Barzakh

Did You Know?

• According to Ibn Hazm, Barzakh is also the place for unborn souls, which are elsewhere described as residing in the lowest of the seven heavens, where an angel blows them into the wombs of women.
• Aʿrāf is thought of as a place where souls go whose good and bad deeds are too evenly matched to go directly to Jannah or Jahannam.
• The concept of Barzakh has been compared to the Christian idea of an intermediate state, and further compared to limbo, though not to purgatory.

Quran and hadith

In Islamic tradition, Barzakh is a realm mentioned three times in the Quran. One instance describes it as the barrier between the physical and spiritual worlds, where after death the soul, separated from the body, reflects on past misdeeds but cannot act. The other two references depict Barzakh as an impassable divide between fresh and salt water. According to Ibn al-Qayyim, souls here are sorted by their purity or impurity.

Separation of body and soul

In Islam, the soul and body are independent, and only the soul enters Barzakh, not the physical body. Because the soul is divorced from the body, no progress or improvement on one's past life can be made; deeds performed during life are final. However, the fire representing one's own bad deeds can already be seen in Barzakh, and the spiritual pain from this may lead to purification of the soul.

Interpretations

In mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam, Barzakh is defined as an intermediary stage between this life and the Hereafter, an interval between individual death and resurrection. Some scholars believe good Muslims experience a heavenly state during this time while sinners suffer, though some Shia scholars hold that there is no physical pain or pleasure. Al-Ghazālī stated that after the First Blast, all created beings abide for an unknown period of forty (years, months, or otherwise) in the Intermediate Realm barzakh before the Second Blast. Al-Zamakhshari explained Barzakh as meaning "an obstacle," coinciding with Quran 25:53. Abdullah Yusuf Ali referred to it as a "quiescent state" where the soul rests until Yawm al-Qiyāmah. In Sufism, Barzakh (or Alam-e-Araf) is not only where the soul resides after death but also a place it can visit during sleep and meditation. Some traditions emphasize that a person's deeds affect their experience, with states known as Azaabul-Qabr (punishment for deeds) and Tan'eemu Ahlit-Taa'ah Fil Qabr (blessings for faith and good deeds). Modern Muslim thinkers tend to de-emphasize Barzakh, focusing instead on individual life and the Day of Judgment, effectively skipping this intermediate state.