Death and its hardships

وَجَآءَتْ سَكْرَةُ الْمَوْتِ بِالْحَقِ‏ّ ذَلِكَ مَا كُنتَ مِنْهُ تَحِيدُ

And the stupor of death will come in truth; that is what you were trying to escape. (Surah Qaf 50:19)

From an Islamic point of view, human beings pass through three main states: birth and life, death and barzakh (the period from death to resurrection) and resurrection and reckoning. When people die, they are in a transitional period (barzakh) [1],2 between death and resurrection. Upon being laid in the grave, a dead person is questioned by two angels about his/her religion and Prophet or Messenger. Believers are able to respond correctly to these questions while non-believers are not (Q14:273;[3],vol.5,p. 147,hadithno. 3120). Thedeaddonotfeelthepassingoftime;onceapersonis dead, he/she inches closer to an eternal destiny in paradise or hell. Time, argues Philips, “only exists for those living on earth, and once man dies he leaves the time zone and a thousand years (or more) becomes a blinking of an eye” ([4], p. 44). The Qur’an and many hadiths of the Prophet speak of Islamic eschatology. According to Al-Nursi (1877–1960), about one-third of the Qur’an concerns itself with the hereafter ([5],.p. 99)4 When Muhammad (PBUH) was still alive, many of his companions asked him about the timing of the Day of Judgment, but he answered that it is only Allah Who knows when it will come (Q 7: 187, 16: 77, 31: 34). Even during Muhammad’s lifetime, the Qur’an spoke about the imminence of the final day in the Al-Qamr (literally the Moon) sura. This sura starts with “The Hour has come near, and the moon has split (in two). And if they see a miracle, they turn away and say, “Passing magic.” (Q 54: 1). According to Qur’anic verses and the hadiths, minor and major signs must occur before this day. The most common minor signs include, but are not limited to, immorality, the construction of skyscrapers, the prevalence of unruly rulers, the spread of disease, sudden death, crime, and adultery ([6], vol. 1, p. 36, hadith no. 8). Among the major signs are the appearance of the Beast, the anti-Christ; Ya’joj and Ma’juj (Gog and Magog); the occurrence of three eclipses of the Sun; the rising of the Sun from the West, not the East; and the destruction of al-Ka’ba in Mecca (Q 27: 82, 18: 85, 21: 96; [7], pp. 7–78, 152–60). Both Sunni and Shia Muslims believe in the coming of the Mahdi, who, they say, will fight the Antichrist along with Jesus and the believers [7,8].5 Islamic eschatology speaks about a final and decisivebattlebetweentheMuslimsandtheJewsinwhichthelatterwillbeutterlydefeated([6],vol.4, p. 2239, hadith no. 2922). Some Muslim scholars speak of less common signs, such as the decrease of the number of women compared to that of men (with some accounts mentioning a 50 to 1 ratio) and the gushing of a mountain of gold from the Euphrates River in Iraq. Shia scholars speak of one unique