Why I Believe Death Is Just The Beginning

What will happen after death?

Will I experience pain when I die or not?

Will I be able to meet my parents and children after death?

After death, will I be able to know what happens to my loved ones and others left behind in the world, or will all contact with the world be severed completely?

These are the questions that automatically arise in the mind of every conscious person and will continue to do so. However, no one can give a definite and certain answer to these questions based on their own observations. This is because once a person encounters death, they do not return to tell us about it.

In my view, especially when considering religious perspectives and hearing the experiences of others, it is not difficult to estimate what kind of state I will be in after death.

The responsibility of a person in this world is that they should leave the world in such a state that they have not caused harm to anyone and that they are not departing with someone else’s debt. One should avoid the possibility that in the hereafter, they may have to repay or make up for any wrongs done during their life.

I remember when my grandfather passed away about 13 years ago. Because of my close bond with him, I was anxious to know what state he would be in after death. Later, due to certain signs, I came to learn some things about him that gave me comfort, knowing that he was in peace and comfort.

I will write a complete story about this, and I hope the readers will enjoy it.

Many books have been written on this subject in different languages, collecting interesting experiences and observations of people who reached the threshold of death and came back. These individuals have described in detail what they saw when they reached the door of death.

One well-known book on this topic is Life After Life by Dr. Raymond A. Moody, an American physician. Dr. Moody, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, later worked in various fields of medical science, particularly in psychology and pharmacology.

It was through the case of a psychologist, Dr. George Ritchie, that he became interested in this subject. Dr. Ritchie had contracted double pneumonia and, at one point, was near death.

After doctors used resuscitation techniques, he revived and fully recovered. He later described strange and extraordinary visions he experienced when he was considered dead.

When Dr. Moody learned about such experiences, he began seeking out others with similar encounters.

After interviewing nearly 150 people, he wrote the book Life After Life. When the book was published, it sold over 3 million copies in just one year.

Following this, Dr. Moody continued his investigation into this subject and wrote several more books, including three particularly famous ones:

Life After Life

The Light Beyond

Reflections on Life After Life

These three books specifically recount the experiences of individuals who were declared clinically dead during extreme illness but were successfully revived through resuscitation efforts such as cardiac massage and artificial respiration.

Dr. Moody states that those he interviewed came from various religious backgrounds and geographical locations.

Each person described their experiences in their own way, with some offering more details than others.

However, there were common elements present in almost every account, which he summarizes as follows:

A man is dying and, as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor.

He begins to hear an uncomfortable noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel.

After this he suddenly finds himself outside his physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, and he sees his physical body from a distance, as though he is a spectator.

He watches the resuscitation attempt from this unusual vantage point and is in a state of emotional upheaval.

After a while, he collects himself and becomes more accustomed to his odd condition. He notices that he still has a “body”, but one of a very different nature and with very different powers from the physical body he has left behind. Soon other things begin to happen.

Others come to meet and to help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died, and a loving, warm spirit of a kind he has never encountered before — — a being of light — -appears before him.

This being asks him a question, non-verbally, to make him evaluate his life and helps him along by showing him a panoramic, instantaneous playback of the major events of his life.

At some point, he finds himself approaching some sort of barrier or border, apparently representing the limit between earthly life and the next life. Yet, he finds that he must go back to the earth, that the time for his death has not yet come.

At this point he resists, for by now he is taken up with his experiences in the afterlife and does not want to return. He is overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love and peace. Despite his attitude, though, he somehow reunites with his physical body and lives .

Later he tries to tell others, but he finds no human words adequate to describe these unearthly episodes. He also finds that others scoff, so he stops telling other people.

Dr. Moody, summarizing the interviews of one hundred and fifty individuals, also clarified that he did not mean that every person among these one hundred and fifty narrated the entire story in the same sequence.

What he meant was that some individuals told the full story, while others shared only parts of it, leaving some sections out. Some described the events in one order, while others had a different sequence.

In fact, many people used different words and expressions to describe the same experiences. Almost everyone, however, expressed that the task of articulating what they had seen was extremely difficult for them.

One woman, in particular, described this challenge in a somewhat philosophical manner, saying:

“‘“ Now, there is a real problem for me as I’m trying to tell you this, because all the words I know are three-dimensional.

As I was going through this, I kept thinking, “Well, when I was taking geometry, they always told me there were only three dimensions, and I always just accepted that. But they were wrong.

There are more.” And, of course, our world-the one we’re living in now is three-dimensional, but the next one definitely isn’t. And that’s why it’s so hard to tell you this.

I have to describe it to you in words that are three-dimensional. That’s as close as I can get to it, but it’s not really adequate. I can’t really give you a complete picture.””

Anyway! Among the various experiences described by individuals, a few are of particular significance.

One is the experience of passing through a dark tunnel, another is the sense of separation from the body, the third involves seeing deceased relatives and friends, the fourth is encountering a luminous being, and the fifth is the review of past life events.

The details provided by different individuals about these experiences include several interesting excerpts:

The experience of passing through a dark tunnel has been interpreted by some as feeling like floating in a dark void, while others have described it as a pitch-black darkness, where they felt they were sinking deeper.

Some have likened it to a well, others to a dark cave, and some have referred to it as a dark valley.

One person mentioned that they were rising upward in the darkness, but all of them agreed that words were insufficient to describe this experience.

What all individuals have expressed with great amazement is the feeling of being separated from their body.

One woman, who had been admitted to the hospital due to a heart attack, describes her experience: “Suddenly, I felt as though my heart had stopped beating, and I was slipping out of my body.

First, I reached the floor, and then gradually began to rise. I floated upward, like a piece of paper, until I reached the ceiling. From there, I clearly saw my body lying on the bed, with doctors and nurses trying their best to resuscitate me.

One nurse said, ‘Oh my God! She’s gone!’ and another nurse was trying to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I could see this nurse from behind, and I still remember her hair.

Then they brought a machine that shocked my chest, and I watched my body jerk with each shock.”

Some individuals have described this out-of-body experience as entering a new existence that was not a body, while others described it as a different kind of body that could see others, but others could not see them.

During this experience, some people attempted to speak to the doctors and nurses they could see, but they could not hear them.

Many people mentioned that it felt like a state of weightlessness, where they not only floated in the air but, when trying to touch something, their existence passed through it.

Many also shared that, during this experience, time seemed to stop, and they felt as though they were freed from the constraints of time.

In this state, several individuals also saw their deceased loved ones and friends.

Dr. Moody, in his interviews with individuals, noted that the majority of them mentioned encountering a “Being of Light” during their experience. These individuals described the being as clearly existing but without a body; it was pure light.

Initially, this light seemed faint, but gradually it grew brighter, though, despite its intense radiance, it didn’t blind them. Many people reported that this luminous being told them to review their life, and some recalled additional messages.

However, they all agreed that the communication with this being was not through words or sound. It was a unique form of expression that directly transferred into their thoughts.

For those who mentioned seeing a luminous being while in this disembodied state, most reported that the being asked them about their past life.

The wording of the question ❓ varied from person to person, but the essence was the same: “What do you have to show me that you have done with your life?”

The accounts also mention that this Being of Light began showing them the events of their past life one by one. The way these events were shown is even more fascinating.

Many individuals described that after passing through a dark tunnel, they saw this strange, luminous being. It asked them about their past life and then, in an instant, showed them all the events of their life one by one.

For example, one woman, describing her experience, says…

When the light appeared, the first thing he said to me was “What do you have to show me that you’ve done with your life?”, or something to this effect. And that’s when these flashbacks started. I thought, “Gee, what is going on?”, because, all of a sudden, I was back early in my childhood. And from then on, it was like I was walking from the time of my very early life, on through each year of my life, right up to the present.

It was really strange where it started, too, when I was a little girl, playing down by the creek in our neighborhood, and there were other scenes from about that time-experiences I had had with my sister, and things about neighborhood people, and actual places I had been. And then I was in kindergarten, and I remembered the time when I had this one toy I really liked, and I broke it and I cried for a long time. This was a really traumatic experience for me. The images continued on through my life and I remembered when I was in Girl Scouts and went camping, and remembered many things about all the years of grammar school. Then, when I was in junior high school, it was a real big honor to be chosen for the scholastic achievement society, and I remembered when I was chosen. So, I went on through junior high, and then senior high school, and graduation, and up through my first few years of college, up to where I was then.

The things that flashed back came in the order of my life, and they were so vivid. The scenes were just like you walked outside and saw them, completely three-dimensional, and in color. And they moved. For instance, when I saw myself breaking the toy, I could see all the movements. It wasn’t like I was watching it all from my perspective at the time. It was like the little girl I saw was somebody else, in a movie, one little girl among all the other children out there playing on the playground. Yet, it was me. I saw myself doing these things, as a child, and they were the exact same things I had done, because I remember them.

Now, I didn’t actually see the light as I was going through the flashbacks. He disappeared as soon as he asked me what I had done, and the flashbacks started, and yet I knew that he was there with me the whole time, that he carried me back through the flashbacks, because I felt his presence, and because he made comments here and there. He was trying to show me something in each one of these flashbacks. It’s not like he was trying to see what I had done-he knew already-but he was picking out these certain flashbacks of my life and putting them in front of me so that I would have to recall them.

All through this, he kept stressing the importance of love. The places where he showed it best involved my sister; I have always been very close to her. He showed me some instances where I had been selfish to my sister, but then just as many times where I had really shown love to her and had shared with her. He pointed out to me that I should try to do things for other people, to try my best. There wasn’t any accusation in any of this, though. When he came across times when I had been selfish, his attitude was only that I had been learning from them, too.

He seemed very interested in things concerning knowledge, too. He kept on pointing out things that had to do with learning, and he did say that I was going to continue learning, and he said that even when he comes back for me (because by this time he had told me that I was going back) that there will

always be a quest for knowledge. He said that it is a continuous process, so I got the feeling that it goes on after death. I think that he was trying to teach me, as we went through those flashbacks.

The whole thing was really odd. I was there; I was actually seeing these flashbacks; I was actually walking through them, and it was so fast. Yet, it was slow enough that I could take it all in. Still, the time span wasn’t all that large, I don’t believe. It just seemed that the light came, and then I went through these flashbacks, and the light came back. It seems that it was less than five minutes, and probably more than thirty seconds, but I can’t really tell you.

Another person described their experience like this.

After all this banging and going through this long, dark place, all of my childhood thoughts, my whole entire life was there at the end of is tunnel, just flashing in front of me. It was not exactly in terms of pictures, more in the form of thought, I guess. I can’t exactly describe it to you, but it was just all there. It was just all there once, I mean, not one thing at a time, blinking of and on, but it was everything, everything at the time. I thought about my mother, about things that I had done wrong. After I could see the mean little things I did as a child, and thought about my mother and father, I wished that I hadn’t done these things, and I wished I could go back and undo them.

Some of the people who shared their experiences with Dr. Moody mentioned that, towards the final stage of their observation, they encountered something like a barrier. Either someone told them, or they themselves felt that it was not yet their time to cross that barrier. Immediately afterward, they returned to their bodies and came back to the normal world.

Some individuals described this barrier as a body of water; others said it appeared like a grayish fog, while some likened it to a door. One person described it as a fence like those around fields, and another mentioned it was merely a line.

Dr. Moody’s book, Life After Life, was first published in 1975. In it, he detailed the findings from interviews with approximately 150 individuals over eight years. He acknowledged that his research was neither entirely scientifically conclusive nor capable of providing comprehensive statistical data. However, the book drew the attention of many other doctors to the subject, leading to further exploration and additional books being written on the topic.

One such book was written by Dr. Melvin Morse, a pediatric specialist, titled Closer to the Light.

Dr. Morse investigated whether children also experienced such observations. He believed that, while adults could be influenced by mental constructs, children, being free of such imaginations, might provide more authentic insights.

If children reported similar experiences, it would add credibility to these visions.

In his book, Dr. Morse shared accounts from numerous children who described similar observations. He personally met these children, tested their statements through various means, and concluded that they were truthful and had genuinely seen these phenomena. The 236-page book discusses these accounts and their scientific analyses.

Another researcher, pollster George Gallup, conducted a survey across the United States of individuals who had undergone such experiences. His startling finding was that approximately 5% of the total U.S. population had encountered near-death experiences.

Dr. Moody continued his research and, in his second book, The Light Beyond, he reported interviewing an additional 1,000 individuals.

The results were largely consistent with his earlier findings, although some new observations emerged. For instance, none of the first 150 participants explicitly mentioned visions of heaven or hell, but in the later research, several described seeing a beautiful city of lights, lush gardens they interpreted as paradise, or even scenes resembling hell.

One participant recounted descending into darkness where people were screaming in agony amidst flames, pleading for water. When asked if they had entered this place through a tunnel, the individual replied no — it was larger than a tunnel, and they felt as though they were floating downward. When asked about the number of people there, the participant estimated around a million, all unclothed.

(The Light Beyond, pp. 26–27)

What is the reality of these observations? Some believe that the fascination with mysticism in Western societies has grown to the point of obsession, and these books may be a reflection of that craze.

While this possibility cannot be entirely dismissed, the serious attention these events have received from scholars since 1975 and the resulting research make this explanation seem less plausible.

Dr. Moody himself discussed the possibility that the individuals he interviewed were not merely fabricating tales, ultimately concluding that it was improbable for so many people from different regions and backgrounds to concoct identical stories.

Some doctors speculated that certain drugs or medications could induce such states, where individuals feel detached from their surroundings, and the brain converts abstract ideas into visual forms, leading to hallucinations.

Dr. Moody analyzed these possibilities separately and concluded that the observations of his participants appeared distinct from hallucinations. Dr. Melvin Morse also researched this possibility in a more scientific manner and determined that these experiences were not hallucinations.

Dr. Moody also addressed the notion that these individuals’ religious beliefs might have influenced their minds, causing their subconscious to project such visions during unconsciousness or dreams.

He dismissed this idea, noting that many of the participants were either non-religious or so disconnected from religion that their beliefs were unlikely to have dominated their minds in such a way.

So, what were these observations? What conclusions can be drawn from them? And what insights can be derived from the Qur’an and Sunnah on this matter?

It is clear that these individuals did not experience death. If they had died, they would not have returned to this world. Even Dr. Moody, who documented their accounts, stated that these individuals did not see death but rather witnessed strange and unusual phenomena near death.

For these experiences, he coined the term Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), which subsequent authors have also adopted.

If we accept these accounts as truthful — and Dr. Moody concluded that it was difficult to dismiss the testimonies of so many individuals — then it becomes evident that these observations do not pertain to events after death. Instead, it can be said that, in a state of detachment from their bodies, they glimpsed scenes from another realm.

Since medical science only accepts what can be seen or physically measured, it has yet to discover the concept of a soul or comprehend its nature.

The Qur’an, however, clarifies that the soul exists by the command of Allah, and human knowledge of it is limited.

The Qur’an and Sunnah explicitly describe life as the union of body and soul, and death as the severance of this connection. Those who witnessed these scenes were not yet dead. Therefore, what they saw could be glimpses of the other world, but not events that occur after death.

The state in which these people saw these scenes was still a state of life. At least some hidden corners of the brain were still active. Thus, the possibility that these visions were influenced by brain activity cannot be ruled out.

All those who narrated their experiences agreed that they could not describe the details of these experiences in words. Yet, they relied on limited words to convey them.

Consequently, it remains uncertain how accurately they were able to express these experiences in words or how accurately they remembered specific details.

Because of these reasons, the complete details of these observations cannot be fully trusted, nor can they serve as a basis for forming beliefs about the afterlife. Whatever truths about the afterlife we need to know have been conveyed to us through the clear and unambiguous guidance of divine revelation delivered by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. These truths do not rely on such accounts for validation.

However, certain aspects of these observations are indeed consistent with the facts described in the Qur’an and Sunnah.

For example, one common theme in all these accounts, which is unquestionably supported by the Qur’an and Sunnah, is that life is not confined to this worldly existence that we see around us.

Beyond this world lies another realm, the qualities of which cannot be precisely understood while we are trapped in the limitations of physical existence. Events in that realm transcend the familiar measures of time and space that we are accustomed to in worldly life.

Here, we cannot comprehend how something that takes years to accomplish in this world could be completed in an instant. Yet, events in that realm are free from the constraints of time. The Qur’an states:

“Indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count.”

(Surah Al-Hajj: 47)

What is this realm? What are its requirements? And what kind of preparation is necessary to reach it?

These are the matters that the Prophets (peace be upon them) were sent to explain, because such knowledge cannot be attained through our senses or intellect alone.

In the final era, these truths were conveyed to us by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ through Islamic law. Whoever wishes to prepare properly for this realm should learn this Shari’ah.

It will make the realities of that realm clear and also provide the correct path to reach it.

All the references given in this story are taken from Dr. Moody’s books.