myths of the afterlife, any more than is the Christian idea of the Kingdom of God. In one way or another, all afterlife myths, and even the lack of such myths, reflect cultural perceptions of this world.

Part of the need for belief in an afterlife can probably be traced to humanity's experience of the cycles of nature. As a functioning part of the organism called Earth, we do not like to be left out. The paths of the sun and the moon, the rhythms of the tides, and the seasons, all suggest a natural return of whatever is lost and lead naturally to the concept of life after death and ultimately some kind of restoration of life.

Perhaps an even more important factor is consciousness itself. Of all species, only humans are capable of conceiving of life as a complete process, including birth and death. It might be said that consciousness of the total life process -- of life's beginning, middle, and end as a single plot -- is our defining characteristic. Without that consciousness, existence itself -- certainly our existence -- is threatened. That being the case, it is perhaps ultimately impossible to conceive of the permanent loss of consciousness.

Even if we do not go so far as to believe in the physical restoration of our individual lives, we tend to have difficulty conceiving of life without the consciousness by which we perceive it.

The afterlife is an almost inevitable result.

And it should be noted that more often than not, the souls in the various underworlds -- the heavens and hells of world mythology -- are nearly always, in death, freed from the restrictions on knowledge of the future that are necessarily associated with the physical life -- with mortality itself. In the afterlife individual consciousness comes into its own as part of a larger consciousness that informs all things and all actions.

Source: The World of Myth by David Leeming

What Does Islam Teach About Life After Death?

Islam teaches that there is life after death, and this is known as Akhirah. In Islam, it is Allah who decides when a person dies and most Muslims believe that when they die, they will stay in their graves until Yawm al-din, the Day of Judgement. On that day, they will be raised from their graves and brought before Allah and judged on how they lived their earthly lives. This belief is known as the resurrection of the body.

Those who have performed more good deeds than bad will enter Jannah, or Paradise. Jannah is a place described as a 'garden of everlasting bliss' and a 'home of peace'. In Jannah there will be no sickness, pain or sadness.

Those who have performed more bad deeds than good will enter Jahannam or Hell. This is a place of physical and spiritual suffering.

Muslims believe that Allah is forgiving, merciful and compassionate, so not all bad actions will be punished. Allah will forgive those who have repented for their sins and those who have done some good in their lives, for example showing kindness to others.

There are, however, some sins that many Muslims believe to be unforgivable. These include the sin of shirk.

Source: BBC

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A Persian miniature depicting paradise from The History of Mohammed, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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